This book presents the history of globalization as a network-based story in the context of Big History. Departing from the traditional historic discourse, in which communities, cities, and states serve as the main units of analysis, the authors instead trace the historical emergence, growth, interconnection, and merging of various types of networks that have gradually encompassed the globe. They also focus on the development of certain ideas, processes, institutions, and phenomena that spread through those networks to become truly global.
The book specifies five macro-periods in the history of globalization and comprehensively covers the first four, from roughly the 9th - 7th millennia BC to World War I. For each period, it identifies the most important network-related developments that facilitated (or even spurred on) such transitions and had the greatest impacts on the history of globalization.
By analyzing the world system's transition to new levels of complexity and connectivity, the book provides valuable insights into the course of Big History and the evolution of human societies.
Julia V. Zinkina is a Senior Research Fellow of the International Research Laboratory on Demography and Human Capital at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) in Moscow. She also holds a research position at the Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. Her current research interests include demographic processes at global and national levels, worldwide social networks, sociopolitical destabilization, macrohistory and long-term trends. She is the author of more than 90 publications including two monographs in Russian.
David Gilbert Christian is the Director of Macquarie University's Big History Institute, Australia. He is a member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities, and the Royal Society of N.S.W. In 2004, he published the first monograph on "Big History",
Maps of Time (University of California Press). With Bill Gates, he is a co-founder of the "Big History Project", which has developed free online high-school courses in big history. Since 2013, he has been Director of Macquarie University's Big History Institute, and led the collaboration of twenty academics across all faculties to develop Macquarie University's MOOC on big history: "Big History: Connecting Knowledge", on the Coursera platform.
Leonid E. Grinin is a Senior Research Professor at the Laboratory for Monitoring of the Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia; the Deputy Director of the Eurasian Center for Big History & System Forecasting and Senior Research Professor at the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Russian journal
Age of Globalization as well as a co-editor of the international journals
Social Evolution & History and
Journal of Globalization Studies. His current research interests include sociopolitical destabilization, macrohistory and long-term trends, sociocultural evolution, theory of history, world-systems studies, long-term development of political systems, globalization studies, economic cycles, and Big History studies. Grinin is the author of more than 380 scholarly publications. His 26 monographs include
Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015) and
Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (Springer, 2016).
Ilya V. Ilyin is the Dean of the Faculty of Global Studies and the Head of the Department of Globalistics at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. He is the author of over 200 publications related to the problems of global studies, theory of globalistics, various political and socio-natural processes.
Alexey I. Andreev is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. His academic interests include global social dynamics, forecasting and strategic planning of national development. He is the author of over 70 scholarly publications and monographs. His books explore the history of the student movement of Russia, the issues of sustainable development of Russia and the world, the economics and sociology of education and science, new approaches to the study of globalization and other global processes.
Ivan A. Aleshkovski is an Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Global Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. His academic interests include globalistics, international migration flows, migration policy, economic and demographic development of Russia and the world. He has authored more than 150 journal articles and contributions. ]
Sergey G. Shulgin is the Vice-Director of the International Research Laboratory on Demography and Human Capital at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) in Moscow. He is the author of more than 50 publications and holds a B.S. in computer science as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics. His current research interests include demographic processes at global and national levels, global social networks, mathematical and econometric modeling of social processes and phenomena.
Andrey V. Korotayev heads the Laboratory for Monitoring of the Sociopolitical Destabilization Risks at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia. He is also Senior Research Professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies and Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the author of over 300 scholarly publications, including the monographs
Ancient Yemen (Oxford University Press, 1995), G
reat Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective (Springer, 2015) and
Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery (Springer, 2016). At present, he is a coordinator of the Russian Academy of Sciences Presidium Project "Complex System Analysis and Mathematical Modeling of Global Dynamics". He is a laureate of a Russian Science Support Foundation in "The Best Economists of the Russian Academy of Sciences" Nomination (2006). In 2012, he was awarded the Gold Kondratieff Medal by the International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.
Julia V. Zinkina 是俄羅斯國家經濟與公共行政總統學院 (RANEPA) 國際人口學與人力資本研究實驗室的高級研究員,位於莫斯科。她同時在俄羅斯羅蒙諾索夫國立大學全球研究學院擔任研究職位。她目前的研究興趣包括全球及國家層面的人口過程、全球社會網絡、社會政治不穩定、宏觀歷史及長期趨勢。她是90多篇出版物的作者,包括兩本俄文專著。
David Gilbert Christian 是澳大利亞麥考瑞大學大歷史研究所的所長。他是澳大利亞人文學院、荷蘭皇家科學與人文學會及新南威爾士皇家學會的成員。2004年,他出版了第一本關於「大歷史」的專著 Maps of Time(加州大學出版社)。他與比爾·蓋茲共同創立了「大歷史計畫」,該計畫開發了免費的高中大歷史在線課程。自2013年以來,他一直擔任麥考瑞大學大歷史研究所的所長,並領導來自各學院的二十位學者合作開發麥考瑞大學的MOOC課程「大歷史:連接知識」,該課程在Coursera平台上提供。
Leonid E. Grinin 是俄羅斯國立經濟高等學校社會政治不穩定風險監測實驗室的高級研究教授;同時也是歐亞大歷史與系統預測中心的副所長,以及俄羅斯科學院東方研究所的高級研究教授。他是俄文期刊 Age of Globalization 的主編,並且是國際期刊 Social Evolution & History 和 Journal of Globalization Studies 的共同編輯。他目前的研究興趣包括社會政治不穩定、宏觀歷史及長期趨勢、社會文化演變、歷史理論、世界系統研究、政治系統的長期發展、全球化研究、經濟周期及大歷史研究。Grinin 擁有超過380篇學術出版物,他的26本專著包括 Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective(Springer, 2015)和 Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery(Springer, 2016)。
Ilya V. Ilyin 是俄羅斯羅蒙諾索夫國立大學全球研究學院的院長及全球學科系的系主任。他是200多篇與全球研究問題、全球學科理論及各種政治和社會自然過程相關的出版物的作者。
Alexey I. Andreev 是俄羅斯羅蒙諾索夫國立大學全球研究學院的副教授及副院長。他的學術興趣包括全球社會動態、國家發展的預測及戰略規劃。他是70多篇學術出版物和專著的作者,他的書籍探討了俄羅斯學生運動的歷史、俄羅斯及世界的可持續發展問題、教育和科學的經濟學與社會學、新的全球化及其他全球過程的研究方法。
Ivan A. Aleshkovski 是俄羅斯羅蒙諾索夫國立大學全球研究學院的副教授及副院長。他的學術興趣包括全球學科、國際移民流、移民政策、俄羅斯及世界的經濟和人口發展。他已發表超過150篇期刊文章和貢獻。
Sergey G. Shulgin 是俄羅斯國家經濟與公共行政總統學院 (RANEPA) 國際人口學與人力資本研究實驗室的副所長。他是50多篇出版物的作者,擁有計算機科學的學士學位,以及經濟學的碩士和博士學位。他目前的研究興趣包括全球及國家層面的人口過程、全球社會網絡、社會過程和現象的數學及計量經濟建模。
Andrey V. Korotayev 是俄羅斯國立經濟高等學校社會政治不穩定風險監測實驗室的負責人。他同時是俄羅斯科學院東方研究所和非洲研究所的高級研究教授。他是300多篇學術出版物的作者,包括專著 Ancient Yemen(牛津大學出版社,1995)、Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective(Springer, 2015)和 Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery(Springer, 2016)。目前,他是俄羅斯科學院院士項目「全球動態的複雜系統分析與數學建模」的協調員。他是俄羅斯科學支持基金會「俄羅斯科學院最佳經濟學家」提名的獲獎者(2006年)。2012年,他獲得國際N.D. Kondratieff基金會頒發的金色Kondratieff獎章。