From Silk to Silicon

Title: From Silk to Silicon – The Story of Globalization through Ten Extraordinary Lives

Author: Jeffrey E Garten

Publisher: Tranquebar Press, 2017 (First published 2015)

ISBN: 9789386224576

Pages: 434

As we know, man is a social animal. He lives and works in a society. The size of the society in which one person operates varies widely with its civilizational level. The primitive, forest-dwelling people works on the level of tribes. All activities such as food-gathering, supporting others, finding partners and doing simple trade happen inside the limits set by the tribal elders. More civilized people move about on the level of the village which is nothing but the next higher abstraction than the tribe in the civilizational ladder. We can still go higher to the city, country or even the whole world which is called Globalization. In this new paradigm, the entire world is miniaturized to a small village and reactions to economic activity on one side of the planet are swift and far-reaching even on its antipodes. However, this is not something new brought about by computers, mobile phones and the Internet. It started 60,000 years ago, when about 150,000 people walked out of Africa in search of food and security – the moment when man stepped out of his evolutionary home to colonize the whole planet. In that sense, the story of Globalization is nothing less than the story of human history. This book describes the lives of ten pioneering persons whose mission in life turned out to be for the growth of Globalization. Jeffrey E Garten is Dean Emeritus at the Yale School of Management, where he teaches a variety of courses on global economy. He is the author of five books on the global political economy and numerous articles in newspapers.

Garten puts down a few criteria to select the pioneers of Globalization. First of all, they had to be transformational leaders or the inaugurators of various eras of world history, such as the Age of Empire, the Age of Exploration, the Age of Colonization, the Age of Global Finance, the Age of Global Communications, the Age of Energy and Industrialization, the Age of Global Philanthropy, the Age of Supranationalism, the Age of Free Markets, the Age of High Technology and the Age of a Resurgent China. The author’s preference is for doers rather than thinkers and so Karl Marx and Adam Smith are left out. Also, the contributions shall be positive and hence Hitlers and Osama bin Ladens are eliminated. Accordingly, the lives and work of nine men and a woman is described in detail in these pages, namely, Genghis Khan, Prince Henry the Navigator, Robert Clive, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Cyrus Field, John D. Rockefeller, Jean Monnet, Margaret Thatcher, Andrew Grove and Deng Xiaoping. Intellectuals may at once go up in arms against some of the names such as Clive, Rothschild, Rockefeller, or Thatcher, who are considered to be the focal points of capitalist advance to a great part of the world and whose careers were essential to the spread of capitalist philosophy itself. This is acknowledged by Garten to presume Globalization as all about physical, commercial and cultural connections while at the same time bringing about dislocation and destruction in the short term. Anybody can see that the forces of Globalization usher in peace, modernization and prosperity in the long term. Besides, they did not have grand strategies in mind, and they did not spend much time envisioning the major transformations for which they’d be responsible. Their achievements were the result of taking one step at a time, dealing with one challenge at a time.

For some reason, the author had left out Alexander the Great from the compilation even though the Macedonian prince struts into history by unifying Europe and Asia under the roof of a composite state and culture. There is no explanation why Alexander is not there, and Garten begins with Genghis Khan instead. Modern society might wonder what a Mongolian warlord in the Middle Ages had done so great to promote Globalization, but the incremental changes wrought by Khan was in fact more fundamental and long-lasting than the policies of Globalization’s modern day watchdogs such as WTO or the IMF. Genghis Khan integrated much of Asia and helped Chinese innovations and technology spread to all habitable parts of the known world. Printing press, gunpowder and the compass are said to be the three key inventions that changed the course of history and all of them were originated in China and disseminated during the Mongol era. Key concepts in political administration such as the principle of state over church and state capitalism also spread. The Khans were pagans worshipping the Eternal Blue Sky and numerous petty gods. Their inherent tolerance on religious affairs paved the way for the idea of secular national states in Renaissance Europe.

A great fillip to Globalization was made when Columbus discovered the New World in 1492. But it was not just a case of an adventurer one day setting sail towards the setting sun in the Atlantic. Almost a century of exploration preceded that journey. Prince Henry of Portugal, often adorned with the epithet ‘Navigator’, directly influenced Columbus’ voyage in a way. He conquered Ceuta on the Moroccan coast in 1415. His aim was to find treasure, converts to Christianity and trade. However, the traders of Ceuta fled from his domineering rule. Henry was thus burdened with the need of exploring the unknown West African coastline to find a maritime trade route to India and Central Asia. With the disintegration of the Mongol empire, overland routes had become inaccessible due to brigands and warring states. The naval explorations commanded by Henry soon discovered previously unknown islands on the Atlantic like Azores, Madeira, and Porto Sauto. Though he was unable to pick up trade with Asia, he stumbled upon another commodity which was once so appealing to medieval economies, but which fills us with disgust now – African slaves. Henry lifted slaves directly from Africa instead of relying on Muslim intermediaries. On 8 August 1444, the first cargo of 235 Africans were delivered to the Portuguese port of Lagos and this date is since identified as the day modern slavery began. Henry’s exploits are inhuman by modern standards, but it set in motion a series of explorations of the unknown lands that later morphed into discovery. In a sense, the same spirit pervades efforts of exploration in outer space now.

The remaining eight refer to comparatively modern leaders in their respective areas of work. The achievements made by Rothschild, Field and Rockefeller open a window to nineteenth century Europe and America. Rothschild’s banking business was so successful in that era, but the author doesn’t mention how its demise came about. Thatcher dismantled socialist props on the British economy which was somewhat replicated by Deng Xiaoping in China a few years later. Each of the chapters can be read with great interest and readers get absorbed into the easy flow of the narrative. Garten contemplates on the space for future leaders in Globalization’s march forward. He presciently remarks that Globalization is likely to be in for some bad time, judging by the deceleration in cross-border trade during the last decade. His hunch – or shall we say, prophecy – came true when Donald Trump became US President. Trump’s tirade against Globalization and the barriers he is erecting on the path of free trade is jeopardizing the spirit of internationalism. Anyway, the author finds fault with the trade policies of China too, who exploit what is best for them in full while trying to offload the debilitating ones to the Western world.

This book is eminently readable and highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star