Creating a Global World: Free Trade, Gold, and Peacemaking

The contemporary global order has its roots in the informal global order of the nineteenth century. That order emerged because, between 1815 and 1914, Europe experienced the longest period of relative peace it has ever known, “the long weekend of world history.” Because European governments largely opted for peace, they could weave a web of economic and legal ties. These ties fostered trade, investment, and communication, a process that today we call globalization. Relative peace and breakthroughs in technology such as railroads, steamships, and telegraphs helped spark the internationalist movement. International organizations that joined together most of the world’s nations laid the foundations for today’s global order through such innovations as time zones, the Universal Postal Union, and the Red Cross. At the same time, leaders of the world’s first peace movement hoped that, just as slavery, illiteracy, and disease had been conquered through reforms, so war, too, could be eliminated. Although the hopes of the peace movement were often naïve, the contemporary global order has built upon its work by limiting war and promoting peacemaking.