ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age

by Andre Gunder Frank

Description

Andre Gunder Frank asks us to ReOrient our views away from Eurocentrism-to see the rise of the West as a mere blip in what was, and is again becoming, an Asia-centered world. In a bold challenge to received historiography and social theory he turns on its head the world according to Marx, Weber, and other theorists, including Polanyi, Rostow, Braudel, and Wallerstein. Frank explains the Rise of the West in world economic and demographic terms that relate it in a single historical sweep to show more the decline of the East around 1800. European states, he says, used the silver extracted from the American colonies to buy entry into an expanding Asian market that already flourished in the global economy. Resorting to import substitution and export promotion in the world market, they became Newly Industrializing Economies and tipped the global economic balance to the West. That is precisely what East Asia is doing today, Frank points out, to recover its traditional dominance. As a result, the "center" of the world economy is once again moving to the "Middle Kingdom" of China. Anyone interested in Asia, in world systems and world economic and social history, in international relations, and in comparative area studies, will have to take into account Frank's exciting reassessment of our global economic past and future. show less

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4 reviews

johnclaydon 304 reviews

This book is a good start at constructing a non-eurocentric global economic history of 1400-1800 ce. It has some good discussions and references but it is marred by flaky arguments and excessive rhetoric. If it surprises you that two hundred years ago India had ten thousand steel making furnaces, consider this book for a start on reorientation.

Jun 15, 2007

kday_working 106 reviews

East/West trade is an old story -- and this book details the literal money exchange and flow in the different centuries between the two hemispheres. Fascinating....

Apr 7, 2013

glendac 13 reviews

http://www.glendaclaborne.com/arabissmo/projects/grad/frank.html

Aug 29, 2006