The Three Waves of Globalization

A History of a Developing Global Consciousness

Robbie Robertson

A new reading of western history argues that human interconnections achieved global proportions for the first time 500 years ago, producing three waves of destabilizing globalization. The first wave, post-1500, devastated America and contributed to European wars and revolutions. In the nineteenth century, the rush to monopolize wealth and power escalated into rivalries between classes, nations, empires. After 1945, a new global social architecture with transnational capital as its main factor threatens world stability.

Contents

• PART ONE–GLOBALIZING KNOWLEDGE
• Introducing Global Consciousness
• Struggles for Survival and Wellbeing
• PART TWO–THE FIRST WAVE OF GLOBALIZATION
• Early Global Transformations
• Fragile Commercial Imperatives
• PART THREE–THE SECOND WAVE OF GLOBALIZATION
• Globalization’s Industrial Child
• Empires of Disadvantage
• Implosion
• PART FOUR: THE THIRD WAVE OF GLOBALIZATION
• American Globalism
• Globalizing Democracies
• Globalizing Perspectives

About the Author

 After teaching at the University of Otago and the University of the South Pacific, Robbie Robertson joined La Trobe University in 1988 as Head of the Department of Social Sciences, a position he held until being seconded as a teaching fellow to the Politics Department at ANU during 1994. In 1995 he became head of La Trobe’s School of Arts, and in 1997 Postgraduate Coordinator for the School of Arts & Education, a position he held until 2004 when he became Professor & Director of Development Studies at the University of the South Pacific (2004-2006).
Robbie’s research & postgraduate supervision interests include the history of globalization, development history, trade & development strategies, multiculturalism, military coups, and postcolonial history in Fiji & the Pacific.

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