-For example, we found a small statuette of Buddha
in a viking tomb in Scandinavia, but we don't know how long
it has taken for it to get there. We've also found Roman coins
during archeological excavations in Japan. Did they take one, two
or perhaps three centuries to get there? That is something
we obviously cannot know. We have a tendency to see
globalization as a European movement, which it partly is,
but it's not uniquely European. What comes to the 17th or 18th century,
there are always strong uncertainties regarding the fate of the boats. If we take, for example,
the triangular trade, in order to do the full circuit and to complete the triangle: Nantes, Africa, America
and back to Nantes again, well, that could take a year and a half. During that time, you were able to find out
the whereabouts of your investment, but as long as the ship was out at sea,
there was always fear of loss. There were coefficients of uncertainty
that could be rather important. In Nantes and other harbor cities,
we have this world presence that's displayed right
under our eyes. This one here is
the most beautiful. -What's the street name?
-This one is Kervégan street. This one here is Europe. And here we have Africa. And again here.
So two mascarons with African heads. And here we have America. We also have Asia, which is here. It corresponds to what
people are expecting to see. When you depict someone,
even today, for example abroad people could represent
a French person with a baguette or a beret, no matter if French people
walk around with a baguette or not, but when we see that,
it corresponds to our expectations. If you want to picture a French person,
but he doesn't look like one, all of your communication
effects will fall apart. -Between the example of the Buddha
from the 9th century viking tomb in Sweden, and the triangular trade
of the merchants in the 18th century, you've understood that globalization
is not specific to our time. I'm back from Nantes, and with the CRHIA - a Nantes/La Rochelle
university laboratory, specialized in international
and Atlantic history, we felt like making a video
about the history of globalization. We hear a lot about it nowadays,
with Covid-19, and everyone knows
that the acceleration of interactions has accelerated
the circulation of the virus. But it's a process which we're having
a hard time retracing back to its origin. -Some will even say
that ultimately, starting from the point
when humans existed, they entered into
contact with each other, and starting from that,
if we push the argument to its extreme, - the phenomenon of globalization
would be inherent to human nature. -With that in mind, our goal was to
reach the source of the phenomenon. Thanks to four researchers specializing in different eras from the
Middle Ages to the 2000's, we will return to the significant moments
and the different aspects of globalization. Annick Peters-Custot,
specialist in the medieval period, will tell us about the reappearance,
during the 12th century, of a type of globalization,
that had already existed in the Roman era. -There was a real turning point
in the 12th century, that completely reactivated,
simultaneously as trade, by the way, with the help of pilgrimage
- the Mediterranean circulations. It largely exceeded the
Mediterranean framework, because the populations came from England
or Northern Europe or even Scandinavia. So it was a true reactivation, of a globalization that was already
the norm during the Roman empire, and that was in a very different
and much more fragmented political framework, that was reactivated by
both trade and pilgrimage. And so, on these pilgrimage routes, there were also plenty of
adventurers, merchants, etc. They were channels of transmission
which were protean, given that the individuals themselves
had many different motivations for traveling. The connection between China and the West,
frankly, it has always existed. In 10th century Scandinavian tombs,
we found a small Buddha, a small Ethiopian spoon,
Islamic coins. The enormous Mongolian empire
favored the commercial circuits to the point that the West,
who saw itself as the ruler of the world, lived in the beat of the commercial lung
that China already was in the 13th century. The expansion
of the great plague happened because of this
commercial globalization accentuated by the unification
of the Mongol empire. Let's say that there were more
empires in the East than in the West, but the first economic and commercial
power, was the Islamic empire. There was the Byzantine empire that was
connected to the Persian empire as well as to the Chinese empire,
and later on the Moghol empire emerged. These large transnational
constructions admittedly, as we have a
European/western centered vision we claim that there were no more empires. That's incorrect, there were
the Carolingian and the Ottonian empires, but we're talking about
different scales. More importantly,
there were always grand empires. However,
they were not necessarily in the West and so, on this basis, even if the West
saw itself as the center of the world, in reality, it was peripheral. It was a secondary power
during the majority of the Middle Ages. And when those commercial currents
were recreated, after the 12th century, there were other types of empires. The Venetian empire was an empire.
A commercial empire. Since it didn't have
any hinterland in its lagoon, Venice needed a commercial empire,
as a supply zone. Pushing towards the East, in fact. The Roman empire no longer existed
as a vast and unified space with unique monetary, commercial
and political infrastructures but there were empires
far larger, far richer, far more important
and just as well governed, such as the Islamic empire,
the Persian, Chinese and the Mongol empires. And the commercial empires. They picked up the baton,
becoming the new players in the field of international globalization. But as the West was a bit in the outskirts,
we pretend as if none of it existed. The problem was just that
the center of gravity fell eastwards. Eric Schnakenbourg,
specialist of Atlantic contacts, explains that the European expansion
in modern times, was already motivated
by the consumers' desires. The Atlantic area was particular in the sense
that it could liaise three continents: Europe, Africa and America. The idea is to enlighten a large part
of the globalization of the Modern Times. Of course there's Asia too,
let's not forget it. But mostly it was a very strong
interaction between those three continents since a kind of
interdependence was created. Africa provided manpower through slaves. America provided earth and resources. And lastly, Europe provided
capital and consumers. Therefore, the three continents
had a close relation. We cannot know the history of one
without knowing the others'. We're really talking
about an interconnected history. It leads to a question:
is there one single type of globalization, with different modalities,
or different types of globalizations? That's a heated debate
between historians. Personally, but perhaps
because I'm a modernist historian, I believe there's a large phenomenon
of globalization with different phases. Phases of acceleration, of regression,
other specific particularities. But if we look closely,
ever since the 16th, 17th,18th century, information, people, techniques
and knowledge have circulated. They've circulated in the Atlantic area
and between Asia and Europe. Obviously, back then it circulated
slower than today, but it circulated. And the reflexes were the same what comes to the importation
of foreign goods, that were sometimes condemned. Because it made the money flow away, because we started wondering
about these products: is coffee good for health,
is tea good for health? There were also new trends,
such as sugar, which was still a semi-luxury product
in the 15th century, and which became common
in the 18th century. For example, we have some very
serious studies about tobacco, on the health benefits
of tobacco consumption. For example, we thought that the smoke
of tobacco protected us from epidemics. During epidemics, people
started to smoke to protect themselves. There were medical studies
on coffee and tea consumption as well. We asked ourselves a lot of questions. Why did the Europeans throw themselves
into what we call "the Age of Discovery"? Because they needed products
that they didn't have at home. That's the fundamental aspect. The Chinese have always been satisfied with what they have at home,
or in their immediate surroundings. There's never been any reason
for the Chinese to turn towards Europe. They need nothing from Europe. But Europeans need spices, they need sugar, they need tea, coffee, etc. So they go where
the coffee is produced. The Chinese need nothing from no-one. There's no reason for them to make grand
expeditions to the other side of the world. And lastly, if we really want to
turn the perspective upside down, the motor of the European globalization,
has always been Europe's deficiencies. It's not its superiority,
but rather its deficiencies. We work a little bit more,
because we want to obtain a bit more. It's the true sense of luxury. Luxury, is something that's not necessary but that we'll buy
because it brings us joy. That's a fundamental motor. And if we think about it,
even today, it's still often the case regarding
our existence and the work that we do. Once our
primary needs are satisfied, we want to please ourselves. And what brings us pleasure
can still come from far away. Either directly or indirectly. -Antonio de Almeida Mendes specializes
in the colonial Iberian history. He reminds us that globalization
is also a question of imagination, of departitioning of the thought. -The word "slave" doesn't
have the same ring at all today that it had in the Old Regime's societies. Today, slavery is this notion of ownership.
We can possess someone. Therefore, it's a violation
of human rights. In the societies I study, the slaves themselves
totally accepted being slaves since they were part of a
normative framework where they were
in dependent relationships. Being a slave was a normal part of a society
in which we didn't think in terms of freedom. Plenty of people lived
in other people's homes. So, there were relations
of allegiance or domesticity. Today, we encompass everything
under the term "slavery", while in reality, in those societies,
everything was properly codified. I believe the challenge
for historians, when they study
several different worlds, is to say:
"Things are not the same everywhere." And in the meanwhile, we need
to want to cover the whole world, otherwise we just create
a small national story, without stepping out of
our national framework, creating a discourse
that's just as stunted. I believe we need to move
towards worldwide and global scales. But these scales
shouldn't be uniform. Let's avoid universalisms such as:
"It's the same everywhere in the world". Each society has its own imagery that decides what's acceptable or not. This story of 1492, can be described as the beginning
of the Age of Discovery, or the story of the navigators:
Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus... That's the classic storyline that starts from point A
and finishes at point B at the end of colonization. This story can also be told
through the eyes of the Caribbeans, this new world
that the Europeans wanted to create. Christopher Columbus arrived
to the Bahamas in October 1492. On his trip back home, he wrote a letter to his patron
in March 1493, in which he said: "I have discovered paradise. "In this paradise,
we'll be able to regenerate the world". Then we realized
that they were cannibals. We suggested they become Christian because there's always
this discourse about salvation. They refused because obviously,
there are people who resist. At this point, we need to refocus
history on a human level. The question then is to know if the Indians
have to be enslaved for life or if they have the capacity
to become free and to become equal to us,
despite their differences? Las Casas said: "You see,
when we suggest they become Christian, "they become good Christians,
they start to think by themselves. "They're human beings,
equipped with reason." And Sepulveda said:
"Not at all, you see, they're animals. "They're like parrots,
they just repeat the prayers "but they cannot think
by themselves, "because they carry within
them a sort of animality "that pushes them towards
cannibalism, "towards nudity. "They could, thus, never "integrate into the civilized world,
because they're born animals." They must, for that reason,
stay slaves for life because their nature is such. We can't conceptualize history
through great men anymore. For example,
where are the women in this story? Where are the minorities? So here too, we must realize
that the documentation used before, that was rather official
and that allowed us to write, for example, the story of Louis XIV, this documentation contained as many lies and untruths as a story
relying on fragmented sources. For example, I wrote
an article about Congo. How the king of Congo
became Christian, and not how the Portuguese
turned the Africans Christian. It changes everything when you think
that there are actors on the other side who actually take initiative and for who
becoming Christian meant other things than what the Europeans had imagined
when they arrived. And it allows us,
from a known event, from a date that takes part in the history that you could call
western or universal, to rethink the other side. Those that usually aren't included
in these documents and archives. -Michel Catala, specialist of international
relations in 20th century Europe, discusses the acceleration of globalization and the oppositions it has aroused
since 20 years or so. -It can first be seen in the economy,
in the 80's: the economists
were the first ones stating it with the liberalization of trade, etc. Then it can be seen after
the collapse of the Berlin wall and notably in the 90's,
on every level. Whether it's regarding cultural exchanges,
migration, human trade, this acceleration and intensification
of trade in every sense of the word between human beings, across borders,
well, that's globalization. And it did accelerate considerably
starting from the 90's. Starting from those years, the whole
concept of globalization has been debated. It's a public debate. With that in mind,
it also provokes a certain resistance. We can observe resistance, notably, of groups more or less organized, a bit everywhere in the world - plenty in Europe,
but also in the Americas and in Africa - and these groups share
the denunciation of globalization. They assess it being the symbol
of a deviation too liberal, too capitalist, of a kind of an unbridled
liberalization of trade that could have social
and political consequences that they condemn. And that's what we call altermondialism starting from the middle of the 90's and that truly was the center of attention between 1999 and 2004. In France, for example,
it was the Attac movement, Jose Bové and all those movements
that emerged at that time and that actually built networks. It's rather interesting because
they created networks worlwide with more or less success, but they globalized themselves,
If I may say, because they built
international networks themselves. We talked a lot about it
during those years, notably because of the
huge anti-globalization manifestations that generally ended up
in extremely violent confrontations. It was particularly the case for Seattle,
during the WTO summit in 1999. It then continued
until the middle of the 2000's, until the movement
started to wane a bit. It's a movement that actually suits
globalization quite well because it isn't really organized. It's a network,
more or less informal, a bit everywhere in the world,
with manifestations a bit everywhere and that's also one of the first forms of a globalized social movement. It protested against globalization,
but simultaneously also thrived thanks
to the key elements that enabled
contemporary globalization. For example, they were very active
in southern Europe, in France or Italy. They were also very active
in Latin America, defending and acquiring new land for the farmers, etc. They were also sort of active
in Northern America, India and Africa. They are globalized movements,
but that come about locally. It's rather a crystallization
of existent movements sympathizing with this critique
of globalization that is, by the way, exclusively seen
as an economical and liberal globalization. Meaning they're really opposing
that type of globalization. They don't have the global view
of a historian or a scientist, of the whole package
that globalization comprises of. Neither its antiquity
nor its historical aspect. They are really focused
on opposing a deviation that they call ultraliberal. Since the 80's, the Reagan-Thatcher years,
and throughout the 90's this deviation developed
much too strongly for them. Per definition,
globalization today, with the new
communication technologies, gives us the possibility to discover,
in just a few hours, a Korean hit, a Japanese manga,
an Iranian movie or bloggers and youtubers
from all around the world. This too helps build common cultural elements. You shouldn't be naive either: states still exist, borders do too, some states want to control
all these phenomena. So what we could've foreseen
in the 90's-2000's, the victory of globalization in which states would become marginalized and would no longer have any control, we now realize that it's not that simple. -Very well, thank you. -I don't know how you're going to
manage all of this but... -I do my own editing,
don't you worry. *laughing* -You do your editing.
*laughing* [Music] [...]
