Ch02 outline world_systems_geo 121

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 2: The ChangingGlobal Context

Chapter 2 Lecture

Katie PrattMacalester College



• Evolution of the modern world

• World-system• Core and periphery

regions• International division

of labor • Imperialism• Neocolonialism• Globalization

Key Concepts

Figure: Chapter 2 Opener - Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai, a sixteenth-century Ming Dynasty garden, adjacent to the city’s modern business district.


The Premodern World: Hearth Areas

• First agriculture revolution transition from hunter-gatherer groups to mini-systems

• Slash and burn agriculture• Hearth areas (Middle East, South Asia, China,

Americas)

Figure 2.1 Hearth areas.


• Implications– Higher population densities– Change in social organization– Specialization– Trade

Hearth Areas (cont’d)

Apply your knowledge: Describe example of traditional crafts from the

agricultural hearth areas of Arizona and New Mexico.


The Premodern World: Early Empires• Early World-Empires

– Group of mini-systems– Common political system

Figure 2.2a Greek colonies and the extent of the Roman empire.


• Colonization– Law of diminishing returns

• Early geographers• Urbanization

Early Empires (cont’d)

Figure 2.2c Roman engineering: an aqueduct in Segovia, Spain.

Figure 2.2b Roads built by Romans became major routes throughout Europe.


Premodern World Geography

Figure 2.4 The precapitalist Old World, circa 1400 C.E.

• Framework of human geographies– Harsher environments in continental interiors maintained

mini-systems– Dry belt of steppes and desert margins– Principal areas of sedentary agriculture


• Historical Trade routes

Premodern World Geography (cont’d)

Figure 2.5 The Silk Road.


• Centers of capitalism – The North European Plain• Importance of port cities• Hinterlands – areas beyond agricultural lands

Premodern World Geography (cont’d)

Figure 2.6 Principal towns of the Hanseatic League.


World Systems

Figure 2.7a: Principle voyages of exploration.


• External arenas• Trade and merchant

capitalism– Plantations– Import substitution

• Technological improvements and limits

World Systems (cont’d)

Figure 2.8 Triangular trade.

Apply your knowledge: What are some of the technological reasons that Europeans sought to colonize other parts of the world?


• Diffusion of Industrial Revolution– Began in England, spread

through Europe and globally• Three distinctive waves

– Influenced by resourcesand technology

World Systems: Industrialization in Europe

Figure 2.9 The spread of European industrialization.


• Structured relationship – Core, semiperipheral, peripheral

• Imperialism and colonialism• Leadership cycles• Hegemony

World Systems: Core and Periphery

Apply your knowledge: Discuss a current international issue involving a former colonial territory.


World Systems: Core and Periphery (cont’d)

Figure 2.10a The world-system in 1800. Figure 2.10b The world-system in 1900.

Figure 2.10c The world-system in 2014.


• Needs of the core• Colonial economies: comparative advantage and

specialization• Oceangoing steamships• Suez and Panama canals• Network of telegraph communications• More complex interdependence

Organizing the Periphery: The International Division of Labor


The International Division of Labor (cont’d)

Apply your knowledge: Where were your clothes sewn? Where did the materials come from? How does this relate to division of labor and comparative advantage?

Figure 2.12 The British Empire in the late 1800s.


Figure 2.13a The colonization of Africa, 1880. Figure 2.13b The colonization of Africa, 1914.

• Ethnocentrism• Environmental determinism

Organizing the Periphery: Imperialism


• Neocolonialism• Commercial imperialism• Transnational corporations• Gross domestic product (GDP)

The Struggle for Independence

Apply your knowledge: Provide an example of how neocolonialism reinforces the power and influence of core countries. Be specific. What is the role of transnational corporations in neocolonialism?


• Increasing interconnectedness of the world – Economic, environmental, political, and cultural– Greater speed, larger scale, broader scope, and greater

complexity than in the past• Commodity chains• Increase in significance of place

– Mobility of money, labor, products, and ideas

Contemporary Globalization:


Commodity Chains


Globalization: Environment

Figure 2.14 The human “footprint.”

• Human footprint• Climate change• Sustainability


Globalization: Environment (cont’d)

Figure 2.16 Three key aspects to sustainability.

Figure 2.15 Pollution and warming due to climate change threaten Lake Baikal’s ecosystem.

Apply your knowledge: Give an example of a local environmental concern. How does it relate to economic development and social equity?


• Vulnerability to Atlantic storms is rapidly increasing due to climate change and, in particular, sea level rise

America’s Drowning Seaboard

Figure 2.D Hurricane Sandy.Figure 2.B Damage from Hurricane Sandy.


• Heightened risk and spread of disease• Examples

– Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)– Influenza– Ebola– West Nile virus

• Pandemic

Globalization: Health


• Risk society• Resilience

Globalization: Security Issues

Apply your knowledge: How is the role of knowledge a tool of power in a risk society?


• Spatial justice• Cultural imperialism• Westernization• “Jihad vs. McWorld”

Globalization: Western and Cultural Imperialism

Figure 2.E Distribution of the world’s population and their national average income.

Figure 2.17 Indonesian women talk in front of a H&M billboard in Jakarta.


Future Geographies

Figure 2.18 The uneven distribution of the world’s population.

Apply your knowledge: What is the middle ground between optimistic and pessimistic futuristic perspectives?