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Reviews
| When Asia Was the World, by Stewart Gordon. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2008. 228 pages. $26.00, cloth
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| This delightful little book is a welcome edition to the works available for use as supplementary texts in world history at the college level, and this reviewer hopes the publisher will introduce a paperback edition for that purpose. Stewart Gordon, a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, has brought disparate source materials together to offer, along with an introduction and closing assessment, nine chapters on the memoirs of eight individuals who crossed geographic and cultural boundaries during their lives, illustrating how Asia in its broadest sense was more united by trade, religion, literature, art, and scholarship prior to 1500 C.E. than is often thought. |
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The memoirs of individuals included in this work, whose lives are chronologically presented from 600 to 1500 in separate chapters, are: Buddhist monk, Xuanzang; Abbasid diplomat, Ibn Fadlan; Muslim philosopher and physician, Ibn Sina; Jewish spice trader, Abraham bin Yiju; African world traveler, Ibn Battuta; Ming fleet travel writer, Ma Huan; military conqueror, Babur; and Portuguese would-be conqueror of China, Tomé Pires. Chapter 4 presents the excavation data from the Intan Shipwreck, c. 1000 C.E. Gordon shows the luxury, religious, and commonplace trade goods, with provenances from the Arabian peninsula to China and many points in between, that were found in this sunken trade ship. This chapter is useful for teachers introducing their students to the varied types of sources historians use to explain the past, as is his discussion of geniza documents presented in Chapter 5. Each of the chapters has a helpful map tracing the route of the individual (or ship, Chapter 4) discussed in the section. |
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When Asia Was the World presents the vibrant "old world" cross-cultural exchange that existed prior to the domination of western Europe in world affairs. Gordon offers useful comparison with Europe at various points in the text, such as a comparison of freedom of trade with the guild-controlled trade system in twelfth-century Europe (p. 87). He also identifies Asian trade goods, ideas, and publications that made their way to Europe and became incorporated into European everyday life in the time period discussed. |
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In a succinct final chapter, Gordon effectively sums up the cross-cultural social networking themes, main themes, and commonalities of the work: Empires and Cities; Courtly and Political Culture; Buddhism and Islam; Travel and Trade; Innovation; [Asian] Self-reflection; and European Colonial Conquest. He presents an important footnote, suggesting other networking issues (pilgrimage routes, marriage patterns, court painters, etc.) that were not explored in the volume (pp. 177–179). |
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The author offers various points that provide the classroom teacher with useful discussion topics, such as the role of monasteries in protection of trade and cross-cultural exchange, the importance across the Asian world of the presentation of silk robes to distinguished guests, or the importance of paper in the transmission of knowledge. As another example: "The Buddha saw as the human condition people's lingering desires, lack of any continuity of self, and inevitable death. This analysis is the earliest assertion of a common universal human religious experience, regardless of language, beliefs, occupation, or ethnicity" (p. 3) and "Every important breakthrough in science in the ninth and tenth centuries was made by researchers and scholars in Asia, mainly at Muslim courts" (p. 40). |
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Dr. Gordon is clearly more at home in East Asia than in West Asia, and specialists on Islam may find points on which to quibble. However, in the viewpoint of this reviewer, these points do not take away from the value of the work as a whole. As a general introduction to many major themes, the work is excellent. It has 16 pages of black and white photographs ranging from the now-destroyed Bamian Buddhas, the Cairo geniza documents, luxury goods, and manuscripts. The work has a useful index, chapter notes, and suggested readings for each chapter. |
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In a final aside, this reviewer is disappointed with the lack of information on women. The word does not even appear in the index. It is true that the author is constrained by the primary sources that formed the basis for each chapter. However, it would have added immeasurably to the work if he had included relevant material at appropriate points on the varied roles of women in these societies he discusses. |
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| Mississippi Valley State University |
Kathryn Green |
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