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Introduction
History has seen many epochal eras that have in many ways changed the course of how civilizations interacted and grew. There were mass movements of people across various lands and these people brought their own cultures, science, and art to different countries and lands and each traveler brought a fresh wind that had an impact and made the world a bit smaller. In current times, this phenomenon is called globalization and the paper would prove the thesis statement that “globalization began in the years from 1500 to 1750 AD and cross-cultural contact around the world completely changed the lifestyles of the people who lived and the environment they lived in”.
Globalization from 1500 – 1750
It has been argued effectively that the world became much smaller with the advent of ‘man o wars’ fitted with cannons and soldiers with muskets. These ships gave superiority on the seas and gave rise to the great maritime empires such as Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France. These countries needed to colonize foreign lands so that more and more wealth could be brought in and many navigators and explorers set out to explore the uncharted seas.
Notable among them were Columbus and Vasco Da Gama who set out in 1492 and 1498 to open vast new areas and both set out to find India and while Columbus landed up in the present-day Americas, Vasco Da Gama landed in Goa, India, thus opening a sea route to the Asian subcontinent. Vasco Da Gama was from Portugal and set up a trading post in the country and also took up missionary activities as he attempted to convert the local Indians to Christianity.
Very soon Britain and France also followed and the two traditional enemies waged wars in India, taking the help of local kings in an attempt to gain a foothold. The future of India changed forever and eventually, India became a British colony and the British rule and laws were forced upon the people, changing their traditions and cultures (Harman, 2008).
The efforts of Columbus on the other hand, opened North and South America to the Europeans and while countries such as Spain gained a rapid foothold in South America, Britain outfought France to make North America its colony. In South America, the helpless natives fell to the diseases brought by the Europeans, and the many tribes were quickly conquered. In North America, the native red Indians fought a losing battle as the newly formed United States of America seized their lands.
In the meantime, Africa was also colonized and many Africans were captured and made to work as slaves in the vast sugarcane and cotton plantations of America and the West Indies (Stearns, 2001). There were cross-border and cultural movements even in China, Arabia, and Russia as armies and tradesmen crossed the borders to trade in goods such as silk, tea, muslin, precious stones, and other products.
Along with the conquests and movement of wealth, many cultural habits and norms also were transported, both into the culture of the conqueror and the conquered. Art, music, science and technology, medicine, crafts, and other areas were influenced by other cultures, and the very environment in which people lived changed forever.
Conclusion
The paper has examined how the years from 1500 to 1750 saw explorers and navigators discovered new lands into which European cultures and habits were transferred and this is the earliest instance of globalization. The exchange of norms changed the environment and cultures of all the people forever and forms the basis of the modern world.
References
Harman Peter. 2008. The Scientific Revolution. Rutledge Publications.
Stearns Peter N. 2001. The Encyclopedia of World History. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
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