Niall Ferguson | Sinking Globalization By Niall Ferguson
March/April 2005 Issue Summary: Could globalization collapse? It
may seem unlikely today. Yet despite many warnings, people were
shocked the last time globalization crumbled, with the onslaught
of World War I. Like today, that period was marked by imperial
overstretch, great-power rivalry, unstable alliances, rogue
regimes, and terrorist organizations. And the world is no better
prepared for calamity now. Ninety years ago this May, the German
submarine U-20 sank the Cunard liner Lusitania off the southern
coast of Ireland. Nearly 1,200 people, including 128 Americans,
lost their lives. Usually remembered for the damage it did to
the image of imperial Germany in the United States, the sinking
of the Lusitania also symbolized the end of the first age of
globalization. From around 1870 until World War I, the world
economy thrived in ways that look familiar today. The mobility
of commodities, capital, and labor reached record levels; the
sea-lanes and teleg