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William J. Bernstein, "A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World"

A sweeping narrative history of world trade—from Mesopotamia in 3000 B.C. to the firestorm over globalization today—that brilliantly explores trade's colorful and contentious past and provides new insights into its future.

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 A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He begins in ancient Mesopotamia, where early traders floated barley, copper, and ivory up and down the Tigris and Euphrates, and he moves on to the Greeks, whose grain trade helped ignite the Peloponnesian War. He transports readers from the ships that carried silk from China to Rome on monsoon gales in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the rush for sugar that brought the British to Jamaica in 1655 to the American trade battles of the early twentieth century; from key innovations such as steam, steel, and refrigeration to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China.

Along the way, Bernstein, who is both a gifted storyteller and an accomplished economic theorist, brings to life a gallery of fascinating characters and synthesizes thousands of years of history—social, cultural, political, military, and economic—into a rich and engaging narrative. He explores how our age-old dependency on trade has contributed to our planet's agricultural bounty, stimulated intellectual progress, and made us both prosperous and vulnerable. Bernstein concludes that although the impulse to trade often takes a backseat to xenophobia and war, it is ultimately a force for good among nations, and he argues that societies are far more successful and stable when they are involved in vigorous trade with their neighbors.

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.

Includes 23 maps and 40 black-and-white illustrations.

From AudioFile

Spanning thousands of years and civilizations, from the ancient Sumerians to modern society, A Splendid Exchange is a rich economic history. Narrator Mel Foster's delivery is unflagging as the work introduces us to a truly global panoply of civilizations. Phoenicians, Mongols, Saracens, Italians, Portuguese, and the British—trading silk, coffee, spices, sugar, slaves, opium, and energy—are just a few of those who have contributed to today's interdependent global economy. The history is at its most exciting, and Foster's presentation is the most engaged, as he portrays the worlds of the great European discoverers Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and Christopher Columbus. Foster keeps us listening, whether he's describing a seventh-century Syrian plague or the first transport of ice to Bombay.

Contents

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List of Maps List of Figures List of Tables List of Plates Introduction 1 Sumer 2 The Straits of Trade 3 Camels, Perfumes, and Prophets 4 The Baghdad-Canton Express 5 The Taste of Trade and the Captives of Trade 6 The Disease of Trade 7 Da Gama's Urge 8 A World Encompassed 9 The Coming of Corporations 10 Transplants 11 The Triumph and Tragedy of Free Trade 12 What Henry Bessemer Wrought 13 Collapse 14 The Battle of Seattle Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

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Tags: qHistory, qEconomics, qFinance, qGlobalization, qWorldPolitics

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