Professor Arturo Giraldez lectures on the topic: “Global trade, global network and global history”

Prof. Arturo Giraldez

The lecture addresses a new perspective on the study of global history: global exchange and globalization are stories from history. The lecture focuses on the main contents:

The first is the geographical discoveries and the formation of international trade routes in the early modern period, from the mid-15th century to the end of the 18th century. The second is the exploration of new lands, the formation of new communities along with cultural exchanges and cross-cultural and racial intermingling. Professor Arturo Giraldez has provided new information and insights on the issue of global exchanges and interactions. The third is about trade routes and the formation of global economies. Professor Arturo Giraldez has emphasized the role of the flow of monetary metals such as silver from the New World of the Americas to the East and the transformation of Eastern socio-economics. For example, how international exchange rates were adjusted and balanced between regions. If in the late 16th century, the exchange rate between gold and silver in Europe, China, and the New World of America was very different, but thanks to global connectivity, by the middle of the 17th century (specifically in 1640) the exchange rates were almost equal.

The lecture also emphasized the formation of global consumption. Chinese national and local products such as tea, silk, spices, etc. have become consumer goods worldwide, and Europeans consider tea drinking as a cultural feature in social life. And it is also through global trade that has created crossbreeding between different ethnic groups. For example, African slaves or Europeans migrating to America have changed the genetic map of America a lot. This also created cultural exchange when music genres and art forms in different regions are strongly shared. Exchange also changes the world's population through the exchange of epidemics, ecology, etc.

The students asked Professor Arturo Giraldez many interesting questions about: assessing the impact of trade flows on inflation; how the European price revolution in the late 16th and early 17th centuries directly impacted the lives of European people; the current trends of monetary metals in the world from historical experience; predictions about the role and exchange rates between precious metals in modern times...

“Global trade, global network and global history” is one of three topics that Professor Arturo Giraldez discussed with staff and students of the Faculty of History recently.