HON351, American Ideals in Global Perspective
Fall Semester 2008
Study Sheet
Globalization: Definitions and History
Reading Assignment:
Steger, ch. 1-2
Websites: (optional)
Carnegie Council, Essential Resources on Globalization
Definition of "globalization," by Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Anchor Books, 2000, p. 9a
[Globalization] is the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies to a drdegree never witnessed before---in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations and nation-states to reach around the world rather, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever efore in a way that is enabling the world to reach into individuals, corporations, and nation-states faster than ever before.
Globalization has its own defning technologies: computeriziation, miniaturization , digitization, satellite communications, fiber optics and the Internet, which reinforce its defining perspective of integration.
Questions to consider while reading Steger, chapters 1-2:
1. How does Steger define the term globalization?
2. In more simple terms, how would you describe globalization to a friend who asks you what you had been studying in HON351?
3. Explain the paradox Steger sees in Osama bin Laden's simultaneous rejection and embrace of globalization?
4. What issues have arisen among scholars about the nature and significance of globalization?
5. What stages does Steger describe in what he sees in the historical evolution of globalization?