Valerie Hansen: Is This the Beginning of the End of Globalization?

The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequences of the pandemic. It’s our new daily podcast trying to make longterm sense out of the chaos of today’s global crisis.

On today’s episode, Valerie Hansen, Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University and author of The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World—And Globalization Began, discusses how globalization has changed—and not changed—over the past 1,000 years.

From the episode:

Valerie Hansen: Things are changing and countries that haven’t been that important are going to become more important. It’s a more polycentric world, a world with multiple different centers. The world of the year 1000 is a lot like that, so I think by looking more at the world in the year 1000, we can better understand the world we’re living in now.

If we look at the world in 1492 or 1500, every time there’s an encounter, you know the answer. The Europeans are going to win. They’ve got the guns. They have the cannons. It may take them a while. I think it takes nearly a century before they can invade the Canary Islands. But in the end, they’re always going to prevail.

However, in the year 1000, we don’t know who’s going to win, and I think that’s the world we’re living in.

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Valerie Hansen is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University, where she teaches Chinese and world history. An accomplished scholar and author, she traveled to nearly twenty countries to conduct research for The Year 1000. She is several acclaimed works, including The Silk Road: A New History and The Open Empire, and co-author of Voyages in World History.