Globalizing Cosmologies

Few terms are as ubiquitous and yet as deceptive as globalization. Although historians quarrel over chronology and characteristics, it is conventionally understood to mean the specific historical process initiated by the European discovery of the Americas in 1492, which culminated in our interconnected planet, our modernity. This is a modernity profoundly shaped by the demands and ideologies of capitalism, and so its history is traced principally through the movement of commodities and growth of markets. Methodological considerations, including perceived availability of source material, have reinforced the tendency among historians to prioritize such approaches. Thus, in the established narrative of intensifying global integration, the globalizing is done largely by Europeans and their empires; it is among them that the capacity for thinking and operating on a worldwide scale is concentrated, and their specific approaches and achievements are treated as archetypal.