Globalisation

The 1968 revolution does not appear as profound now as it did then, perhaps, but it certainly encouraged the global approach to the problems facing humankind. This approach was stimulated by a previous event occurring in 1967, the detonation of a Chinese H-Bomb, which signalled the end of the Western domination of the world that began in the sixteenth century. Was China on the way to becoming a third superpower? Then, the global view received a boost in 1969 from the moon landing, which reinforced the impact of photographs taken from space showing earth and its thin coat of atmosphere in all their fragility.

Before human history began, earth's continents had drifted apart. But so-called primitive peoples were great travellers, and moved freely around and between Eurasia, the Americas, Africa and Europe before the arrival of the early civilisations. In a sense, therefore, the reverse process to continental drift, bringing the continents together again, began early. The classical and medieval periods saw significant connections, too. The Greeks and the Romans penetrated central Asia, for example, while Vikings crossed the Atlantic Ocean, Arabs reached China by sea, and the Chinese sailed to Africa. From the point of view of European discovery and colonisation in particular, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marked an acceleration in awareness of the world as one. This realisation developed further with the expansion of empire from the eighteenth century onwards, with the USA and Japan joining in at the end of the nineteenth century.