International business is not a new phenomenon it extends back into history beyond the Phoenicians. Products have been traded across borders throughout recorded civilization, extending back beyond the Silk Road that once connected East with West from Xian to Rome. The Silk Road was probably the most influential international trade route of the last two millennia, literally shaping the world as we know it. For example, pasta, cheese, and ice cream, as well as the compass and explosives, among other things, were brought to the Western world from China via the Silk Road.

What is relatively new, beginning with large U.S. companies in the 1950s and 1960s and with European and Japanese companies in the 1970s and 1980s, is the large number of companies engaged in international investment with interrelated production and sales operations located around the world. At no other time in economic history have countries been more economically interdependent than they are today. Although the second half of the twentieth century saw the highest sustained growth rates of gross domestic product (GDP) in history, the growth in the international flow of goods and services has consistently surpassed the growth rate of the world economy. Simultaneously, the growth in international financial flows including foreign direct investment, portfolio investment, and trading in currencies has achieved a life of its own. Daily international financial flows now exceed $1 trillion. » Read more: International investment