The story of globalization: From the neolithic era to the tea-opium countertrade of the 19th century

Long before nation-states existed, in prehistory when humankind split into distinct far-flung tribes, there began the concentration of value-added activities in workshops, task specialization, sequencing of tasks, economies of scale and learning, and trade across distances. This essay begins in the Neolithic era, alludes in passing to trade between Rome, China and India along the silk route two millennia ago, but then focuses in more detail on the last three hundred years with the example of the balance-of-payments crisis suffered by Britain because of tea imports from China, which then led to the Opium Wars, bitterly remembered to this day.