China And The Birth Of Globalization In The 16th Century By Dennis O. Flynn

REVIEW China And The Birth Of Globalization In The 16th Century

Including 11 essays published over the last 15 years, this volume by Dennis O. Flynn and Arturo Gir�ldez concerns the origins and early development of globalization. It opens with their 1995 Silver Spoon essay and a theoretical essay published in 2002. Subsequent sections deal with Pacific Ocean exchanges, interconnections between the Spanish, Ottoman, Japanese and Chinese empires, and the necessity of multidisciplinary approaches to global history. The volume follows the evolution of the authors' thinking concerning the central role of China in the global silver trade, as well as interrelations among silver and non-silver markets. Research before 2002 paved the way for development of a coherent 'Birth of Globalization' narrative that portrays economic factors in the context of powerful epidemiological, ecological, demographic, and cultural forces. In the final essay Flynn and Gir�ldez argue for incorporating the work of all academic disciplines when attempting to understand the history of globalization, advocating an inclusive historical data base which recognizes contextual realities and an inductive process of reasoning. China And The Birth Of Globalization In The 16th Century

A collection of essays by this pair of scholars whose main thesis is simple, yet chock full of revisionist historiographical goodness! 1571 is the beginning of global trade. Why? Easy. Manila was founded as the entry point for all that Potosi silver to be taken across the Pacific into China. So? I'll try to be succinct: 14th century China devalued its paper money and became reliant on silver as a measured metal. This created an immense demand for silver (not worth much in Europe) in China. Spain's Empire expanded due to this silverization and later contracted when the silver market in China became glutted and the value fell. The global ramifications detailed in these essays range from China's 18th century population explosion due to peanuts and sweet potatoes being introduced, to the effects silverization had on Ottoman finances. Cool shit, indeed. A note on the series: the collecting of journal articles together tend to cause redundancies on the theme itself. English