The Millennium Maritime Trade Revolution, 700-1700: How Asia Lost Maritime Supremacy
358 pages
Prof Geoffrey Till
This is the second volume of a trio of books on the historical development of the global trading system. The first volume, reviewed very favourably (by me!) took the story up to about 700 AD. This volume covers the next one thousand years and I presume that the final one will take us from 1700 to today. Apparently, amongst all the other compliments in my first review, I said I was looking forwards to the appearance of volume two, this one. So how does it fare against that great expectation? In some ways, sadly, not so good. In others, well, perhaps.
There’s the same enormous erudition. This is someone, clearly familiar with today’s trading system, who really, really knows his stuff. The bibliography is extensive and the book is packed with information. Fascinating fact-lets jump out at you from every page. Did you know that a third of the inhabitants of Fujian in Southeast China in 1200 lived on ships and weren’t counted in the census? Or that 11th Century Jews in Egypt lived in 75 towns and villages, deposited documents at the local synagogue if they contained God’s name, and then buried them when out of date? Or that the Viking Harald Hardrada who regained control of the Orkneys avoided scurvy by taking Arctic cloudberries with him on his voyages – and so on and so forth. In a sense, that’s the problem with this book. The author is so focussed on the minutiae that he doesn’t really deal with the bigger picture.
By bigger picture I don’t mean geographically because the global scene is certainly covered; instead, I mean the approach summed up by that magic word for historians – why. The subject of this volume is clearly about shifts in the world’s trading patterns but what’s it really about? Why did things turn out the way they did? In Americanese, what’s the take-away? A partial answer is briefly provided in the first chapter ‘Introduction- Themes’. It’s a very short rehearsal of the now familiar proposition (thanks to the likes of Peter Padfield and Nicholas Rodger) that trade flourishes in free societies where information is transparent, life is orderly, the law clear and respected by all, questioning entrepreneurial minds encouraged and the dividends fairly shared. This accounts for the rise and eventual triumph of the Western trading system as it stuttered into life as the first lightness appeared at the end of the Dark Ages.
With that in mind, readers can infer that the author attributes problems for certain countries at certain times to major turbulence caused by wars and pandemics; that Confucianism’s disdain for the unsettling ideas associated with money-grubbing trading is a hindrance, and so is the prohibition on free thought that he suggests sometimes characterise Islamic societies. Religious bigotry is clearly a common problem. But this is guesswork. We can also infer that all this is emblematic of the continental mindset which constrains the maritime approach. But we don’t know if that mindset is a consequence or a cause of all these anti-trade impulses. The author doesn’t tell us. Instead, he presents us with the evidence and leaves us to draw the right conclusions. But the problem is that the subject is so vast, the material presented so dense and sometimes cryptic, with rather too much chaff amongst the wheat, that this is quite difficult to do. It’s sometimes quite hard to think clearly about the bigger issues when facts are being fired at you with the rapidity of large capacity automatic assault weapons.
In short, this volume illustrates the problem of the antiquarian approach to history which is fact centred and strictly chronological in form, not theme centred with chapters on major issues (like the impact of religious bigotry on trade) each of which cover the whole period. The author is telling a story not analysing a phenomenon. And yet all of the material is there for those questing readers who want to know ‘why’, and who have the enthusiasm and the time to put it all together. For those content instead to graze along the way and work their way through a grand narrative of one of the major features of human history, Nick Collins supplies everything they need. Perhaps the best last thing to say about this volume is that the author’s sheer enthusiasm for his vast subject is truly inspiring – in the sense of making the reader want to know more. And that’s not something that reviewers often say about other peoples’ books.
