Globalization is definitely a misused term in the modern world, where the trend in the last century has been countries having more effect over each other with every action taken between them. However, the Western world has definitely made the charge into modernity, with less-developed countries following behind, “catching up” to the rest of the world. This idea of catching up to other countries technologically or ideologically places a negative connotation on the state of the country, which Bright and Geyer respond to with the idea of an “explosive chain reaction,” which illustrates the cause and effect nations have with one another, pushing and pulling each other to the global norm, however slowly.
This is achieved through the simple breakdown of geographic and knowledge barriers between nations. Bright and Geyer explain that as distances could be traversed more quickly, culture pervaded into new areas more quickly, leading to greater interconnectedness between nations that originally remained closed-off from the global scene. They then move to explain that these countries who were originally thinking of “a matter of whether or not to be a part of a global history and more and more a contestation over the terms of that engagement and over one’s placement in it.” This is entirely evident in the constant power struggle through the first half of the 1900s, where empires, nations, dictatorships and small countries were vying for the best seat at the metaphorical negotiation table.