I have been following this thread with piqued curiosity; my amateur
understanding of the "global world economy" and its development was that
it was Euro-driven and Euro-centered. I am a historical archaeologist
working on finishing my dissertation on the expansion of an extractive
mining economy into Alaska in the latter 19th century, and have been
using, "peripherally" (pun intended), ideas and models from world systems
theory.
I would be interested in references to the ideas being discussed in the
thread below, so that I might look into the readings myself.
Thank you,
Robin Mills
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Anthropology Dept.
e-mail: FTROM@AURORA.ALASKA.EDU
On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, mark selden wrote:
> Recent compelling research (much of it still forthcoming) on Asian
> political economy by T. Hamashita, R. Marks, B. Wong, K. Pomeranz, R.
> Barendse and others, now synthesized, theorized and extended globally by G.
> Frank requires a paradigm shift whose most important dimensions seem to me
> the following:
>
> 1. Asia, with China at its core (but also with a significant South
> Asian presence) from at least the fourteenth until well into the eighteenth
> century retained predominance in world trade, finance,technology (including
> shipping), agriculture, and manufacture. The European challenge, when it
> came, rested predominantly on military predominance subsequently translated
> into economic and political primacy.
>
> 2. It is necessary to rethink "incorporation" of Asia as a result
> of earlier centuries of Asian predominance in a global economy whose
> salient features include the trade of high value porcelain and silk and
> Asian absorption of the vast silver flows from the new world. It is also
> essential to recognize the importance, first, of an Asian regional system
> (a la Hamashita) AND the extension to an Asia-Africa-European-Americas
> world economy that is NOT Euro-hegemonic from early on.
>