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When Asia Was the World: Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the "Riches of the "East" |  | Author: Stewart Gordon
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy New: $9.91
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You Save: $7.09 (42%)
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Seller: allnewbooks
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 36867
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 030681739X
Dewey Decimal Number: 950
EAN: 9780306817397
ASIN: 030681739X
Publication Date: January 6, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780306817397 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
While European civilization stagnated in the “Dark Ages,” Asia flourished as the wellspring of science, philosophy, and religion. Linked together by a web of spiritual, commercial, and intellectual connections, the distant regions of Asia’s vast civilization, from Arabia to China, hummed with trade, international diplomacy, and the exchange of ideas. Stewart Gordon has fashioned a compelling and unique look at Asia from AD 700 to 1500—a time when Asia was the world—by relating the personal journeys of Asia’s many travelers.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A new view of premodern world history February 11, 2009
Richard Tucker
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a brilliantly innovative and highly readable account of the "world" that stretched from the Middle East to East Asia for a millenium before Europe began to sail the globe. Describing a series of contrasting individuals who travelled great distances across kingdoms and cultures, the author takes us vividly through a fascinating kaleidoscope of landscapes, economies, and spiritual terrains as a truly cosmopolitan economy evolved. This book reminds us that Europe was peripheral to world history for many centuries, far from the great civilizations. Providing a fresh balance to Eurocentric assumptions about global history, it will be equally delightful as a classroom textbook and a weekend companion for general readers.
 Asian trade routes through the eyes of travelers September 21, 2009
Dennis Waters (Mercer County, NJ)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Stewart Gordon's book reminds us that while Europe was huddling under the medieval cloak known as the "Dark Ages," Asia was quite the opposite - vast and vibrant and connected by trade routes over land and sea.
He tells this millennium-long story through a series of vignettes drawn from diaries, biographies, letters, and even a shipwreck. Some are from China looking west, others from Muslim lands looking east, and some from the wilds of central Asia. They are tales of individuals at specific times and places, but Gordon does a nice job of tying them to larger themes - customs, currencies, religions, and the financial and family networks that underlay long-distance trade.
When Asia Was the World is neither a very long nor a very challenging read, but it packs a lot of information. Gordon is a clear writer, though not an inspired one. There is a useful annotated bibliography and each chapter contains a helpful map.
I will give it four stars: good concept, well executed, but not quite compelling.
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