The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization

An authoritative rethinking of global history by a leading Yale professor When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. This was the 'big bang' of globalization, which ushered in a new era of exploration and trade, and which paved the way for Europeans to dominate after Columbus reached America. Drawing on a wide range of new historical sources and cutting-edge archaeology, this compelling revisionist argument shows how these encounters set the stage for the globalization that would dominate the world for centuries to come.

Valerie Hansen is Professor of History at Yale University and has taught on China and world history for thirty years. She is the author of several acclaimed works, including The Open Empire- A History of China to 1600 and The Silk Road- A New History, and co-author of Voyages in World History.