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| Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton Economic History of the Western World) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ronald Findlay;kevin H. O'rourke
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: £23.95
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New (30) Used (8) from £13.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 46276
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5
ISBN: 069111854X
Dewey Decimal Number: 382.09
EAN: 9780691118543
ASIN: 069111854X
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
A Big Time Fix August 7, 2008
As a fully paid up member of the Economic History Addicts' Society, I endorse this book unreservedly for all who are similarly afflicted.
As to the root of the addiction, that's simple, and partly explained by the authors up front: in order to understand where we are, it's necessary to understand how we got here, and understanding where we are is an important part of knowing how and where to move on.
Nevertheless, there are some initially gratuitous-seeming pleasures involved in the journey, like the discovery that the events in Russia of 988 CE were more significant than those of 1917, for example. But then it sinks in that this is the point at which the people that would become the Russians were assimilated by the "civilised" world, a process we can trace forward to the present day and Dmitry Medvedev.
There are some fascinating tales related to the development of trade and society at the turn of the first millennium CE, though it's odd that in an account encompassing the merry-go-round of faiths the authors themselves use the Christian appellation AD - whose "lord" are they referring to?
As we enter into the main body of the work we also get into illusion-shattering territory. There are a number of things that come up here that as a child in the UK education system of the sixties I either wasn't told or was told differently. For example, History lessons in the sixties portrayed Robert Clive, Clive of India, as an unequivocal hero; the reality it appears is more nuanced and dependent on your point of view, and I don't remember anybody mentioning that he met his end through suicide in the wake of a corporate scandal. History, as any wag will tell you, isn't what it used to be.
Much of the text is taken up in demonstrating the appropriateness of the hendiadys of the title: that there can be no Plenty without Power, and vice versa. In Great Britain they argue that there existed in the 19th Century a social contract whereby political freedoms were exchanged for higher taxes than would be tolerated by a disenfranchised citizenry. This enabled maintenance of an enormous "naval industrial complex", an expression revising Eisenhower's observation of the US in the fifties. This in turn enabled protection of existing markets, and the ability literally to break into new, overseas markets essential to fuel ongoing growth of the then nascent Industrial Revolution. In summing up the prevailing mercantilism of the time they quote the words of Jan Pieterzoon Coen: "We cannot make war without trade or trade without war".
In order to assemble their account the authors, as may be expected, have drawn upon a constellation of star sources in order to deliver sometimes a confirmation of one's existing world history view, sometimes a revision of that view, and incredibly often, and most excitingly, to insert a whole new narrative.
Examples, according to personal preference:
Towards the end of the book they analyse the inter-war conditions leading up to and causing WWII, and provide confirmation of my own view that the major factors were economic, as opposed to racially based, as contended by Niall Ferguson in War Of The World (an excellent book, notwithstanding).
In their account of the voyages of discovery they point out that as important, if not more so, as Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492 was the completion early in the same year as the Spanish Reconquista with the fall of Muslim Granada, the contract for which is commemorated in the city of the Reconquista itself, Granada, in the Plaza Isabel la Catolica, at the end of Gran Via de Colon. The suggestion here is that without the Reconquista either Columbus would not have gone, or he would have gone under the sponsorship of Portugal, or maybe Venice.
Finally, something I felt I should have known but didn't, that Europeans introduced Japan to the firearms which were quickly adopted and ultimately, it is calculated, hastened the unification of the islands, culminating in the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600, which saw the consolidation of Japan's unity.
There are a number of interesting notes on origins, such as that of the word "muslin", and meanings (Genghis Khan, universal ruler), some excellent devices for making connections (Silver, Silk and Spices leading to Slavery and Sugar) and also some thought-provoking games of consequences (Napoleon's war-strained coffers requiring the sale of Louisiana to the United States) and what-ifs (what if Britain had not been such an aggressive expansionist? Answer, no Industrial Revolution!).
And although there are some puzzling omissions - no mention of the financial innovations supposedly brought to bear in building Henry VIII's navy, for example - it's easy to realise that you have to draw the line somewhere: enough is as good as a feast.
So, a nice mix of historiographic porn - interesting for its own sake - and lessons for how we can thrive, or fail, in the future.
The future of gloablization. The imperative of attitude change of country leaders May 25, 2008
This book is like a six layer cake with as layers the periods 1000-1500, 1500 to 1650, 1650 to 1780, 1780 to 1814, 1914 to 1939, 1939 to 2007, and speculations about the future. Within each layer you find descriptions of what happened in seven regions that is Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North Africa with Southwest Asia, Central or Inner Asia, South Asia, and South East Asia. For each region you find wars, rulers, economic development including trade. And, especially important, the interaction and interdependence between regions
This is about as holistic, systematic and complex presentation you can ever hope to find. By the way the development of North and South America is included in Western Europe and Africa as it relates to other regions. The book is an outstanding example of a multidisciplinary approach combining the science of history with the science of economics. The book is written by an Irish and American professor. You can see from the choice of regions that it is not a European centric presentation. Asia dominated with many regions in year 1000 at the start and is moving to domination in 2007.
You will learn about many examples of interconnectedness you did not know. For example the industrial revolution in the UK would never have happened as a consequence of steam power and mechanisation in cotton spinning and weaving, only.. It was dependent on a rapid increasing supply of low cost cotton that was produced to almost 100% by slave labour in the Americas, continuous land grabbing in the Americas, military control of the seas by the UK Navy to transport the cotton to the UK and transporting cotton cloth for export and an industrial policy of protection of the UK cotton industry from foreign competition in the UK. You will also find many examples of causes of unforeseeable change. Just as an example consider the rapid expansion of population and wealth during the Song dynasty in China. That was made possible by the introduction of a different type of rice from what is now Vietnam that allowed three harvests per year.
The book demonstrates conclusively that major changes in the fortunes of countries' history cannot be understood without economics and wars and the other way around. It is disappointing even frightening to see how personal greed and greed by nations has been the driving factor of most of the major changes Concern for the well-being of others as a driving force is almost totally absent.
That should be a lesson for the future. When the increasing interdependence between nations is combined with greed as the driving force disaster is likely to occur. A disaster that can as yet can not be identified. Governments were never able to predict disasters in time in the past. That means that it is imperative that country leaders have to change their mind - sets and consider the well-being of other countries next to their own. Anybody reading this book will become convinced that this is an absolute necessity.
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