Selected Product:
| The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, And the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (Sources and Studies in World History)
Paperback
Edition: 2
Author: Kenneth Pomeranz, Steven Topik
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Release Date: 2005-10-31
ISBN-10: 0765617099
ISBN-13: 9780765617095
List Price: $23.95
Average Customer Rating:
  | |
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
ISBN-10: 0393061310
ISBN-13: 9780393061314
List Price:$24.95
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
ISBN-10: 0609809644
ISBN-13: 9780609809648
List Price:$14.95
Cracking the AP World History Exam, 2008 Edition (College Test Prep)
ISBN-10: 0375428526
ISBN-13: 9780375428524
List Price:$18.00
Cracking the AP World History Exam, 2006-2007 Edition (College Test Prep)
ISBN-10: 0375765344
ISBN-13: 9780375765346
List Price:$17.00
Outlines & Highlights for The World That Trade Created: 1400 to the Present by Pomeranz, ISBN: 0765602504 (Cram101 Textbook Outlines)
ISBN-10: 1428809023
ISBN-13: 9781428809024
List Price:$10.95
|
To use our price comparison to get the cheapest price, please click on the "Find the Cheapest Price" button located above for The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, And the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (Sources and Studies in World History) by Kenneth Pomeranz, Steven Topik (ISBN-10: 0765617099, ISBN-13: 9780765617095).
At this time we have not yet written a review for The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, And the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (Sources and Studies in World History) by Kenneth Pomeranz, Steven Topik (ISBN-10: 0765617099, ISBN-13: 9780765617095). Please continue to keep checking back to this page as we are constantly adding reviews.
Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Why are railroad tracks separated by the same four feet, eight inches as ancient Roman roads? How did 19th-century Europeans turn mountains of bird excrement from Peru into mountains of gold? Where has most of the world's oil come from in the 20th century? This new edition of "The World That Trade Created" reveals the answers to dozens of tantalizing questions like these. In a series of brief, highly readable vignettes the authors bring to life international trade and its actors - including migrants and merchants, pirates and privateers, sailors and slaves, traders and tree-tappers. In the process they make clear that the seemingly modern concept of economic globalization has deep historical roots. The authors also demonstrate that economic activity cannot be divorced from social and cultural contexts. This second edition provides enhanced coverage of Africa, the Middle East, and the 20th century, and features eighteen new vignettes, including two new pieces on oil.
Overrated and full of hyperbole
| Customer Rating: | | The authors have written a book with a clear-cut agenda--to force American students to recognize and overcome their evil "Eurocentric" biases. (The word "Eurocentric" too often today is code for racist.) While I do agree that there are other histories, other perspectives, trashing Europe, Europeans, and by extension Americans, to build up an argument for knowing about the Chinese, Aztecs, and Africans fails to impress. This book is the textual equivalent of shouting the loudest to gain the greatest attention, and that very hyperbole makes for a very bad book, both from reading and teaching perspectives. Furthermore, Pomeranz, who studies China, seems to be under the impression he's the only one who knows anything about China and the rest of us are totally ignorant on the subject. Anybody who has read ANY Jonathan Spence or Patricia Ebrey or John King Fairbank knows better--in every sense of that world. For India, read PJ Marshall, Barbara Stoller, or Richard Barnett; Africa, John Thorton and Linda Heywood, Philip Curtain, or David Northrup. Frankly, THE WORLD THAT TRADE CREATED is a polemic, not a history. One would more profitably spend time with Curtain's THE WEST AND THE WORLD. |
The world that Pommeranz and Topik invent
| Customer Rating: | Fun reading for those that enjoy economic history. The problem is that it is impossible to know what is real.
For example, when talking about the euro, they say that by 2003 "pesos, francs, and marks had become things of the past." That is, Messrs. Pommeranz and Topik confuse pesos (used in several Latin American countries) with pesetas (the vanished Spanish currency). A superficial mistake, no doubt, but one that any well-informed student would avoid making. One can only wonder about the world the authors invent, or get superficially or deeply wrong, when they travel further into the past. |
fast and loose with the facts
| Customer Rating: | Written by college professors, "The World that Trade Created" tries to sound like a textbook, but is in reality a fictionalized novel that uses history as its vehicle.
Warning sign: there are no footnotes. The book contains thousands of quotes and factoids, but the authors give no indication where they came from. This intellectually dishonest technique keeps the reader from determining for themselves whether the "facts" presented are reliable, unreliable, or made up.
Yes, sometimes stuff is simply made up. Example: "Remote Andorra is now in the center of the world." (p.214) This is just nonsense masquerading as fact. I could find no similar description of Andorra anywhere else. Every other account I found calls Andorra "remote", the opposite of central. Andorra is not alone in offering tax advantages or relying on tourism, so it cannot be central metaphorically. Here and elsewhere, the authors simply make a fanciful statement as if it were fact.
"The World That Trade Created" is at best a loosely organized, fictionalized version of trade history. If you want a revisionist view of history told in People Magazine format, this is the book for you.
|
only a stiff could possibly find this book remotely interesting
| Customer Rating: | | After reading this book and writing this review, I considered reporting it to the U.S Consumer Product Safety Commision, because this book is dangerously boring! I found no new information relevent to anything important. In addition, I believed that certain parts were extremely repetitive, and the topics were dull. The AP teachers may find this book interesting, however, they obviously do not care how their students will react to reading such a dry group of essays. I would highly not recommend this book to anyone, and if you do have to read it for AP World History, good luck. |
Anxious
| Customer Rating: | | Reading this book just makes me exremely anxious... I don't know why.. Maybe its because it just talks about a bunch of stuff that I'm already aware of.. i would rather opt for an interesting story that shows this rather than a bunch of essays. However, if you're into trade and want to sharpen up your knowledge on it, this book is for you. |
|
