Taking a page from neoliberal theories of free trade, Mann argues that left to their own economic devices, countries trade goods neither produces on their own in order to benefit both nations. In attempting to explain these centuries of violence, Mann divorces economics from politics.

In Mann’s discussion of the Chinese/Spanish trade in Manilla, he describes the repeated massacre of Chinese merchants by the Spanish, a cycle of violence that occurred every decade or two throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. The Philippines become the epicenter of global trade, and Mann’s discussion of Spanish colonization perhaps best illustrates his simplified, neoliberal understanding of the process of globalization. Japan and Siam (Thailand) in the nineteenth century might serve as instructive examples of non-European nations navigating globalization while rebuking colonialism, but both nations are given scant attention in the book. He cannot imagine that a non-European nation might engage with global trade in order to incorporate new goods and technology while maintaining self rule and rejecting colonialism. The conflict between Sulayman and the Spanish revolved around questions of colonialism and self rule, but in Mann’s eyes it’s really about whether a nation will engage in globalized trade or isolationism. Throughout the book, Mann engages in a form of presentism that forces him to flatten complex historical events into simple either or propositions. Looking around the Philippines, he observes in the present day numerous toys based on Western television shows and fast food restaurants and declares that in the end Sulayman lost. In his introduction, Mann describes his visit to Manila’s bust of Rajah Sulayman, a filipino leader who resisted Spanish rule, a conflict that for Mann represents one of the first battles between the forces of globalization and indigenous people. He sees globalization solely as the global movement towards laissez faire capitalism while ignoring alternative possibilities that might arise from our ever shrinking world. For Mann, globalization isn’t a process that could lead to multiple worldwide outcomes. However, Mann’s understanding of globalization carries with it an ideological subtext that affects his understanding of this five hundred year development.

In academia, this idea goes back at least forty years and is known as the Columbian Exchange.

Mann’s 1493, he makes the sensible argument that globalization’s roots stretch back all the way to Columbus’s stumble onto the Americas. We might simply define globalization as a process that involves technology’s ability to shrink time and distance, connect the world economy, and weaken state sovereignty. What is globalization? The answer may seem pretty obvious, especially in an age when “globalization” has become a buzzword.

Mann 1493