Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
A sweeping narrative history of world trade--from Mesopotamia in 3000 B.C. to the firestorm over globalization today--that brilliantly explores trade's colorful and contentious past and provides new insights into its future
Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another." But how did trade evolve to the point where we don't think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world?
In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He begins in ancient Mesopotamia, where early traders floated barley, copper, and ivory up and down the Tigris and Euphrates, and he moves on to the Greeks, whose grain trade helped ignite the Peloponnesian War. He transports readers from the ships that carried silk from China to Rome on monsoon gales in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the rush for sugar that brought the British to Jamaica in 1655 to the American trade battles of the early twentieth century; from key innovations such as steam, steel, and refrigeration to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China.
Along the way, Bernstein, who is both a gifted storyteller and an accomplished economic theorist, brings to life a gallery of fascinating characters and synthesizes thousands of years of history--social, cultural, political, military, and economic--into a rich and engaging narrative. He explores how our age-old dependency on trade has contributed to our planet's agricultural bounty, stimulated intellectual progress, and made us both prosperous and vulnerable. Bernstein concludes that although the impulse to trade often takes a backseat to xenophobia and war, it is ultimately a force for good among nations, and he argues that societies are far more successful and stable when they are involved in vigorous trade with their neighbors.
Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion--a historical constant--that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species.
Includes 23 maps and 40 black-and-white illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
The best book I read in 2008!
Customer Rating:
I first heard the author of this book on a podcast and was so impressed that I ran out and bought the book immediately. This book takes you from ancient times all the way to the WTO and the "Battle of Seattle" and shows you how trade evolved and has effected history.
While I did study history in College, I am a computer programmer by trade and enjoyed this very much. To understand the concepts in this book is to understand not only the history of the world, but you will understand the challenges we face today from a different perspective.
Chapters provide a lively history of the principles of trade and their evolution
Customer Rating:
A SPLENDID EXCHANGE: HOW TRADE SHAPED THE WORLD focuses on world trade trends from early times to modern times. Traders introduced new commodities into the marketplace, bringing with them new ideas and concepts, and introduced 'miracles' to those unfamiliar with changing technology or world products. Chapters provide a lively history of the principles of trade and their evolution, and make for a strong and revealing collection.
Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
Very entertaining and informative book
Customer Rating:
The title says it all. 50% done. Really fascinating. Amazing how the fortunes of west, east, and middle east have risen and fallen due to (spices, the plague, islam, catholicism, exploration, naval technology, etc...).
Filling the blanks
Customer Rating:
History repeats itself and our recent economic problems are cast in a sharper light by reading this book. From pre-history to today mankind has not changed much when it comes to greed & ethics.
The Big Picture Of Commerce As Pursued By We The People
Customer Rating:
I thought this book was magnificent. It lays out the relationships between need, enticements, vast profit, pursuit of opportunity, brutality, human nature, and such, in a very entertaining fashion.
Select button not working? 
