When Did Globalization Start?

 Hansen, Valerie.  The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization 

           Began.  New York: Scribner, 2020.  ISBN: 9781501194108

When you think of the year 1000 of the common era (whether you think CE or AD is up to you), what pops up in your mind?  Is it Vikings sailing west?  Cathedrals being built in France?  Trade in China?  For Valerie Hansen, she thought is connections, specifically trade, global trade!  In The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the world beginning around year 1000 of the common era and up until about 1450.  She chose the year 1000 since that is around when the Vikings stopped by North America and trade could theoretically be made around the world - from Asia to America and back again.  

Valarie Hansen opens The Year 1000 with an overview of the world, briefly discussing Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas along with her argument for globalization beginning in 1000.  She then proceeds to discuss the Viking voyages to Newfoundland and elsewhere in the Americas and the impact this had on trade.  The third chapter of the book covers the trade routes that existed in the Americas among the local groups.  Hansen then returns to the Vikings, but in Europe this time with their search for slaves and treasure in the east, especial among the Rus while also covering trade on the continent and with outside countries.  The reader then travels south to Africa with its slave trade, its trade in gold, and in other commodities.   From Africa, the reader travels to Central Asia with the Silk Road that connected Europe and Africa with the Far East.  Religion and trade played a major role in Central Asia economies.  Next, Hansen explores the sea routes from the Middle East and Africa to India, then Indonesia,and ending at China.  In the last chapter, Hansen explores Chain and the role it played in global trade during this whole time frame.  

Throughout The Year 1000, Valarie Hansen seeks to persuade the reader that globalization started much earlier than the 1500's - the time when most scholars agree global trade began.  She provides ample evidence that trade, extensive trade was happening 500 years earlier.  Whether the reader agrees whit her argument or not,  The Year 1000 is an interesting and informative read.