Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium

Very informative book!

To me, the "debate over globalization" is basically a journalists term for "people who don't know anything about international trade and economics trying to talk intelligently about international trade and economics." I would suggest that one can understand all of the major issues related to this subject without the benefit of a single annoying Thomas Freidman book, let alone without needing to trudge through the turgid sludge of the Jared Diamond's of the world. In fact, I think you really only need to read a single book to get a handle on the globalization debate, and as luck would have it, that would be this book: Power and Plenty: Trade, War & The World Economy in the Second Millennium. I found this book thanks to the Amazon recommendation algorithm- so another hat tip in the direction of Amazon.com, but once I saw it on my list, and saw that I could buy a remaindered paperback for less then a dollar, I was sold. The back flap contains solid recommendations from The Economist, The New Republic and the Financial Times and that, coupled with the solid academic credentials of the authors (Columbia University Professor of Economics, Trinity College (Dublin) Professor of Economics) cued me from page one that I was in for the type of solid synthesis of the overwhelming proliferation of scholarship in every field that a modern reader REQUIRES to obtain an understanding of a subject as complex as International Trade. In fact, nothing makes me happier then finding an excellent work of synthesis in a discourse which I sort of care about. I'm not going to read academic Journals of Economics, but I will read a 450 page book that lists about 200 of the best articles in the bibliography- go ahead: summarize it for me- I don't mind. Despite the overwhelming sounding theme of the title, Power and Plenty pretty much delivers exactly what the title says it does. The term "power and plenty" refers to the relationship between military power and international trade that characterized the relationship between the different regions of the world for most of the second millennium. As a framing device, the authors use regional designations. Specifically: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia/Islamic World, South Asia/India, South East Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia. Obviously, the Americas are ignored until the age of discovery, at which point they are incorporated into the model. Basically, the authors move chronologically and describe the interrelationships between the regions through time periods. At the beginning of the book, the world of Islam is the central player, and explaining Islam's relative decline compared to the west is a central concern of the first half of Power and Plenty. Another main concern of the book is to familiarize the reader with the areas of the world that are less familiar to western readers. For example, the description of trade between South Asia and South East Asia in the period between 1000-1300 gives as much information about the Tamil Chola Empire as I've been able to find in any book, anywhere. Prior to the rise of Western Europe, the authors are most concerned with showing that, in fact, the world has been involved in global trade from the jump off and European's historic ignorance of this trade is largely due to it's status as a backwater until well into the Middle Ages. Eventually, the decline of Islam is traced not to some kind of moral and intellectual failure (a popular theme for Western "Scholars" of Islam) but rather resulted from the assumption of power in the 1300s of Circassian Mamaluks- a group that showed no foresight when it came to economic management of the realm, and who's disastrous economic "policies" crushed incipient Middle Eastern economic development. The next major plot point is the "rise" of the West, foreshadowed during the early modern period's "Age of Exploration/Commerce" and really nailed into place during the Industrial Revolution. Along the way, the authors matter-of-factly acknowledge the inhumanity of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and it's role in cueing the industrial revolution, but one of the benefits of this book is that the reader can see how Europe itself was the main source for slaves until well into the Middle Ages. Does this mean that the Slave of Eastern Europe are owed endless apologies by the Turks and the Arabs? I think not. Perhaps the most useful single chapter in Power & Plenty is the discussion of the industrial revolution. First, was it really an industrial "revolution" (yes.) Second, what "caused" the industrial revolution. Again, historic explanations tend to favor moral/non-historical reasons like "because the British are Awesome" but what the authors clearly demonstrate is that it was a historic confluence of right time, right place and the access to the huge land resources of the new world. Specifically, the industrial revolution in England required that England have access to food imports to replace the decline in agricultural activity (US, Ireland). Second, the industrial revolution in England required that England have a never ending supply of cotton to feed it's newly industrialized clothing manufacturers (this is where slavery comes in.) Third, the industrial revolution required that England have access to markets to sell the increased number of products that the industrial revolution allowed it to manufacture (ironically, often to the slave generating territories of Africa during the early part of the Industrial revolution.) Power & Plenty gets less interesting as one moves towards the present, perhaps because the facts become so tiresomely familiar. Regardless, it's worth a look- especially for people looking to get a handle on the "Globalization" debate.

Un testo di storia economica; una ricca storiografia, una ampio numero di grafici e tabelle.La tesi che fa da sfondo al testo è la seguente: il mondo in cui viviamo attualmente è frutto di un processo economico, la globalizzazione, le cui radici affondano nell'anno 1000 d.c. Un processo che si è svolto con fasi alterne, e che solo dal tardo 18 secolo ha subito una rapida accelerazione. Da allora, con l'inizio della prima rivoluzione industriale, potere e benessere (POWER and PLenty), hanno contraddistinto lo sviluppo di una parte del globo (l'occidente).I due autori sono sicuramente dei convinti sostenitori della globalizzazione, ma almeno hanno l'onestà intellettuale di ammetere: a) che le forze dell'economia dei paesi occidentali affondano le proprie radici in guerre condotte con mezzi spesso poco ortodossi a danno di tutte le popolazioni del mondo (18-20 sec); B) che le forze del mercato sono elementi importanti dell'economia ma che accanto a queste una parte importante è ricoperta anche dalle istituzioni dello Stato Moderno.In definitiva il testo è utile per avere una infarinatura generale di storia economica; una sorta di aggiornamento.Secondo il mio modesto parere non è un testo speciale.

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.

La mondialisation n'est pas un phénomène contemporain, mais remonte à la conquête mongole. L'expansion commerciale n'a jamais été le moteur du développement mais le fruit du développement de la puissance politique. Ce livre est le fruit de sept ans de travaux d'auteurs spécialistes d'histoire économiques. Il met à bas les mythes mondialistes actuels en nous rappelant que la mondialisation économique actuelle est du même ordre de ce qu'elle était en 1913!Voilà qui permet de mettre en perspective le discours dominant sur la nécessité de "s'adapter" à un pseudo cours de l'histoire et de rééquilibrer le rapport en politique et économie.A lire, sans attendre la traduction en français,... qui ne viendra sans doute jamais vu le délabrement de l'édition scientifique française.