Bálint Varga

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, globalization arrived to Central Europe at a scale unknown to former generations. Central Europe became connected to other parts of the world via railways and modern channels of communication, which brought material and immaterial goods produced in global centers or in some remote places of the world. Millions of Central European sought a better life overseas, mainly in the United States. Exotic commodities, fashionable cultural products and “exotic” people arrived to Central Europe, reshaping local cultures. By analyzing these phenomena in fin-de-siècle Hungary, this project seeks to investigate Central Europe’s entry into the global world in the age what historians call first globalization or First Global Economy (ca. 1880–1914).