When Asia Was the World : a Kaleidoscope of Economies and Landscapes - Book Report/Review Example

“When Asia Was the World Book Review The book, d When Asia Was the World, written by Stewart Gordon is an innovative and highly readable account of the world that stretched from Middle East to East Asia during the medieval centuries, long before Europe started to sail the world. The author takes audience brilliantly through a captivating kaleidoscope of economies and landscapes. He illustrates different individuals who travelled across kingdoms and cultures, padding behind greatest distances. Through the book, by providing a clear balance to Eurocentric assumptions about global history, Gordon reiterates that Europe remained peripheral to the rest of the world, a long distant away from civilizations. He presumes, through fashioning a convincing and exceptional look at Asia from AD700 to 1500 and relating his statement to the personal journeys of Asia’s many travelers, that ‘Asia was the World’. Stewart Gordon brings out this millennium-long narrative in the course of vignettes extracted from articles, life histories, chronicles, letters and even shipwreck, among which some are from China across west, others from Muslim regions across east, and some from the wilderness of central Asia1. When the world was closed tight in the mysterious period known as the Dark Ages, to the Islamic people of the same period, the era was thriving. It flourished in the light of learning, trade and development, a time when Asia “was the world” stretching from Japan to Arabia having tentacles into northern Africa and Southern Spain. “By the twelfth century there existed—for the first time—a world largely without borders for educated men…who felt at home everywhere within the vast region stretching from Spain to the port cities of China” (Gordon, 106). With the fall of Rome, Europe faced the drastic Dark Ages, and Asia became the center of world trade, culture, religion, and urban growth2. An important topic in Asian history reviews the spread of monasteries and the cultural importance of the Silk Road. The spread of Islam was very swift and the role of intellectuals was tremendous in advancing philosophy and medicine. The caravans that kept the different parts of Asia connected were huge enterprises of over 1,000 people and 3,000 animals. Comparing to Europe, the region had the main capital cities -- Baghdad, Beijing, and Delhi which were larger and more striking than any city in Europe at the time. Court life during the time at each level of the empires and kingdoms was culturally and artistically refined, and both Buddhism and Islam could possess greater diversity in principles and association than Christianity. Regarding the trade, Asia had a generalized diplomacy towards trade across the borders. However, with the invasion of foreigners, especially the Portuguese into Asia, the overall socio-economic dominance was gradually demolished. In the 1490s when Vasco da Gama and a Portuguese fleet passed the Cape of Good Hope, they forever transfigured the socio-economic and trade patterns in greater Asia. The Portuguese had the advantage of a stronger and more advanced militarily than much of Asia. Instead of generalized supremacy through negotiation, and recognition of local kings, the Portuguese strategy was to seize the trading cities and the important resources and to demolish resistance. It was a time when men moved long distance in pursuit of position and employment that was comparatively easier in Asia due to the supporting institutions and similarities of courts in administrative practice. And trade was a practice that moved most of all, spreading all across Asia: Gujaratis in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Armenians through Central Asia, Chinese residents in Bengal, Arabs in Guangzhou (184). They carried out all kinds of activities such as, marriage, divorce, inheritance and property ownership, but were regulated within the community. Moreover, the volume and amount of trade influenced much of the population of the great Asian world. For example, tropical spices and medicines moved north to the plains of India west into the Middle East, and east into China (186). In fact, it was trade that helped in spreading and universalizing religions, like the ritual objects and books of both Buddhism and Islam moving from specialized areas to other parts of the world through water routes as well as caravan routes, especially to Tibet, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Trade had a great role in the Asian world, in everything like transporting giraffe from Africa to the imperial court in China, or fish paste from the Thailand and iron cooking pots from China to the islands of Southeast Asia. The most prosaic of food grains in the regions including China, India, and Southeast Asia, rice became a high status food across the steppe world (186). The trade across China and India was complex involving original mining and smelting, the sheer human labor represented in each pound of bronze making it valuable enough to be an economic imperative. During the tenth century, silk was the cloth of choice for courtly life across China to Spain. In fact, the nascent silk industry of Europe worn out around 500CE, whereas across the oasis town of the Silk Road, Persia, and cities of the Middle East, the cultivation of silkworms and production of the fiber continued (66). Moreover, regardless of the competition, China still dominated much of the silk trade, especially within the region of Southeast Asia. On the other hand, Arab sailors reached Southeast Asia and China, establishing small resident communities in ports and building mosques, finding converts in the caravan cities of central Asia and northern China3. Finally luxury, religious, and prosaic goods influenced the greater part of the population well beyond urban centers when the demand started reaching deep into the hinterland forests of India and Southeast Asia, the pearl fisheries of Sri Lanka, and the cloth production centers of rural Gujarat (73). The Buddhist and Hinds Southeast Asia connected easily to the Muslim Middle East and Confucian China when the trade goods had been an integral part of religion and essential to the everyday practice of culture in the Asian world. Likewise, the versatility in its existence helped Asia robust enough to sustain most day-to-day or even century-to-century alterations and disruptions. Covering a period of between 500 and 1500 CE, the prominent adventurers - merchants, scholars, warriors and monks - "navigated oceans, traversed great deserts, and crossed the passes of the highest mountains in the world" (Gordon, vii). While the Goths, Lombards, Visigoths, and Vandals slugged it out with each other over the carcass of the Roman Empire, in spite of intermittent disturbance from invading armies, the Asian world was "robust enough to survive most day-to-day or even century-to-century changes and disruptions"; and Jews, Armenians, Gujaratis, Malays, Yemins, Tamils, Arabs and Chinese, were actively plying trade with great cities such as Baghdad, Reyy, Balk, Bukhara and Ghazri (Gordon, 189). Such persistence and steady progress allowed commerce, knowledge, and religion to flow and grow throughout the region. During the first centuries of the Common Era, Buddhism was the predominant religion across the sprawling Kushan Empire that stretched from Central Asia through Pakistan and Afghanistan to the Plains of India and it connected China to the outside world in ways even deeper than trade (5). However, during that period Buddhism had to compete with Zoroastrianism in Central Asia, Taoism and Confucianism in China, and Brahmanism in India and Southeast Asia. On the other hand, since the time of Muhammad, Islam had been at the same time a religion of personal belief, a community of believers and a growing conquest state 4(36). Undoubtedly, the book is worth read like a travel literature. It made me realize for the first time what Asia was like when Europe was in the Dark Ages. Obviously, Asia was rather the opposite - vast and vibrant and countries linked together by trade routes over land and sea. I find the book efficiently prepared based on the actual journals of people who traveled during that time, along with good maps and paragraphs of explanation wherever required. The book goes through various themes, like common court ceremony or the shared fears of pirates. Moreover, the book is of a readable size, with a little over 200 pages; and reaching the end the readers will find themselves along these travelers, feeling heat and cold, and learning a lot of stuff about the world. It is neither a very long nor a very challenging read, but rather equipped with a lot of information, annotated bibliography, and informative maps in each chapter. On exploring this book I found myself getting familiar with a prejudice that I never knew I had. Even though I read many stories about explorers like Marco Polo and Harrison Forman, I had never considered Asian explorers’ trips spreading culture throughout the known world. The chapter I liked most is the one that says about a man named Ibn Battuta who had gone all the way from Morocco to China telling tales and brining back news to courts while returning to Morocco. In total, Stewart Gordon has fervently recounted the stories and the contributions to the civilization through the excellent compilation of accounts of great Asian travelers. Evidently, the book is becoming more contemporary today, when the Asian world is again appearing as the center of activity. Works Cited Gordon, Stewart. When Asia Was the World: Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the "Riches of the "East". USA: Da Capo Press, 2008. Print. Read More

Regarding the trade, Asia had a generalized diplomacy towards trade across the borders. However, with the invasion of foreigners, especially the Portuguese into Asia, the overall socio-economic dominance was gradually demolished. In the 1490s when Vasco da Gama and a Portuguese fleet passed the Cape of Good Hope, they forever transfigured the socio-economic and trade patterns in greater Asia. The Portuguese had the advantage of a stronger and more advanced militarily than much of Asia. Instead of generalized supremacy through negotiation, and recognition of local kings, the Portuguese strategy was to seize the trading cities and the important resources and to demolish resistance.

It was a time when men moved long distance in pursuit of position and employment that was comparatively easier in Asia due to the supporting institutions and similarities of courts in administrative practice. And trade was a practice that moved most of all, spreading all across Asia: Gujaratis in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Armenians through Central Asia, Chinese residents in Bengal, Arabs in Guangzhou (184). They carried out all kinds of activities such as, marriage, divorce, inheritance and property ownership, but were regulated within the community.

Moreover, the volume and amount of trade influenced much of the population of the great Asian world. For example, tropical spices and medicines moved north to the plains of India west into the Middle East, and east into China (186). In fact, it was trade that helped in spreading and universalizing religions, like the ritual objects and books of both Buddhism and Islam moving from specialized areas to other parts of the world through water routes as well as caravan routes, especially to Tibet, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and China.

Trade had a great role in the Asian world, in everything like transporting giraffe from Africa to the imperial court in China, or fish paste from the Thailand and iron cooking pots from China to the islands of Southeast Asia. The most prosaic of food grains in the regions including China, India, and Southeast Asia, rice became a high status food across the steppe world (186). The trade across China and India was complex involving original mining and smelting, the sheer human labor represented in each pound of bronze making it valuable enough to be an economic imperative.

During the tenth century, silk was the cloth of choice for courtly life across China to Spain. In fact, the nascent silk industry of Europe worn out around 500CE, whereas across the oasis town of the Silk Road, Persia, and cities of the Middle East, the cultivation of silkworms and production of the fiber continued (66). Moreover, regardless of the competition, China still dominated much of the silk trade, especially within the region of Southeast Asia. On the other hand, Arab sailors reached Southeast Asia and China, establishing small resident communities in ports and building mosques, finding converts in the caravan cities of central Asia and northern China3.

Finally luxury, religious, and prosaic goods influenced the greater part of the population well beyond urban centers when the demand started reaching deep into the hinterland forests of India and Southeast Asia, the pearl fisheries of Sri Lanka, and the cloth production centers of rural Gujarat (73). The Buddhist and Hinds Southeast Asia connected easily to the Muslim Middle East and Confucian China when the trade goods had been an integral part of religion and essential to the everyday practice of culture in the Asian world.

Likewise, the versatility in its existence helped Asia robust enough to sustain most day-to-day or even century-to-century alterations and disruptions. Covering a period of between 500 and 1500 CE, the prominent adventurers - merchants, scholars, warriors and monks - "navigated oceans, traversed great deserts, and crossed the passes of the highest mountains in the world" (Gordon, vii). While the Goths, Lombards, Visigoths, and Vandals slugged it out with each other over the carcass of the Roman Empire, in spite of intermittent disturbance from invading armies, the Asian world was "robust enough to survive most day-to-day or even century-to-century changes and disruptions"; and Jews, Armenians, Gujaratis, Malays, Yemins, Tamils, Arabs and Chinese, were actively plying trade with great cities such as Baghdad, Reyy, Balk, Bukhara and Ghazri (Gordon, 189).

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