Part 1 : Response Assigned readings 1/2 (Cooper Fred)

Cooper Fred makes an analysis of globalization through significant events of the past decades. He explores often avoided topics/sides to globalization. In his work he looks into three principal historic events, that of the slave trade, colonization and the current diamond trade going on in war torn areas Sierra Leone and Angola.
Slave trade as an example of globalization? Some feel globalization should be centered on today’s happenings only or a clear separation between past and present globalization should be established. Which ever, let us first study the case of the slave trade.
The slave trade to begin was a clear exchange between peoples and regions. In Africa it brought western technology, weapons and ideas. In the Americas it brought labor and new people which supplied the sugar industry and to Europe it brought sugar, which is not native to the continent nor can be grown there. So as it seems there should be no reason to not include the slave trade when talking about globalization, what it is and it’s history. Looking closer into the picture, a race of people were enslaved, forcefully relocated, placed into forced labor and their rights taken away.