Globalization is a process that has been occurring for more than five centuries, and it can be seen as both responsible for, and a cure for, poverty. Since the end of the Reconquista (reconquest) in Spain in 1492, when Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II occupied Granada, it was not just Portugal that longed for a sea route to India. While Vasco da Gama was arriving in India in 1498, Christopher Columbus had reached the Caribbean Isles and discovered a new continent, named America some years later by cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. What followed was a period in which the European powers longed for economic gain and influence in overseas countries. After that initial period, which also saw the establishment of an Atlantic slave trade ...