Customer Reviews

Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the last few years I have been looking for books offering a general overview of the past, and I have realized that many books entitled "History of ...whatever" only provide information about the West, the rest of the world being almost ignored. "Power and Plenty" is different, it is truly a global work so when I found this book I decided it to give it a chance (despite the fact that although the book's subtitle is "Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium", however, trade from 1000 to 1500 takes up only 55 pages of the 540-plus pages of the book's narrative).

Pursuant to the authors, "the pattern of trade can only be understood as being the outcome of some military or political equilibrium between contending powers", which is a big story to tell. After reading Mr. Izaak Van Gaalen's excellent review, I will only add that this work is a definitive economic history of many things, including globalization and trade, but often the accumulation of detail slows the book down; it is not an entertaining read - frankly, for most people it will be too long and too tedious - except when the authors try and explain why things happened in this or that way (e.g. their review of the Pirenne Thesis or when they re-examine the vexing question of why the Industrial Revolution took place in U.K. - why not in Asia); in any event, it is nicely balanced and an excellent reference book for anyone wanting a better understanding of economic developments of the past millennium.I guess will be an essential acquisition for the shelves of specialists.

Therefore, my rating is between 5 (content) and 3 (pleasure, sometimes falling to 1, sometimes raising to 4).

Additionally, as a complement to "Power and Plenty", I would also suggest reading (hoping that will be of use for those looking for a broad framework to understand the past) the following works, whose scope is as amazingly global as "Power and Plenty": 1. Agrarian cultures: "Pre-industrial societies" by Patricia Crone; 2. Economy: "The world economy. A millennial perspective" (2001) plus "The world economy: Historical Statistics" (2003) by Angus Maddison (a combined edition of these two volumes appeared on December 2007); 3. Government: "The History of Government" by S.E. Finer; 4. Ideas: "Ideas, a History from Fire to Freud", by Peter Watson; 5. Religion: "The Phenomenon of Religion: A Thematic Approach" by Moojan Momen; and 6. War: "War in Human Civilization" by Azar Gat.

According to Ricardo's theory of trade and comparative advantage, nations reach economic quilibrium through the reciprocity of supply and demand. He was assuming, of course, that all markets were free and all actors rational. This was the ideal rather than the real. Now, economists Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke advance a modified version of this thesis: trade, or the flow of supply and demand, must be understood within the context political and military equilibrium. It was John Kenneth Gailbraith who said that economics is a political contruct. The authors of this new book attempt to interpret the last 1,000 years of world history where trade flows were determined by "the barrel of a Maxim gun, the edge of a scimitar, or the ferocity of a nomadic horseman."

Many historians and economists have written world economic histories, but they have focused on only particular regions. For example, Eric Jones in The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia saw history from a European perspective and, on the other side, Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. was told from a more sinocentric point of view. The authors of this work give a more balanced account, treating all the regions equally. The authors believe that politics determines economics more than the other way around focus their attention first and foremost on global conflict and geopolitics.

The authors argue that there were three great world historical events that shaped the Second Millenium. The first being Pax Mongolica established by Genghis Khan and the nomads of Central Asia. This established by force the first common market stretching from Western Europe to the Sea of Japan. It resulted in a huge increase in population as well as an increase in economic output. It also brought with it microbes which caused the Black Death in Europe.

The second transformational event was the discovery of the New World along with further exploration of Africa and Asia. This was in many ways a consequence of the first event. The period from 1500 to 1650 was known as the Age of Mercantilism. The authors focus on political and military strategies adopted by Asians to counter European colonial and mercantile policies.

The third transformational event was the Industrial Revolution. Its importance to the last two centuries almost cannot be overemphasized. The technological world we live in today got its start in Northern England two hundred years ago. It marked the beginnig of the "great divergence" in wealth among nations. It had a direct influence on the Napoleonic Wars and World Wars I and II. It also lead to Pax Britannica and, after World War II, Pax Americana.

The authors describe the successive eras of world trade as they were determined by imperialism and global conflict. In each new era a different set of geopolitical relations is established, each time altering the currents of trade. The authors hope that some lessons can be learned from the violence and injustice of past conflicts as newly emerging powers such as China and India take the world stage today. There are presently centrifugal and centripetal forces at work: centripetal being the ever-integrating force of technological progress and centrifugal being anti-globalization backlash. This book can provide valuable information regarding these two forces.

This book is to be bought for the first 7 and a half chapters. It's a solid 4 star rating then. The topic is simply too broad for any single volume book to get 5 stars. In other words, this is a readable bibliography. It doesn't always handle the sources well, so truly, use it as a bibliography!

The reduction to three stars is entirely based on that the authors completely dropped the ball on colonialization. How it was formed, what role it played in the local economy, how force was used, and how it buttressed the world economy, these were all missing, or had one line apologetic acknowledgements. It led to charts that show how the Belgian Congo and French West Africa were some of the fastest expanding economies in the world, when most people reading this are going to be familiar with Joseph Conrad's opus. There were other highly autistic use of data when it refers to the colonial states. The relunctance to frankly deal with colonialism impacted the book from the latter half of the seventh chapter on. Lastly, perhaps related, or unrelated, some of the fairly critical events of the latter half of the 20th century but in the Third World, like the debt crisis of the 1970s, the iranian revolution and war with Iraq, the Mexican Peso Crisis, and the 1997 asian finacial crisis all apparently merited little or no mention. Anyone reading this book by itself is going to be somewhat misinformed without something on third world (and Marxist--it was pretty thin there as well) economic history.

It is a good book, just understand that the typical Western Triumphalist outlook starts peaking out towards the end.

This well written book is a successful effort to summarize and synthesize a large secondary literature on the history of international trade over the last millenium. The authors adopt a chronological approach starting at 1000 CE and conclude with the recent re-emergence of the high degree of global trade in the last half century. The first chapter offers an overview and methodological discussion. Chapter 2, which stresses the economic importance and sophistication of the Islamic world and China, reconstructs the state of the Eurasian international economy. Chapter 3 describes the positive effects of the emergence of the Mongol Empire with its great facilitation of trans-Eurasian trade, followed by wholesale transformation of the Eurasian world by the consequent Black Death and its various sequealae. Chapter 4 describes the European voyages around Africa and the beginning of the integration of the Western Hemisphere into the Eurasian, now world economy. This is all very well done and the authors do a good job of summarizing the significant secondary literature on these topics with a nicely critical approach to the often fragmentary data. The emphasis, throughout, is on the interaction of economics and political history. Much of this, however, will be familiar to those with a good knowledge of history.

The authors really hit their stride and introduce a significant level of analysis with Chapter 5, which discusses European Mercantilism, and the succeeding chapters. The higher level of description and analysis is probably due to the availability of more complete data, particularly for European trade and economic performance. Chapter 6, on the Industrial Revolution, is a very thoughtful discussion of the literature on the origins of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, concluding with a sophisticated multifactorial description of the emergence of the first Industrial economy. The authors do a very nice job of stressing contingent features and the role of political and social history. The subsequent chapters, on the 19th century economy, the disatrous effects of the World Wars and the re-emergence of a high degree of global trade in the last half century, are excellent.

The quality of writing is quite good, the authors are careful to avoid using a lot of economics technical language, though a basic knowledge of economics is very helpful in reading this book, and the bibliography is comprehensive. Unlike many historians, and like many economists, the authors make good use of charts and graphs. It would have been helpful to have a few overview figures summarizing trade flows during the different periods discussed by the authors.

I should note that although I do not have a background in economics, I might be the perfect layperson for this book as I do have a degree in history. I understand probably about as much economic theory as most semi-educated people, and hopefully a little more history. For the most part, I could follow along the economic arguments, although a few theoretical points required some review. However, there were quite a few parts where I was glad that I already knew which historic events they referred to, because sometimes they made a mention of it and then simply moved on. The most obvious was the second world war and the Holocaust, although it could be reasonably argued that most (semi-educated) people are pretty well-versed in the most basic facts of that conflict.

That would be my only complaint about this book, and as I said, one that didn't negatively affect my enjoyment of it. The book opens with a survey of where the major and minor geo-political players were at the beginning of the Second Millenium. Yes, we all know that the area roughly referred to as the Middle East made the rest of the world look like barbarians at the time (and yes, pun intended), but the authors still do a good job of impressing the reader with the vast scope of their economic activities. However, they also show that other areas, particularly East Asia but even Western Europe, were more sophisticated than they are usually given credit for. What is most valuable though is the explanation of the interactions all of the regions had with each other. Although the Middle East had the most far-reaching and complex and Europe the fewest, the total picture makes it clear that on balance the world at the beginning of the Second Millenium was much more connected than most people realize. One of the major themes of the story is not just the effect of political jockeying on trade but also the ebb and flow of the interconnections between the regions of the world.

The discussion on the effects of the Black Plague/Black Death was the one that felt the most appropriate for an economics textbook. This section was very dependent upon a number of graphs and seemed to use the most economic theory. I expected subsequent sections to be in the same vein, but the scope seemed to get bigger afterwards, for lack of a better word.

The importance of taxes and free trade- as well as the economic advantage that slavery provided to slave holders (a practice they repeatedly condemn)- were important themes in the book. However, the climax of the story as the authors see it is the Industrial Revolution, and this subject got the most ink out of any in the book. A "conspiracy" of politics, history, the clear need for certain innovations and, most importantly, the special relationship between England and the sparsely populated United States puts the center of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, but its presence and influence soon spread well beyond. The most important aspect of this economic phenomenon, and what makes it revolutionary, is that it enables its participants to break away from the Malthusian model that ties standard of living to population density. The subsequent, dramatic rise in the standard of living- and the expectation of such high standards- is probably what is most responsible for continued economic and political innovations.

As much as the Industrial Revolution raised the bar and showed what was possible, the First World War and the Interwar period show, perhaps, how fragile our systems were and how interconnected they were to politics and the peculiar balance of power that existed worldwide between 1815 and 1914. Although the United States and parts of Western Europe found ways to take advantage of the new political opportunities, the authors convincingly argue that the rest of the world did not truly recover until the end of the 20th century.

At the end of the book, the authors draw parallels to both the Germany before the First World War and Japan before the Second. The authors imply that at least some of their belligerence may have been justified by the repeated attempts by established players (Great Britain and the United States) to block their access to favorable trading conditions. The authors see an analogous potential in both China and India, who are seemingly suddenly viable participants on the verge not only matching the US' capacity but exceeding it, and countries with newer nuclear capability. We are left to ponder if we can learn from the lessons of history- and what that lesson might be.

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 about. For example the industrial revolution in the UK would never have happened as a consequence of only steam power and mechanisation in cotton spinning and weaving. 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 were 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 of this is an absolute necessity.

Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke demonstrate with much detail how trade, war, and peace have closely interacted with each other in the last millennium. Findlay and O'Rourke clearly show how three apparently unrelated events, i.e., the Black Death of the 14th century C.E. and its different impact on several regions of the world, the integration of the New World into that of the Old at the turn of the 16th century C.E., and the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th century C.E., have shaped the world as we know it today. Thankfully, Findlay and O'Rourke have compiled the existing research to allow their audience to better understand the close interaction that exists between Power and Plenty. To summarize, Findlay and O'Rourke's demanding volume clearly does not target readers who have a short attention span, do not acknowledge the importance of the past to peruse the future, lack persistence, or are interested in simplistic answers to complex issues.

Unlike most books which claim to be global, but essentially focus on Europe, this book is truly global in scale--one that does an amazing job of covering the past millennium. This is an incredible survey of the literature in the field from the past 50 years and includes key debates in the historiography from the last century. "Power and Plenty" is probably not the best book for beginners. For example, it assumes that you can have a rough map of the Abbasid caliphate in your head and understand something of the importance of Islamic Spain. That being said, this is a good balance of event history and "big" history that keeps the work being one-thing-after-another history or so theoretical as to be divorced from reality. If only every book on this topic were so good.

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.

Review of "Power and Plenty"

Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium.

Princeton University Press. 2007.

By Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O'Rourke

Power and Plenty traces the history of world trade from the start of the second millennium to the present day. It develops different theories as to why things happened the way they did. It is not the only book about the history of world trade, but it is by far the most readable.

Summary

To tell its story the book divides the world into 7 different parts which it follows sedparately. They are the following:

Western Europe: The catholic and protestant parts of Europe excluding the Baltic States.

Eastern Europe: The Orthodox part of Europe.

The Islamic world: Southwest Asia and North Africa.

Central Asia: Stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China proper in the East.

Southeast Asia: Defined as all the land east of India and south of China including the islands.

South Asia: The Indian subcontinent - Today's Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

East Asia: Today's China, Korea and Japan.

The book starts by going over the geographical aspects of each area in some detail before addressing the political and economic state of affairs in each. Emphasised are the Golden Age of Islam and the Sung Economic Miracle in China. It then goes on to talk about the economic consequences of the creation and disintegration of different empires, notably that of the Mongols, the Chinese, the Arabs, the Spaniards, the Mughals and the Brits among others. The discovery of America and the subsequent mining of its immense silver reserves and its global effects occupy a central part of the book. It is shown how the slave trade makes it possible to accumulate capital for the industrial revolution leading to the dominance of Europe over much of the world in the nineteenth century where several of the largest empires that were ever created, came into existence - the British (the largest empire in history), the French (4th largest in history) and the Russian (2nd largest in history).

The book also explains in some detail how the combined effects of technology, such as the steam engine, and the creation of these large empires reduced transport costs dramatically and brought different parts of the world much closer together - bringing about the so-called globalisation during the latter part of the nineteenth century (1855-1913). The level of globalisation achieved in 1913 was not again matched until the 1990s. The book ends with a warning that the greatest challenge facing the world today is the transfer of world power from a Euro-American coalition that controls the IMF, The World Bank and other multinational organisations to a more balanced leadership that includes rapidly developing nations.

Critical Analysis

No one can write a comprehensive history of world trade in some 550 pages. Individual aspects of it, such as the silk route trade, the slave trade and the spice trade would require books to explain in themselves. Reading this book requires substantial background knowledge of the reader as well as ability to decipher complicated graphs and figures. It is best to take notes while reading the book as it might otherwise be difficult to remember all the information given. When writing such a book some details inevitably get overlooked.

Despite all this it is an excellent book in the way that it gives an overview of world trade, and indeed, world history. Findlay's and O'Rourke's attempt should be applauded. So should their easy to read, if dense, writing style and unbiased approach to history.

A warning to readers: This is not a mainstream book. It is not a book that one can simply pick up and read from beginning to end in a quick go and get something out of it. It is a book that requires studying, note taking and (optimally) an open mind as it tackles things such as imperialism and slavery with a perspective that pays little heed to ethics. Indeed, it goes so far as to suggest that the slave trade lead directly to the industrial revolution and hence our current prosperity, something that some might find difficult to stomach.

Nevertheless, the rewards for reading this book are great and, by the standards of other books on history and trade, this is quite a captivating read as well. There is much little known information here, and you will find many references to more specialised texts if something has caught your interest.

Conclusion

If you are interested in getting an overview of the history of world trade this is the book for you. It is brief and written in good English with lots of references to other, more specialised texts. I recommend it to anyone interested in history and world trade.