Yale Library Hosts Exhibit and Talk on Globalization

New Haven, Conn. — The Sterling Memorial Library of Yale University will host a talk by Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal Online and director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, to mark the opening of an exhibition on globalization and the launch of Chanda’s book, “Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors Shaped Globalization.” (Yale University Press)

Part of a series of events, titled “Global Faces of the Yale Library,” Chanda’s talk will take place at Sterling Memorial Library, 120 High St., on May 5, at 2 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

Chanda is former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly.

His talk, titled “A World Connected: How Traders, Preachers, Warriors and Adventurers Shaped Globalization,” will outline how the incessant crossing of borders by different groups seeking profit and adventure have helped to create the interconnected and interdependent world we live in today. Much of the material will be drawn from his new book, in which he traces how traders, preachers, warriors and adventurers have reshaped the world and reconnected us throughout history, while also offering a provocative discussion of what globalization means for the future.

The talk will also mark the formal opening of the exhibition “The History of Globalization: Artifacts and Documentation from Yale’s Collections,” on view in the courtyard corridor of Sterling Library, from April 20 through July 31.

Since it first came on the scene in the 1960s, the word “globalization” has engendered impassioned debate. Sometimes lost in the controversy is the fact that globalization is actually describing a process that has ancient origins. In this exhibition, items from Yale’s extensive collections are used to illustrate aspects of globalization throughout history, highlighting the four categories of agents who have, since earliest times, promoted interconnectedness: traders, preachers, adventurers and warriors. How did the human community, whose African ancestors spread all over the world, reconnect? What motivated the interactions between ancient peoples, and what do those motivations have to do with globalization as we understand it today? Only by examining the historical process of the world’s growing interconnectedness can we begin to understand how millennia-old filaments of connections have bound the human community together so tightly. Some of the items on display include Chinese porcelain, whaling ship logs, images of the Black Death, Babylonian clay tablets, a cast of a bird fossil, a letter from Charles Darwin and much more. The exhibition is curated by members of the Library’s Special Collections Collaborative, led by Martha Smalley, Special Collections Librarian and Curator of the Day Missions Collection at the Yale Divinity Library.