Globalization has been chugging along for 2 million years. Humans migrated out of Africa and the Middle East, looking for greener pastures across Asia and Europe. Then, 12,000 years, think of the explorers and wanderers and adventurists who walked and paddled canoes from Asia to the Americas as they moved from one continent to the next. That's globalization, for they brought their traditions and culture and goods. Go back 3,000-5,000 years ago, there was trade between Egypt and the Americas and between Egypt and China. How about the third century BC, the time period of my book The Missing Brotherhood? Yet again, there was an explosion of trade across the world. How about 1220 in the era of Genghis Khan? Or how about 1421 and 1492? Yes, again, globalization. And what about 1492 to 1945? More globalization. In 1980 to 2020, this might have been the most pronounce bout of globalization because it is the era we're living in and we've never seen any global trade at the scale it is now.
(Human migration and globalization really started about 2 million years ago. Even then, humans were exploring and seeking new places to live and make a living. Photo: Wikipedia, Lopez et al.)
But to be fair, globalization always has been happening. Plants and animals and viruses have been moving around the globe since they sprang into being. Since life first dawned on planet Earth, it's been moving and globalizing. For sure, globalization goes back a few billion years.
And it is not just the movement of life; it is also the movement of our favorite things in this world. Like tea. Some like tobacco. Other like yoga and meditation. Buddhism went global a few centuries after Buddha began the first Buddhist brotherhood on the Ganga Plain. Think of all the good it brought throughout the world. Look at how it brought people together for a common goal to better humanity. Even today, it brings people together to help move them out of delusions and illusions and into the beauty of the world we live.
