Trade and Civilization

Book Review # 99469

Anthropology > Asian
Asian Studies > East Asian Cultures
English > Analysis

A review of K.N. Chaudhuri's book "Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750".

1,609 words () | 1 source | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses trade and civilization in and around the Indian Ocean. It begins by describing the general link between an ocean and the development of peoples and civilizations lying within geographic proximity of it. The paper then goes on to review K.N. Chaudhuri's book "Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750" that the contention he makes in the book that the Asian oceanic trade of the "Dark" and Middle Ages dramatically shaped Asian civilization.

From the Paper:

"The last area of discussion is the manner by which the internal economies of the Asian societies were influenced and shaped into one form or another by the Indian Ocean. Without question, countries adopt their economies to the natural resources they have available to them. Trade can very easily lead to specialization in certain areas above and beyond all others and to economic and technological innovation of the highest magnitude. When examining pages 186 and 187 of Chaudhuri's text, one is immediately struck by how certain geographic locations specialized in certain export items, such as China specializing in the export of silk or rice. This development foreshadows in today's age of globalization, and it gives lie to the theory that the specialization brought about by a global market is somehow a twentieth century phenomenon. In a real sense, the indigenous economies of many Asian countries to the present have their antecedents in the Indian Ocean trade of the pre-modern epoch."

Sample of Sources Used:

K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 10-11.