A Splendid Exchange
A Splendid Exchange
- How Trade Shaped the World
William J. Bernstein
2008
Trade is part of human nature. Besides war, trade is one of the main theme of human history. Trade has always be closely related to the rise and fall of nations and civilizations.
Naturally, the book started with the grain and copper trade of the Sumers. Grain trade were very important to the Hellenistic city states and was a factor in the Peloponnesian war.
Due to the almost prohibitive cost of transportation, luxury goods such as silk and spice were the major trade items in early history. The camel caravan silk road is well told in China. One can learn more details of the sea route silk/spice road in this comprehensive book. The wind system in the Arab sea is named "trade" wind. There were two routes from India ocean to the west. One is through Red sea. The other is through Persian Gulf, which is called the Simbad's route in this book.
Venice and Genoa were making their fortune from Spice trade, from selling slaves obtained from Black sea area to the Egypt's Mumluk army, from transporting crusaders.
Black death plague spreed through major trade routes and causes so much deaths all over the world.
With their navigation discoveries, Portuguese and Spaniards were the masters of Spice trade. Interestingly, these trade did not make Portugal nor Spain rich. Their governments were in bankrupted states and their people stayed poor.
Because of the innovations in Finance, Holland had the power to finance more ships and monopolize spicy trade. However, at that time, the wind system is mastered and transportation capacity increases made the luxury goods no longer that luxury. Commodity such as sugar, tea, slave(?), coffee, cotton and even opium became more important. After a few serious wars, Great Briton became the center in the era of commodity trade.
With the advancement of steel technology, rail road, steam boat in Industrial revolution, transportation cost and tariff is also getting lower and lower. Trade became ubiquitous and have greater and greater impact on people's lives.
Richardo was pioneering the theory of comparative advantage theory. Paul Samulson theorized the winners and losers during the trade process and provided a framework to analyze the camps of protectionism.
The author's knowledge about Chinese history were limited and there was some factual errors. He stated Zhu Di and Zhu Yunwen were brothers but actually Zhu Yunwen was Zhu Di's nephew. He also said the "West Liao" was established by Mogols. In fact, that's by the ChiDan. It's not easy to write such a comprehensive book.
- How Trade Shaped the World
William J. Bernstein
2008
Trade is part of human nature. Besides war, trade is one of the main theme of human history. Trade has always be closely related to the rise and fall of nations and civilizations.
Naturally, the book started with the grain and copper trade of the Sumers. Grain trade were very important to the Hellenistic city states and was a factor in the Peloponnesian war.
Due to the almost prohibitive cost of transportation, luxury goods such as silk and spice were the major trade items in early history. The camel caravan silk road is well told in China. One can learn more details of the sea route silk/spice road in this comprehensive book. The wind system in the Arab sea is named "trade" wind. There were two routes from India ocean to the west. One is through Red sea. The other is through Persian Gulf, which is called the Simbad's route in this book.
Venice and Genoa were making their fortune from Spice trade, from selling slaves obtained from Black sea area to the Egypt's Mumluk army, from transporting crusaders.
Black death plague spreed through major trade routes and causes so much deaths all over the world.
With their navigation discoveries, Portuguese and Spaniards were the masters of Spice trade. Interestingly, these trade did not make Portugal nor Spain rich. Their governments were in bankrupted states and their people stayed poor.
Because of the innovations in Finance, Holland had the power to finance more ships and monopolize spicy trade. However, at that time, the wind system is mastered and transportation capacity increases made the luxury goods no longer that luxury. Commodity such as sugar, tea, slave(?), coffee, cotton and even opium became more important. After a few serious wars, Great Briton became the center in the era of commodity trade.
With the advancement of steel technology, rail road, steam boat in Industrial revolution, transportation cost and tariff is also getting lower and lower. Trade became ubiquitous and have greater and greater impact on people's lives.
Richardo was pioneering the theory of comparative advantage theory. Paul Samulson theorized the winners and losers during the trade process and provided a framework to analyze the camps of protectionism.
The author's knowledge about Chinese history were limited and there was some factual errors. He stated Zhu Di and Zhu Yunwen were brothers but actually Zhu Yunwen was Zhu Di's nephew. He also said the "West Liao" was established by Mogols. In fact, that's by the ChiDan. It's not easy to write such a comprehensive book.
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