Arturo Giráldez
Arturo Giráldez is Professor of
Spanish Literature at the University
of the Pacific. He received a PhD in
Spanish Literature from the
University of California, Santa Barbara
in 1990 and another PhD in History
from the University of Amsterdam in 1999. Author of many articles on
global monetary history, Giráldez is
co-editor of Metals and Monies in an
Emerging Global Economy (Variorum
1997), European Entry into the Pacific:
Spain and the Acapulco-Manila Galleons
(Variorum 2001), Studies in Pacific
History: Economics, Politics, and
Migration (Ashgate 2002), and Studies
in Global Monetary History, 1470–1800
(Ashgate 2002). He is co-General
Editor of a 19-volume series, The
Pacific World: Lands, Peoples, and
History of the Pacific, 1500–1900
(2000–2003). His collaborative
research with Dennis O. Flynn has
been featured in the New York Times
(2 December 2000) and The Economist
(25 August 2001).
Papers Published in World Economics:
Cycles of Silver
Absent a workable definition of the term ‘globalization’, debates today lack
intellectual rigor. Most consider globalization a 20th-century (even post-1945)
phenomenon. In fact, globalization was born when Manila was founded as a
Spanish entrepôt in 1571. Connections across the Pacific Ocean (one third of
Earth’s surface area) finally linked Asia with the Americas (about another third of
the globe); American linkages with the Afro-Eurasian ‘Old World’ (approximately
one third of Earth’s surface) had previously existed since 1492. Immense demand
for silver in China, the world’s dominant economy, induced global connections.
Europeans were middlemen. Multi-century commercial, epidemiological,
ecological, and demographic interactions were unleashed at a planetary level.
These historical forces heavily influence global relations today.
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