Dennis O. Flynn
Dennis O. Flynn is the Alexander R.
Heron Professor of Economics at the
University of the Pacific. He has
published since 1978 dozens of essays
on global monetary history, fifteen of
which have been reproduced in World Silver and Monetary History in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(Variorum, 1996). He has co-edited
Metals and Monies in an Emerging
Global Economy (Variorum 1997),
Studies in the Economic History of the
Pacific Rim (Routledge, 1998), Pacific
Centuries: Pacific and Pacific Rim
History Since the 16th Century
(Routledge, 1999), 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
(Variorum/Ashgate, 2001–2004). His
collaborative research with Arturo
Giráldez 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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