Globalization as a long term process

Abstract

This article proposes to justify the necessity of a historical reading of globalization. Such a course of action therefore would permit us to locate our immediate present in a long term perspective.
In the first part the author presents a brief summary of the most popular texts that have been produced in the last few years on the theme of globalization. From this exercise, the author demonstrates how some imaginatives have been formed on globalization and also presents those principal points universally agreed upon on this topic. Furthermore, the article contains an exercise of how globalization is perceived when it is analysed as a structural or situational phenomenon or as a phasal process. After presenting the successes and disadvantages of these focuses, the author then proceeds to illustrate how the visualisation of a phenomenon as a process allows for the integration of preceeding perspectives, those that look towards the historical categorization put forward by Fernand Braudel.