Ghemawat backs up his contrarian view, that the world is actually only about 10 to 25 percent globalized, with a fascinating set of statistics. The expanded version of his DHL Global Connectedness Index (PDF), released in November 2012, measures the depth and breadth of 10 types of international flows—and finds them lacking. For example, who knew that cross-country-border telephone calls represent at most 7 percent of all voice calling? Or that first-generation immigrants account for only about 3 percent of the world’s population? Or, more significantly, that foreign direct investment typically accounts for less than 10 percent of all investment in a given year?

Cultural barriers are increasingly irrelevant: To cite just one example, Alejandro Ramírez, a young entrepreneur from Morelia, Mexico, is one of the leading players in the cineplex business—in India. Ramirez’s company, Cinépolis, began as a one-screen movie house in the 1940s in provincial Michoacán state. It’s since become the largest cineplex company in Mexico and Central America and is now seeking to meet India’s demand for modern multiplexes—there are only about a thousand modern film screens for more than 1.2 billion people—by adding 500 screens in the next few years.