Proto-globalization or 'early modern globalization' is a periodization of the history of globalization roughly spanning the years between 1600 and 1800. First introduced by historians A.G. Hopkins and Christopher Bayly, the term describes the phase of increasing trade links and cultural exchange that characterized the period immediately preceding the advent of so-called 'modern globalization' in the nineteenth century.

Proto-globalization differed in significant ways from the various manifestations of archaic globalization from which it emerged. Whereas global trade prior to the sixteenth century typically involved the exchange of rarities such as spices, gems, drugs or silk, proto-globalization fed upon the mature implementation of the plantation economy system and therefore involved the worldwide transfer of basic commodities such as cotton, rice or tobacco on an unprecedented scale. Consequently, it was closely connected to the rise of the Atlantic slave trade.

Proto-globalization was not a purely European phenomenon. Rather, it grew out of the increasing contacts between European, Muslim, Indian, Southeast Asian and Chinese merchants, particularly in the Indian Ocean region. The transfer of plant and animal crops and epidemic diseases associated with Alfred Crosby's concept of The Columbian Exchange also played a central role in this process. The age of proto-globalization witnessed the adoption of Amerindian tobacco by cultures throughout the globe, for instance, as well as important new foods such as maize, the potato, and the chili pepper.

According to Christopher Bayly, proto-globalization was premised on a shared conception of bodily practice throughout Eurasia that attached value to certain goods because of their perceived spiritual, moral and health benefits. Bayly, Hopkins and others stress that proto-globalization's transformation into modern globalization was a complex process that took place at different times in different regions, and involved the hold-over of older notions of value and rarity which had their origins in the pre-modern period.