Including 11 essays published over the last 15 years, this volume by Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo GirAldez concerns the origins and early development of globalization. It opens with their 1995 "Silver Spoon" essay and a theoretical essay published in 2002. Subsequent sections deal with Pacific Ocean exchanges, interconnections between the Spanish, Ottoman, Japanese and Chinese empires, and the necessity of multidisciplinary approaches to global history. The volume follows the evolution of the authors' thinking concerning the central role of China in the global silver trade, as well as...

World history conventionally ignores or underestimates the importance of Manila, the Manila galleons, and the Philippines as key stages in the development of trans-Pacific contact and of the world economy. Essays in this volume discuss Philippine-Asian exchanges prior to the entry of Europeans, and then look at European influences and the impact of Magellana s voyage, and the emergence of Manila as one of global tradea s crucial linchpins during four centuries. Linkages between Latin America and China, and Spanish-Japanese competition for the Chinese marketplace are important topics. Tensions...