Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350

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Oxford University Press, 1991 - Business & Economics - 443 pages
In this important study, Abu-Lughod presents a groundbreaking reinterpretation of global economic evolution, arguing that the modern world economy had its roots not in the sixteenth century, as is widely supposed, but in the thirteenth century economy--a system far different from the European world system which emerged from it. Using the city as the working unit of analysis, Before European Hegemony provides a new paradigm for understanding the evolution of world systems by tracing the rise of a system that, at its peak in the opening decades of the 14th century, involved a vast region stretching between northwest Europe and China. Writing in a clear and lively style, Abu-Lughod explores the reasons for the eventual decay of this system and the rise of European hegemony.
 

Contents

Studying a System in Formation
3
Restructuring the ThirteenthCentury
4
The European Subsystem
33
List of Illustrations and Maps
34
Emergence from Old Empires
43
The European Subsystem
48
The Cities of the Champagne Fairs
51
Commercial and Industrial Cities
78
Baghdad and the Persian Gulf
185
The Fertile Crescent the Crusader Kingdoms
187
The Sea Routes from the Middle East to India
202
Cairos Monopoly under the Slave Sultanate
212
Divided into Three Parts
251
The Three Circuits of the Indian Ocean Trade
252
On the
261
Continental India Showing Regions and Cities
262

The Economic Expansion of Belgium
97
The Merchant Mariners of Genoa and Venice
102
Mediterranean Routes of Genoa and Venice in
123
The Three Routes to the East
137
The Gradual Reticulation of Routes from
138
The Mongols and the Northeast Passage
153
The Congruence between Trade Routes and
172
The Strait and Narrow
291
The Strait of Malacca
295
All the Silks of China
316
System of Silk Production
329
The Growth of Selected Cities between the Ninth
357
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About the author (1991)

Janet L. Abu-Lughod is an American sociologist who specializes in social change and urbanization in the developing world. She was educated at the University of Chicago and the University of Massachusetts. She began her career as an urban planner and research consultant to organizations dealing with community development issues and housing problems. As an academic, she taught at the University of Cairo and Smith College before moving to Northwestern University. She taught sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York, where she conducted research on urban problems.

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