In this episode of The Civic Agora, host Javier Mejia speaks with Jeremy Adelman, Emeritus Professor of History at Princeton University and Director of the Global History Lab at the University of Cambridge, about the historical forces that have shaped the way people understand an increasingly interconnected world. Drawing on his book The Capitalist Era: The Making and Unmaking of the Global Mind, Adelman examines the relationship between capitalism and the ways societies have imagined, experienced, and responded to interdependence. He introduces the idea of the “global mind” as a way of understanding not only the material connections created by markets, finance, technology, energy, and trade, but also the emotions and ideas that accompany those connections including excitement, opportunity, fear, uncertainty, and anxiety about our dependence on strangers and distant institutions. The conversation considers the history of Latin America and the concept of dependency, while also questioning the idea that dependence has ever been entirely one directional. Adelman instead emphasizes interdependence: the ways different regions and societies have historically relied upon one another, even when those relationships have been profoundly unequal. The discussion traces these dynamics from colonial relationships and the nineteenth century world economy to the expansion of global capitalism and the growing importance of credit, financial markets, and energy systems. Adelman also reflects on the twentieth century, including the period between the First and Second World Wars, which he describes through the idea of a “global civil war” a period in which conflicts were increasingly shaped by the interconnected conditions of the modern world. The conversation explores how scarcity and interdependence can encourage zero sum thinking, how capitalism can simultaneously connect people and make relationships more anonymous, and how the costs of economic activity can be displaced onto others, including through debt and environmental consequences. A central theme throughout the episode is the tension between independence and interdependence. Even political declarations of independence, Adelman argues, can be understood as declarations of a particular kind of relationship with others: a demand to be recognized and to determine the terms on which one participates in a wider world. From the history of political economy to globalization, war, climate change, and the contemporary international order, this conversation asks a fundamental question: How did we learn to think about ourselves as part of an interconnected world and what happens when our ability to understand that interdependence falls behind the reality of it?
