As Americans sit down to their Thanksgiving Day feasts, some may recall the story of the “Pilgrim Fathers” who founded one of the first English settlements in North America in 1620, at what is today the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

What many Americans don’t realize, however, is that the early settlers, half of whom had died, and the rest starving and shivering in the New England winter, were saved by an English-speaking Patuxet Indian who had returned from Europe after a six-year journey.  The settlers’ survival, which culminated in what we remember today as the first Thanksgiving feast, is a tale of globalization, many centuries before the word was even coined. And the turkey on Thanksgiving tables may not be a bird native to the U.S. but is more likely a bird of Mexican origin taken by the Spanish to Europe and (re)imported back to North America.

As Americans enjoy their repast, enquiring minds may wish to read my post at The Conversation https://theconversation.com/why-we-have-globalization-to-thank-for-thanksgiving-68638

Some understanding of globalization’s history may help those who attack it consider the historical long-term inevitability of the official motto of the United States (appearing on its Great Seal): “E Pluribus Unum.”

Farok J. Contractor, Ph.D.
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
Management & Global Business 
Rutgers Business School
1 Washington Park
Newark, New Jersey 07102-1897, USA
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