Periodizing Globalization: Histories of Globalization

Abstract The article outlines the analytics and criteria that inform periodizing globalization. It criticizes presentist and Eurocentric views on globalization, the contemporary view, the modernity view (1800 plus) or the capitalism view (1500 plus). It discusses approaches to world history and how globalization fits in. Understandings of globalization, such as multicentric and centrist perspectives, and units of analysis affect how timelines of globalization are established. Taking into account global history going back to the Bronze Age and oriental globalization, these require inserting the Greco-Roman world as part of globalization history. It concludes by outlining phases of globalization in the (very) longue durée.