Globalization is fast becoming the most over-used and least understood word in the world. The accelerating political, economic, cultural and environmental interconnections that it describes are powerful and controversial. But what does it really mean? Ever since Pythagoras first imagined the world as a sphere revolving around the sun, our planet has been shrinking. This book covers globalization from all angles: from 15th-century explorations to the rise of the multi-national corporation; from the Great Wall of China to the birth of the football World Cup. Opening the lid on the complex economics behind the controversies, MacGillivray gives equal play to technology and culture, politics and war. Alex MacGillivray is an activist inquisitive enough to find out where globalization has come from, and a historian rash enough to say where it is going next. Rich in detail, wide-ranging in scope and even-handed in its assessment of the benefits and dangers of globalization, here is the full story of how a mysterious flat earth became a global village.