Premodern Trade in World History - Richard L. Smith

finally down the Indus River Valley. In the later stages of this great volk- erwanderung, the Yuezhi metamorphosed into a new pe ...

form of bolts that the Xiongnu shanyu (paramount chief) redistributed to his supporters. They, in turn, used it as a form of cur ...

Chapter 12 The last link Chinese policy was abruptly reversed during the reign of the emperor Han Wudi (141– 87 BCE). He had an ...

it, the Yuezhi had“decided to enjoy this life of peace. Moreover, since they considered themselves too far away from China, they ...

border were of the small, shaggy, pony-like variety, and Wudi’s ongoing war with the Xiongnu had severely depleted their stock. ...

returned. It reached Ferghana and besieged its capital for over 40 days. The nobles inside decided to blame the whole matter on ...

quarters of the world.”For the Chinese, long-distance trade was seen as more than just a way of obtaining exotic goods: it was a ...

embroidered silk dated atc. 1100BCEhas been discovered not in China proper but in a tomb from Xinjiang. The discovery of silk in ...

wide open. Silk became thefirst Chinese commodity to reach the Far West on a large scale. The Chinese and the Romans became awar ...

Epilogue The premodern Afro–Eurasian world system was the product of develop- ments that are best understood by relating them to ...

fringes poured in. China lost control over Central Asia; indeed, China itself lacked a central government between 220 and 581. O ...

products from across North Africa, Europe, and Asia to be joined by salt from mines located in the northern Sahara. These were e ...

period under the Mongols, the maritime route boomed for the better part of five centuries. Innovations in Chinese shipbuilding a ...

ocean-going ships to be destroyed, and another in 1551 made it a crime to go to sea in a ship equipped with multiple masts. Merc ...

impact on Indian Ocean commerce but never achieved a monopoly, and while Europeans did come from time to time to control markets ...

If the divide between the premodern and modern worlds is very real, we must not forget that history is an organic rather than a ...

Select bibliography in English Primary sources Ammianus Marcellinus (1985)The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354–378), trans. J.C. Rol ...

Algaze, Guillermo (1993)The Uruk World System, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Anderson, J.L. (1991) Explaining Long-Term ...

——and Benjamin, Craig (eds) (1998)Silk Road Studies II: Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern, Turnhout: Brepols. Clarke, ...

Gill, Sandrine (1999)“Mahasthangarh: A Riverine Port in Ancient Bengal,” 154 – 72, in Himanshu Prabha Ray (ed.) (1999)Archaeolog ...