A Brief History of our Economy
By "our" economy, I am referring to the global economy. In the long history of time, too many nations have been born, too many have fissled out, and too many's bondaries have shifted. So, while reviewing the full history, we need to keep the noise out and look at the history of the global economy.
Even though all of us take pride in our own national economies, the fact of the matter is that today, almost none of our national economies can perform well in isolation, irrespective of whatever our politicians may want us to believe. We all depend on trading with one another, be it to earn an income or to keep prices low and manageable. That is why Global economy is important for us.
The history of our economy is very closely tied to the development of technology. These technologies have helped us improve farming and use of raw materials, improvements in construction, development of tools and machinery, improvement in healthcare, and improvement in storage and processing of information. All of these together allowed us to improve production, trading, distribution and consumption, all in all to have a better and stronger economy.
While looking at the overall history, I'd devide it into four different segments:
Foundational Developments
Agricultural Revolution
Industrial Revolution
Information Age
Foundational Developments:
Domesticatoin of Animals
Invention of Wheel
Invention of Fire
Stone Age Developments
Agricultural Revolution(s):
First Agricultural Revolution (Neolithic Revolution) - From hunter/gather to farming and settlement
Second Agricultural Revolution (mid-17th and late 19th centuries) - An unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries.
Industrial Revolution(s)
This is the second revolutionary saga for technology. This is marked by two separate periods, identified as revolutions.
First Industrial Revolution (1760's to 1840's) - A period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes
Second Industrial Revolution (1860's to 1920's) - A phase of rapid scientific discovery, standardisation, mass production and industrialisation from the late 19th century into the early 20th century.
Information Age/Third Industrial Revolution
This is the third revolutionary saga for technology. It is also known as:
Electronic Age
Computer Age
Digital Age
Silicon Age
New Media Age
Media Age
Information Age
The Information Age is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947 and the optical amplifier in 1957.
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