Globalization, Capitalism, and Collapse in Prehistory and the Present

Abstract

This paper, which is based on my professorial lecture, considersr the emergence of globalized connectivities in the Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700–1300 BCE) which was arguably the first age of globalization in human history. It was also one of the first ages of social acceleration characterized by a confluence of increasing technological and economic interdependency, yet fragile in its susceptibility to climate change, plagues, authoritarian city-states, and small empires ruled by kings claiming divinity or divine authority. Thus, the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean was also an economically fragile era with a high concentration of wealth distributed among supra-regional glo..