But qualitatively speaking, the silk road through history accomplished the same sort of things we attribute to “globalisation” today. Obviously, ancient transcontinental integration does not compare in degree with today’s intense global connectivity. A similar argument could also be found in James Millward’s book The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (2013). His bestselling The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015) retells world history by shifting the geographical pivot to Central Asia. For example, the British historian Peter Frankopan challenges the Eurocentric view of the global history. Such intellectual excursions are still notable for their relative rarity.
But the authors compare the sizes of economy and population in the past with those in the present, making the impact of different trends of globalization comparable in terms of trade volume and their respective impact on economic activities. It is true that the volume of the trade and the infrastructure of the transoceanic network were far more limited back then. The world’s financial markets were now, for the first time, global.Įach of the elements that characterise globalisation – global trade networks, shipping lines, integrated financial markets, flows of cultures and peoples – can be found in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. But never between all the continents, and never on this scale. There had of course been movements of goods, people, crops and ideas before, some even transformative. The Manila galleon provided the missing link in the world’s global trade network: for the first time, all the maritime routes – Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean – were now operational in both directions, knitting Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa together. When Andrés de Urdaneta made his way from Asia back to Spanish America, the new Acapulco-Manila line became a truly global trade network. The book re-orients the readers to look beyond the classic “Columbus discovered the New World” paradigm. After all, it is still Columbus that has the holiday, the countries, towns and universities named after him.
Despite their historical importance, the Manila galleons and historical figures such as Andrés de Urdaneta (1498-1568) are little known in Western historiography. China and Spanish America became intricately related to each other through commodities, missionaries, merchants and Spanish milled dollars. The Silver Way: China, Spanish America and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565–1815, Peter Gordon, Juan José Morales (Penguin China, January 2017)Īccording to Gordon and Morales, the first transoceanic shipping line in the modern sense of the phrase actually started in 1565 and only ceased more than two centuries later. Focusing on the historical relationship between China and Spanish America, authors Peter Gordon and Juan José Morales shed light on a history largely understudied but instrumental to the formation of global networks. It offers contemporary readers an alternative way to understand global connections within the Global South. The Silver Way: China, Spanish America and the Birth of Globalisation, 1565–1815 is thus timely. The topics range from trade agreements, financial loans, military bases, soft-power expansion, and cultural exchanges in the age of globalization.
Since the Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed to revive the Silk Road in 2013, the term have become almost ubiquitous, whether used in a celebratory or derogative way.
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