The Early Globalization of the Central System: Spatio-Temporal Boundary and Transition Issues

David Wilkinson

University of California, Los Angeles
dow@ucla.edu

This paper is a step in the quest to discriminate the key times, places and manners in which the Central system fused with its nearest neighbor-systems. The period at issue runs from c. 1500 BC (fusion of Southwest Asian and Northeast African systems to birth the Central system) to World War I (all former systems go to war together). A variety of historical contacts between the Central system (aka civilization, aka world system, aka politico-military-diplomatic network) and its Old World neighbors whether actual (Indic, Far Eastern, West African) or putative (Irelandic, Scandinavian, East African) is reviewed, seeking to narrow the temporal boundaries of the epochs when each fused with the Central system in the political globalization process that in due course yielded our singular global system.