Product Description

Why are railroad tracks separated by the same four feet, eight inches as ancient Roman roads? How did 19th-century Europeans turn mountains of bird excrement from Peru into mountains of gold? Where has most of the world's oil come from in the 20th century? This new edition of "The World That Trade Created" reveals the answers to dozens of tantalizing questions like these. In a series of brief, highly readable vignettes the authors bring to life international trade and its actors - including migrants and merchants, pirates and privateers, sailors and slaves, traders and tree-tappers. In the process they make clear that the seemingly modern concept of economic globalization has deep historical roots. The authors also demonstrate that economic activity cannot be divorced from social and cultural contexts. This second edition provides enhanced coverage of Africa, the Middle East, and the 20th century, and features eighteen new vignettes, including two new pieces on oil.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22433 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 287 pages

Customer Reviews

A fun read!
Several years ago, a former student called on his history professors to write a short entertaining article in a magazine he had started for businessmen. This article became a regular feature in the magazine, and now these short stories - these vignettes - have been organized thematically into a book.

*The World That Trade Created* proves that economic history need not be boring or dry. While the stories introduce readers to people, places, times, and events that put "globalization" into historical perspective, this is definitely not a textbook. Perhaps the highest compliment that I can offer is that it is more suited to the bedside table than the classroom.

Pomeranz and Topik have assembled an entertaining and informative collage of historical snapshots centered more around oceans than continents, and (despite the 1400-Present subtitle) more upon the premodern and early modern trade than modern international trade. For the most part, this is a world in which geography and meteorology impose formidable, but not insuperable barriers to trans-hemispheric encounter and exchange, a world where drugs (coffee, sugar, chocolate, opium) "are the foundation of the world economy, not its aberration," a world which is not Eurocentric, but polycentric and multi-cultural.

There is something for everyone in this book - businessmen, travelers, history buffs, economists, geographers, students, and educators. The only thing missing are maps which, given the exotic locales that are often introduced, would be extremely helpful.

A wonderful Overview
This is a very entertaining overview of the development of world trade and world economy. The short essays (3 to 4 pages each) each cover a different topic and are far too short to become boring. If anything some of the chapters are too short.

The authors take an approach which is refereshingly not euro-centric, with many chapters covering the Far East and South America. In fact the authors' cynicism and disapproval of the hypocracy of European colonial expansion is a recurring theme throughout the book.

My favorite essay in the book discusses the rise and fall of Potosi, now a small dusty town in Bolivia but formerly one of the largest and richest cities in the world. Potosi's wealth came from the numerous silver mines dug into Cerro Rico, a mountain overlooking the city. Once the silver was gone, so were the good times. Having visited Potosi in 1993, I was delighted to read about the former glory and world renown of what is now, essentially little more than a vilage.

The book covers such varied topics as the connection between tea and the drug trade; the adoption of international timezones; piracy; the origin of coffee; and the impact of slave trade on the industrial revolution.

Overall the book is a great read interspresed with many amusing anecdotes that make history come alive. If you are interested in history, I definitely recommend this book.

More Than Just Facts
The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy 1400 to the Present is similar to recent cultural histories of seemingly unimportant topics like germs and the senses. There is a treasure trove of tiny facts that amaze, but do amount to an argument. The authors in very concise, cross-referenced articles set out on an ambitious project. They reject western triumphal without resorting to anti-imperialism, to reconstruct the world economy as it was before western science turned history to science.

The authors humorously undermine the teleological notion of an impersonal, dismal science of economics by producing counter-intuitive examples of irrational, political, and cultural policies. Little questions assume global importance. Any belief in market forces is reduced to tatters under the weight of facts, like railroad track gauges, coffee beans, and chocolate. This agenda gives the individual subjects, each the subject of it's own study in other places, coherence.

I sometimes found the organization of information annoying, however. Although well annotated and cross-referenced, a more chronological or geographical standard would be preferable. Although zooming from one end of the globe to another through centuries does achieve an effective de-westernizing quality, it seems repetitive and blurs the main argument. However, the reader is left with the strong impression of a very multi-faceted, multivalent world slowly reduced to western sterility.

However, this book is entertaining just for the individual sections, and the reader will never look at coffee or tea the same way again. So many myths are exploded in this book; its title should be more explosive too. The authors do a very good job of making economics light.