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Title: A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
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Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
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| A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by Atlantic Monthly Press A Splendid Synergy | What makes a big-think book stand out is its successful combination of disparate fields of knowledge (think of Jared Diamond's combination of environmental geography AND physiology AND evolutionary biology). In A Splendid Exchange, William Bernstein's multiple areas of expertise come together to produce something extraordinary. Very few professional historians could approach his theoretical understanding of financial economics, fewer still share his practical experience of the functioning of markets, and hardly any share his knowledge of medical science. (Bernstein is a retired neurologist who holds a doctorate in chemistry, and a noted authority on financial investing who is regularly quoted by the Wall Street Journal and whose books on the topic are core reading.) Yet each of these strands of knowledge is critical to fully understanding the rise and development of trade.
To these, add another essential strand - encyclopedic knowledge of world history - and then Bernstein's ability to weave it all into an engaging tale. He knows how to clarify abstract points with apposite stories, which range from exotic historical figures to everyday kitchen items. The writing entertains while the thinking enlightens.
A Splendid Exchange illuminates more than you would expect. Consider military history: if you think of history as a chronicle of war, here you will learn just how much of that conflict resulted from trade agendas, in ancient times as well as modern. An example is the discussion of geographical "choke points"; I had never before understood how big a role they played in causing historical wars, nor had I understood the role they are likely to play in our own era.
Trade is naturally a hot issue in an election year when the economy is rocky; this book helps you put the debates in the largest historical perspective. (You will find previews of today's trade rhetoric going back to the Renaissance.) But don't think of reading this book as a duty; it is a gripping, addictive pleasure.
| | A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by Atlantic Monthly Press Politcal bias, unsupported assertions make this a questionable history | History is a troublesome subject. Often, especially as you go further back in time, indusputable facts simply don't exist. Other times, the source materials have been written by the victors - or the losers. Sometimes history is written to meet the needs of its sponsors. To inexactly paraphase Henry Ford, "history is bunk". (Ford actually explained what he meant at greater length and he was right.)
In any event, what William J. Bernstein has produced in "A Splendid Exchange" is hardly a history written by an objective historian. From very early in the book, it is clear that Bernstein's personal politics appear to be rather left-of-center and rather stereotypically politically correct. To interpose these personal views in a discussion of trade thousands of years ago is, to put it mildly, odd. Bernstein, for example, describes a military campaign of a Chinese emperor about a thousand years ago against what is present-day Vietnam. He opines that the French and Americans should have learned from that experience. The aside is bizarre. The Chinese, French and American experiences have nothing in common.
At another point, Bernstein quotes another writer who has been criticized in many quarters as an apologist for Islam. Bernstein himself describes Islam as "ecumenical". By no stretch of the imagination has Islam ever been ecumenical, which means "concerned with promoting unity among churches or religions". Islam caliphates and later nations have, from time to time, tolerated the existence of infidels in its lands, but has taxed them, restricted their activities and freedoms, if it allowed any at all. But this is not ecumenicalism by any stretch of the imagination. Bernstein's characterization of Islam becomes even more puzzling as he goes on for many pages explaining how slavery formed the basis of Islamic military might for centuries. In all, a rather strange exposition on the part of Bernstein.
The ardent student of history will have already become nervous with Bernstein's recitation of history and his constant interjection of his personal political views. Yes, there are footnotes and a biography, but much of what Bernstein says is not linked to specific footnotes.
Sirens blare and red lights flash when Bernstein blithely drops one of his conclusionary bombs, such as his explanation of why the Black Plague never broke out again after the Great Fire of London. Bernstein offers no references to support his theory. While he is a retired MD, a neurologist, that is not a qualification for offering his rather stunning opinion.
Bernstein, as noted, buys into the stereotypes you'll find bandied about on the left-wing. For example, Bernstein mentions that the Northwest Passage is opening because of "global warming". In fact, Bernstein is referring to a scare global warming story that referred to that fact that Northwest Passage was navigable for the first time since satellites started mapping it in 1978. The story was wrong on many counts. The Northwest Passage was passed through in 2000, 1944 and 1940 just to mention recent years. In short, Bernstein is repeating an urban myth, not historical fact and definitely not a future certainty.
These kinds of biases and asides mar what should be an interesting story, the development of world trade.
Bernstein's book can be enjoyed as a collection of anecdotes about the history of trade, where those anecdotes are referenced to appropriate sources. As such, it is mildly entertaining and somewhat informative. But on the whole, "A Splendid Exchange" cannot be accepted as an authoritative history of trade.
Jerry | | A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by Atlantic Monthly Press Fascinating tale for history and economy minded | Do you remember the feeling you've got from the great adventure book, like one of Jules Verne's novels? If you remember the thrill, you may find it again in the serious and unexpected place - on the pages of A Splendid Exchange by William Bernstein.
This narrative, full with real stories and adventures of the past is as spicy and colorful as a tale of spice and silk trade. Bernstein takes us along the marine and caravan routes with fearless and adventurous Sindbads of ancient and new world, to show how the trade moved people to discover the far lands and make the world we know today.
The idea, that trade is a powerful vehicle of progress gets a brilliant and convincing proof in A Splendid Exchange, full with historical evidence from as far as ancient Egypt to modern America.
Author shows, how the hot topics of modern discourse, such as globalization, can be traced to the dawn on history.
The scope of this book is amazing. Bernstein manages to cover history of trade from prehistoric to modern times, and reader does not feel rushed through. This book will be interesting to both history and economy minded. No matter how old you are, and how much you know, you'll find this is a fascinating story about human nature and character.
| | A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by Atlantic Monthly Press A Triumph. Do not miss! | I loved this book when I read it in manuscript form, and I loved it even more when I read the beautiful published version, well-edited and laced with explanatory maps and lovely illustrations.
Begin with the long sweep of world trading history;add its remarkable relevance to the global issues in the headlines today; revel in the plethora of entertaining anecdotes of personalities and events, large and small; then mix with a graceful writing style that turns an educational treatise into a suspenseful page-turner. Result: a book as good as--if not better than--any other book you'll read in 2008.
John C. Bogle
| | A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World by Atlantic Monthly Press Product Description | Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.” But how did trade evolve to the point where we don’t think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world? In this sweeping narrative history of world trade, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports readers from ancient sailing ships that brought the silk trade from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China. Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion--a historical constant--that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species. |
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