One can be sure that virtually every one of the 2822 academic papers on globalisation written in 1998 included its own definition, as would each of the 589 new books on the subject published in that year. Many see it as a primarily economic phenomenon, involving the increasing interaction, or integration, of national economic systems through the growth in international trade, investment and capital flows. However, one can also point to a rapid increase in cross-border social, cultural and technological exchange as part of the phenomenon of globalisation. The sociologist, Anthony Giddens, defines globalisation as a decoupling of space and time, emphasising that with instantaneous communications, knowledge and culture can be shared around the world simultaneously.
Globalisation is an undeniably capitalist process.
It has taken off as a concept in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and of socialism as a viable alternate form of economic organisation. There is no agreed starting point, but understanding of globalisation is helped by considering the following. The first great expansion of European capitalism took place in the 16th century, following the first circumnavigation of the earth in 1519 to 1521. There was a big expansion in world trade and investment in the late nineteenth century. This was brought to a halt by the First World War and the bout of anti-free trade protectionism that led to the Great Depression in 1930.