Moreover, most financial markets were local affairs and trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement didn't exist. Now, in the new globalized world, Harbin, Minsk and Bandung are all intimately interconnected. A curious feature of this new, global economy is that it isn't new at all. One hundred years ago, Europe and the then emerging markets of North and South America were tangled in an industrial and financial web that was in many ways just as global as today's world economy. World War I put an end to the first global economy.
War is, among other things, a powerful maker of trade barriers.
The Great Depression and World War II finished off the job. Globalization began anew in the 1950s and slowly picked up speed. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the Cold War and the beginning of rapid acceleration of economic globalization. Yet another idiosyncrasy of contemporary globalization is that it goes hand in hand with degeneration. Even as economies integrate, entire companies and industries are disintegrating.