ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age

Eurocentrism is abandoned in this text, as the author sees the rise of the West as a mere blip in what was, and is again becoming, an Asian-centred world. In a challenge to received historiography and social theory, the author discounts the world according to Marx, Weber and other theorists, and explains the rise of the West in world economic and demographic terms that relate it in a single historical sweep to the decline of the East around 1800. European states 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 industrialized economies and tipped the global economic balance to the West. This is what East Asia is doing today, the author points out, to recover its traditional dominance. As a result the "centre" of the world economy is once again moving to the "Middle Kingdom" of China.
Andre Gunder Frank challenges us to thoroughly reevaluate our understanding of the world economy between 1400-1800, and provides us with enough evidence to command a reorientation of our perspective on this period. Gunder Frank's ReOrient will prove an instant classic, rating among those great books that come along once in a generation, such as with Arnold Toynbee's The Study of History, William McNeill's The Rise of the West, and Immanuel Wallerstein's The World-System as seminal works in world history. For scholars researching the onset of industrialism and the West's eventual dominance, they will be introduced to a whole new set of questions found in neither Marx nor Weber that require exploration if they are to plumb the depths of this historical terrain. Political Science, History, Sociology, and Economics professors should place ReOrient at the center of their class reading lists for courses in political economy and world history. Secondary Education teachers will find their world history teaching revolutionized by ReOrient's important thesis on the centrality of Asia in the global economy between 1400-1800. This book will give world history a research agenda for a generation. Original, contentious, challenging, yet accessible, this is Frank at his best. Agree or disagree with his thesis, if you don't know it, for the next generation you won't be able to knowledgeably discuss world history. Don't miss it!