Sample Chapter for Osterhammel, J. and Petersson, N.P.; Geyer, D., et al., trans.: Globalization: A Short History.

Sample Chapter for Osterhammel, J. and Petersson, N.P.; Geyer, D., et al., trans.: Globalization: A Short History.: "A Diagnosis of the Present and a Term for a Historical Process

'Globalization' is a term often used to explain today's world. For years, it lay nearly dormant, used only in a few select publications by a handful of economists writing on very specialized topics. Then, in the 1990s, globalization was embraced by a wider public and has since skyrocketed to terminological stardom. It has been integrated into the vocabulary of numerous languages, and various scholarly fields have adopted it as a leitmotiv and the central category of their research. Every day the list of literature on globalization or globality, global history or global capitalism grows longer. The semantic thicket is already so dense that we need help in blazing a trail through it.1 In addition to the studies examining the specific effects of current economic globalization, an increasing number of publications deal with this topic in a more general or theoretical nature. When journalists begin to philosophize about the state of affairs in the world, it does not take long before globalization is mentioned. The term is therefore in danger of becoming just another word generously used in the art of terminological name-dropping, a term whose exact meaning is irrelevant as long as it creates an impression of profundity strong e"