Book Description
In this important study, Abu-Lughod presents a groundbreaking reinterpretation of global economic evolution, arguing that the modern world economy had its roots not in the sixteenth century, as is widely supposed, but in the thirteenth century economy--a system far different from the European world system which emerged from it. Using the city as the working unit of analysis, Before European Hegemony provides a new paradigm for understanding the evolution of world systems by tracing the rise of a system that, at its peak in the opening decades of the 14th century, involved a vast region stretching between northwest Europe and China. Writing in a clear and lively style, Abu-Lughod explores the reasons for the eventual decay of this system and the rise of European hegemony.
Customer Reviews:
Eurasian interactions.......2005-12-09
A work drawing on deep scholarship providing welcome adjustment to views that overstate Europe's precocity and importance before 1500. Europe was a peripheral backwater prior to its export of the Eurasian disease pool to the Americas (and even for some time after). Abu-Lughod examines each major area of the Eurasian trading network in term, bringing out how much events in one area were affected by changes elsewhere (in particular, how much Europeans were responding to such changes).
I also found Abu-Lughod's scepticism about grand conceptual schemas and strong preference for considering the complex texture of reality engaging. She sets out a highly informative history of the creation of an interacting Eurasian economy under the period of Mongol domination and how changes among the various participating powers (particularly China) resulted in the interactions falling back to a lower level. She also argues a power vacuum was set up in the Indian Ocean that the Europeans (first the Portugese, then the Dutch and finally the British) were able to fill. That there was a "Fall of the East" prior to there being a "Rise of the West". She does a nice job of debunking "cultural" and "Confucian-isolationism" explanations for China's shift, placing the public policy considerations the Ming court was dealing with in a more plausible context.
My first quibble is with the title. This is about the Eurasian system, not a global one, a point the author herself concedes (p.37). It is a "world" system only in terms of the Old World/New World usage and, to be fair, she is responding to Immanuel Wallerstein's coinage of the term. The second is she suffers from the modern academic fetish for shudder quotes, though at least she is often prepared to explain in more detail why concepts are problematic, rather than simply engaging in the tedious knowing-virtue wink. The worst bit of the book, as so often is the way, is when she attempts to look forward. The talking down of the stability of the current world-system, and the situation of the US in particular, reads rather poorly for a book published in 1989 with clearly no sense whatsoever of the impending collapse of the Soviet empire.
But the book is very readable and extremely informative, the personality of the author engaging. An excellent way of coming to grips with how global history works.
Provocative.......2005-02-12
This book is approaching the status of a classic. While a work of history, the author is not a historian but rather a sociologist with an interest in the role of cities. Perhaps because she was a disciplinary outsider not specializing in a given historical period, as well as being used to comparative analysis, Abu-Lughod adopted a cross-cultural approach. The starting point for this book was the prevailing belief that a world economy was created by Europeans in the early modern period. More naive interpretations saw this as a logical development of European capitalism and that capitalism was unique to Europe. A major point of this book is that a world economic system, spanning all of Eurasia and including Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa existed prior to the early modern period. This world system was based on pre-existing regional trade networks in the Eastern Mediterrenean, the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and China. Some of these linkages, like the famous Silk road across Central Asia and trade across the Indian Ocean, were ancient.
Abu-Lughod reconstructs a true world economy stretching from western Europe to China reaching its peak during the 13th and 14th centuries and then declining. She shows that Europe joined this system relatively late and was a smaller component of these large trade networks. The peak of this world system is associated with the Mongol conquest of Central Asia and China. Mongol successes are seen as simultaneously making trade across Central Asia, the northern axis of the world system, and trade through the Indian Ocean and south China, the southern axis, more efficient. This lead to a Eurasian boom. As a corollary, Abu-Lughod explores the richly capitalist nature of trade in the Muslim, Indian, and Chinese regions making up the world system. Some of the institutional innovations attributed to Medieval and Renaissance European merchants may have been borrowed from the Muslim world.
If the Mongols were the inadvertant architects of this system, they were also the inadvertant cause of its collapse. The key event is the Black Death, a Eurasian pandemic which probably originated in central Asia and was spread by Mongol armies and trade made possible by their states. The resulting depopulations and political instability, including the Ming expulsion of the Mongol from China, crippled the Medieval world system, though it left intact regional trade networks, particularly in Asia that the Europeans would join and come to dominate in the Early Modern period.
A final and more controversial point made by Abu-Lughod is that the success of Europeans in subsequently reconstructing and dominating, in an unprecedented way, the Eurasian trade system was the withdrawal of the Chinese state from interest in trade. Under the later Ming, the powerful Chinese navy was dissolved and trade through southern China ceased to be an important issue for the Chinese state. The subsequent power vacuum made European domination possible. This may not be entirely correct but is argued well.
This book has become the point of departure for much subsequent important work in world history. It is well written and has a nice bibliography.
A landmark of the "new" economic history.......2004-03-17
There are few books in the field of economic history that I'd say are both landmarks and enjoyable to read. Assuming the reader has a great interest in history, Before European Hegemony is certainly one of them.
Abu-Lughod's excellent world systems survey details the inter-connections between pre-modern economies and societies of the era. There is also the sense of continuity between these pre-modern economic relationships and the modern era.
Special mention should be made of the fact that Before European Hegemony was one of the first of a new wave of economic, historical and sociological studies that de-emphasized the eurocentric histories that came before them. Guilty of the same simplistic approaches the eurocentric histories were charged with, for example giving the only reason for the rise of the West as military might, much of what followed Before European Hegemony was, in a word, garbage. Not so, this groundbreaking study.
Well researched, well written and highly recommended.
Great book, but still one sided.......2003-02-23
Dr. Abu Lughod's book is a great work of scholarship and a much needed addition to the "New Histories" being written that show the history as it really happened.
Still, as Gunder Frank mentions in his review of this book, Abu Lughod misses one point in her survey. She sees the world economy as a disconnected series of events, and much like Wallerstein, maintains the idea that world after 1500 hundred was not connected to the one before that date. She treats the Mongol trade network as an isolated world-system, instead of a period in the world system.
This is a small flaw in the face of so many larger problems we have in current historiography. A great read, and I suggest you read it in conjunction with ReOrient, The Colonizers' Model of the World, and World System History.
Continuity in global connections -- the rest of the history.......2001-12-18
In much the same way that Eric Wolf shows the world before European conquest in his book titled Europe and the People Without History starting in 1400, Abu-Lughod begins before the European trade routes by ship. She traces the cross-continent trade routes of India, China and the Mediterranean. By looking back to these early systems of trade, Abu-Lughod shows how ideas, foods, language and people were transported between regions of the earth long before colonialism took hold. By looking at movements of people and ideas before Europe's world domination, Abu-Lughod is able to take a new look at the future - a perspective that does not seem as deterministic as other historic views. Europe was not necessarily "destined" to become the greatest region on the planet and it need not be in the future.
This new look at history provides a wider framework from which to understand the current era. While it is true that computer technology and the spread of the Internet has been facilitated predominately by English-speaking programmers and subsequently English-based programs, this might not be the wave of the future. Looking at how vast regions of the planet interacted centuries ago provides a better base from which to understand how they might interact in the future. The people from the same geo-political regions that Abu-Lughod describes in her book are now "commuting" or "traveling" and conversing via electronic media. How will the new instrument of communication change the way these people share time and space?
Book Description
The Roman empire tends to be seen as a whole whereas the early middle ages tends to be seen as a collection of regional histories, roughly corresponding to the land-areas of modern nation states. As a result, early medieval history is much more fragmented, and there have been few convincing syntheses of socio-economic change in the post-Roman world since the 1930s. In recent decades, the rise of early medieval archaeology has also transformed our source-base, but this has not been adequately integrated into analyses of documentary history in almost any country. In Framing the Early Middle Ages Chris Wickham combines documentary and archaeological evidence to create a comparative history of the period 400-800. His analysis embraces each of the regions of the late Roman and immediately post-Roman world, from Denmark to Egypt. The book concentrates on classic socio-economic themes, state finance, the wealth and identity of the aristocracy, estate management, peasant society, rural settlement, cities, and exchange. These give only a partial picture of the period, but they frame and explain other developments. Earlier syntheses have taken the development of a single region as 'typical', with divergent developments presented as exceptions. This book takes all different developments as typical, and aims to construct a synthesis based on a better understanding of difference and the reasons for it.
Customer Reviews:
Trend-setting.......2007-03-04
Late Antiquity is still quite controversial. Its application, time boundaries, and geographic limits still a matter of debate. As such, theories about its true nature and its application to historical study is still undetermined and is being revised everyday.
This book, much like the book that landed 'Late Antiquity' as a free-standing period in English historical enquiry (Peter Brown's "The World of Late Antiquity") is a trend-setter. Wickham's excellent scholarship, plus the fact that he dares and explores new waters and concepts, is ground breaking and profound. This book is going to be the "Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World" of its generation and have many volumes written in "response" to it. A must have, no doubt about it, for anyone interested in the Late Antique and Early Medieval history, and a must read for anyone interested in pre-Industrial Revolution economic history, regardless of time and place!
Fantastic Survey!.......2006-09-04
Chris Wickham explores the world of the early Middle Ages in a systematic way. Using literary and archaeological evidence, Wickham describes the changes which took place in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa after the fall of Rome. He maintains that despite the great political upheavals of the time, local continuity was a hallmark of this period. Economic decline and regrowth were connected with changes in the power and wealth of the aristocracy, who also exercised lesser or greater control over the land and the people.
While this massive piece of scholarship does not address cultural or intellectual history, it provides a very clear picture of the political and economic changes that transformed the former Roman Empire during the years 400-800 A.D. The writing is lively and easy to read, and the work is well organized. The full index and large bibliography as well as the broad range of topics covered make this book an indispensible reference tool for anyone studying Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Book Description
A great Belgian historian recounts the economic and social evolution of Western Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the mid-fifteenth century. Translated by I. E. Clegg.
Customer Reviews:
Impressive work!.......2002-10-17
Pirenne's book first appeared in print in 1933, so I have to admit I was a little leery about reading it even though I have an interest in feudal economics. I was concerned that it would be a stuffy tome that was written in a dense and archaic academic style. To my surprise, this book is an extraordinarily good read, most interesting, and very informative. And unlike many books on this subject, a casual reader can be assured that a master's level background on the subject is not necessary to read this book.
Picking up at the end of the Roman Empire and running through approximately the middle 1500s, Pirenne tackles the full spectrum of economic and sociological issues as they evolved throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. Specifically, he relates how commerce was revived after the break-up of the economic and cultural stability that existed in the ancient world. Concepts such as the re-issuance of a currency, the rebirth of a money economy, rediscovery of credit, and how urban industry developed are covered and explained in detail. This is a very complete picture of economic and sociological circumstances that existed during the middle ages, as you are likely to see.
Pirenne takes the reader on a journey that attempts to plug the Medieval Period knowledge gap with a detailed explanation of economic development. Geographically (and culturally) he is able to discuss developments throughout all of Europe, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. If you are interested in learning more about conditions in Europe during the Middle Ages and want a fuller understand of how the western economic system developed, pick up this book
Masterful explanation of Economics during the Middle Ages.......2002-10-08
Pirenne's book first appeared in print in 1933, so I have to admit I was a little leery about reading it even though I have an interest in feudal economics. I was concerned that it would be a stuffy tome that was written in a dense and archaic academic style. To my surprise, this book is an extraordinarily good read, most interesting, and very informative. And unlike many books on this subject, a casual reader can be assured that a master's level background on the subject is not necessary to read this book.
Picking up at the end of the Roman Empire and running through approximately the middle 1500s, Pirenne tackles the full spectrum of economic and sociological issues as they evolved throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. Specifically, he relates how commerce was revived after the break-up of the economic and cultural stability that existed in the ancient world. Concepts such as the re-issuance of a currency, the rebirth of a money economy, rediscovery of credit, and how urban industry developed are covered and explained in detail. This is a very complete picture of economic and sociological circumstances that existed during the middle ages as you are likely to see.
Pirenne takes the reader on a journey that attempts to plug the Medieval Period knowledge gap with a detailed explanation of economic development. Geographically (and culturally) he is able to discuss developments throughout all of Europe, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. If you are interested in learning more about conditions in Europe during the Middle Ages and want a fuller understand of how the western economic system developed, pick up this book
Outstanding history of the Middle Ages Revising Assumptions.......2002-01-25
This wonderfully readable book provides, in a little more than 200 pages no less, a concise summary of economic development and social history during the much derided, abused and forgotten Middle Ages and also summarizes Pirenne's radical views about the real cause of the Dark Ages (he proposes that the Arab Conquest of the Mediterranean basin and Spain and not the Germanic invasions caused the collapse of European Civilization). He also explores, in outline, the general economic rise of Europe after the year 1000, culminating in medieval high point of the mid-Fourteenth Century and the sort of stability that lasted from that period (1350) until the Age of Exploration began and radically altered everything again. It was in the Low Countries and Italy that "capitalism" and the first industrial revolution really began and Pirenne shows how and why this occurred.
In this day and age where most people's image of the Middle Ages, if they have one, is based on movies like Kevin Costner's godawful "Robin Hood" and the fun, but totally make-believe, "A Knight's Tale" this book sets forth, concisely, the fascinating complexity of the age that established Christianity as the faith of Europe and the political-social system that ruled 3/4s of the Earth's surface until 1918 and whose vestiges we can still see in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, et al.
Educated people have taken Gibbon's dismissive derision of the Middle Ages as a period of nothing but violence, superstition and stagnation. Pirenne demolishes Gibbon's amazingly shallow view with a wealth of detail and vivid, easily readable narrative. Although not the masterpiece of literature that Gibbon produced, this volume avoids the joyful boredom that so many writers of economic history seem to delight in inflicting upon their readers.
The translation from the French by I.E. Clegg is smooth and idiomatic. Pirenne, who apparently spoke English fluently, helped to prepare the translation.
The only irritating part of the book is the presence of several large blocks of untranslated Latin and Old French. Given the general ignorance of Latin (and I am one of the ignorant, I am ashamed to say), Clegg or Pirenne should have translated it for the benefit of the Latinless. Although I read French with some ability, the Old French (pre-1300) uses spellings and some words that I simply can't understand. Modern French dictionaries are useless. Harcourt-Brace should find some present-day academic to "edit" a new edition and translate these passages! A smoother typeface than the ancient "Times-Roman" would also be nice.
All in all, if you have any interest in medieval history (especially if you are of European descent) or wish to understand how the market system of economics took form, I highly, highly recommend this book!
Interesting Reading!.......2000-03-30
Normally I'm don't read much history...but this book really was very interesting. The way it is written is timeless, very intelligent, informative, and enjoyable! If you like medieval history, you will enjoy this.
Book Description
It was in the second half of the first millennium A.D. that northern Europe took on the basic configuration that it now presents. Recently a wealth of new archaeological evidence has emerged to enable historians to assess the growth of international trade and the evolution of towns in this crucial period. This book analyses models of economic development in the light of this new evidence to evaluate not only the changing character of the first post-Roman urban centers but also the organization of the countryside which supported them. Boat remains, coins and trade artifacts are all examined. Finally, a general account is offered of the role of towns and trade in the creation of Western Europe. This is the first synthesis of its kind for the medieval period, and confirms the importance of archaeology as a major source of evidence for an understanding of the economic history of the Dark Ages.
Book Description
Women brewed and sold most of the ale consumed in medieval England, but after 1350, men slowly took over the trade. By 1600, most brewers in London were male, and men also dominated the trade in many towns and villages. This book asks how, when, and why brewing ceased to be women's work and instead became a job for men. Employing a wide variety of sources and methods, Bennett vividly describes how brewsters (that is, female brewers) gradually left the trade. She also offers a compelling account of the endurance of patriarchy during this time of dramatic change.
Customer Reviews:
Chock full of information.......2001-06-30
I've been researching beer & brewing and this book was a great look at the time when the business changed from a largely female run, household-based, business, to a guild-organized, male-dominated business. I had no idea how the Black Death contributed to this change. A fascinating book!
Book Description
This source book traces, through contemporary writings, the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe, with particular reference to its spread across England from 1345 to 1349.
Customer Reviews:
The Plague: Up-close and Personal.......2001-11-17
I agree with the excellent review already listed here, but I would like to add that the value of the book for a more casual reader (like myself) is having the opportunity to read the reactions to and observation of the plague by people who lived through this terrible period. The reality of their words heightened the reality of the period for me. It is true that some parts of the book were a bit too dense for me (some of the allusions went right over my head), but the rest of the book provides a wonderful insight into the minds and souls of real human beings who still have much to say to those of us living centuries later. Highly recommended--and not just for scholars.
An invaluable text.......2001-05-14
From 1348 to 1350 Europe was devastated by an epidemic that left between one third and one half of the population dead. Using contemporary writings, this collection of sources traces the calamitous impact of the Black Death in Europe, with particular emphasis on its spread across England from 1348 to 1349. Rosemary Horrox surveys contemporary responses to the plague. The almost universal belief that the plague was an expression of divine anger at the sins of humankind did not preclude the attempts to explain the epidemic in scientific and medical terms or to look for human scapegoats. The sources which are included show some of the social and psychological impact of the plague, chronicle its effects on the late-medieval economy, and illustrate the fear that spread with the disease as well as the diverse ways that such terror influenced social behavior.
Part One focuses on narrative accounts of the plague in Continental Europe and in the British Isles. Part Two examines explanations and responses to the plague, including religious and scientific. Part Three deals with the extraordinary consequences of the plague, its impact and repercussions. Finally the text ends with excellent and up-to-date suggestions for further reading.
Dr. Horrox's text is the most extensive collection of relevant sources in translation and is an invaluable addition to the field. This book should be a part of the personal collection of every serious student of the Medieval period.
Book Description
In the early 1980s, Duccio Balestracci discovered in a Sienese archive two account books kept from 1450 to 1502 by a Tuscan peasant named Benedetto del Massarizia. Benedetto knew how to read but not how to write. Infected by the urban habit of detailed personal record keeping, he asked various of his literate acquaintances to put into writing the details of his daily affairs. The resulting account books offer an unparalleled glimpse into the economic and social world of late medieval peasants. In Renaissance in the Fields, Balestracci uses these account books and a host of supporting archival records to explore the lives of Benedetto and his family over the course of the fifteenth century. In Benedetto we see how country people could organize land and capital and protect themselves, at least a little, from rapacious landlords and urban administrators. By capturing the changing realities of life in the countryside, Renaissance in the Fields offers the best introduction to how the peasant economy really worked, and to how most people actually lived during the Italian Renaissance.
Book Description
The Greek pandocheion, the Arabic funduq, and Latin fondaco were hostelries for medieval Mediterranean travellers that evolved into centers of trade between Muslim and Christian regions. Olivia Remie Constable traces the evolution of this family of institutions from the pandocheion in Late Antiquity to the arrival of European merchants in Islamic markets and the appearance of the fondaco. Constable's study demonstrates the role of common economic interests in their development.
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Power and Property in Medieval Germany: Economic and Social Change c.900-1300
Benjamin Arnold
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Economic History
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
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General
| Europe
| History
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General
| Germany
| Europe
| History
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Medieval
| Germany
| Europe
| History
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General
| World
| History
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Medieval
| World
| History
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Social History
| Historical Study
| History
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ASIN: 0199272212 |
Book Description
In Power and Property in Medieval Germany Professor Arnold takes a fresh look at the problems posed by power and property in a medieval society, in this case the German kingdom. In a series of interrelated studies, Arnold explains the ongoing social and economic relationships between classes
and institutions, peasants and lords, the royal court, towns and townsfolk, and the Church and aristocracy.
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