The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation

Index

Aboriginal Australians, 232, 275–7

Abu-Lughod, Janet, 32, 33, 44, 45, 46, 47, 118, 120, 306

accounting systems, 121

Africa

   Arab circumnavigation, 138

   Asian visits to, 138

   and Britain’s industrialisation, 266–72

   in global trading system, 41–2, 47–9

   influence on Renaissance, 181–2

   slave trade, 167–70

   in world history, 32, 40–2, 47–9, 167–70

   see also Egypt

Afro-Asian age of discovery, 30, 31–44, 137–9, 140–4

agency, 24, 307

   see also European agency

agricultural revolution (medieval)

   China, 56–7, 300

   Eastern ideas and technology, 101–3

   Europe, 100–1, 300

agricultural revolution (modern)

   Britain, 201–6

   Chinese origins, 201–6

algebra, 177

Anderson, Perry, 191

Anstey, Roger, 266–7

anti-Eurocentrism, 3, 21–6, 296–300, 316–17

   explaining rise of the West, 301–5

   see also oriental West

appropriation

   bullion from Americas, 171

   of Eastern resources by West, 2, 5, 305–12

arbitrage, 172

Asiatic mode of production, 12

assimilation

   of Eastern resources by West, 2, 5, 61, 301, 303–4

astrolabes, 122, 142

astronomy, 180

Australia

   destruction of Aboriginal culture, 275–7

   wool exports, 274

Axtell, James, 314

Baghdad, 40

banians, 84

Banjāras, 83–5

al-Battānī, 177

Bentley, Jerry H., 42

Bernal, Martin, 2, 227–8

Bessemer converter, 211

Black Africans see Africa

blast furnaces, 53, 210–11

Blaut, James M., 19, 290, 306, 313

Bloch, Marc, 110

Braudel, Fernand, 43, 71, 118, 148, 154, 255, 257–8

bridges and bridge-building, 132, 214

Britain

   agricultural inventions and innovations, 201–2, 203, 206

   agricultural revolution, 201–6

   Anglo-Saxon racism, 221, 237

   cotton manufacturing, 212–14, 255, 263–4, 267, 268

   denigration of Irish, 235

   as derivative late developer, 192–3, 214–17

   and European free trade, 251–3

   export promotion policies, 256

   finance capital, 253–5, 269

   as God’s Chosen People, 235

   imperial discourse, 224–41

   income redistribution, 254–5

   industrial inventions and innovations, 207, 210–11, 212, 256

   industrial revolution, 190–3

   industrial superiority, 214–17

   as interventionist late developer, 244–57, 277–9

   iron and steel production, 207, 210–12, 256

   military expenditure, 245–6, 250–1, 253

   national debt, 247

   tariffs, 248–51

   taxation, 247, 254, 278–9

bullion, 78–9, 149

bureaucracy, 284, 286

al-Buzajānī, Abū’l Wafā, 177

canals and locks, 216

cannons, 187–8

Cape of Good Hope

   Asian discovery of, 137–40

   trade route via, 148–9, 150

cartaz system, 151

Catholic Church

   attitude to Native Americans, 166–7

   constructing Europe as Christendom, 113–14

   crusades against Islam, 110–11, 136–7, 163

   imperial discourse, 136, 165

cavalry, 103–4

Chang, Ha-Joon, 263, 292

Chaudhuri, K. N., 147

Chêng Ho, 86, 138, 144

China

   abstention from imperialism, 69–70, 307

   accounting systems, 121

   agricultural inventions, 202–6

   agricultural revolution, 56–7, 300

   book publishing, 56

   bridge-building, 132, 215

   canals and locks, 54, 217

   capitalist infrastructures, 72

   clock-making, 131

   commercialisation, 54–7, 58

   demand for silver, 66–7

   diffusion of ideas and technologies, 185–8, 198–201, 204, 213

   drilling methods, 215

   as early industrialiser, 50–6

   global extensive power, 66–7, 76, 299

   global intensive power, 70–3

   gunpowder, 57, 186

   guns and cannons, 59, 186–8

   images of, 231

   impact of British imperialism, 260–2

   influence on Enlightenment, 194–8

   iron and steel production, 54, 71, 210–11

   lighting, 54, 215

   medicine, 179

   military revolution, 58–60

   mines and mining, 207–8

   myth of its isolationism, 61–8

   national identity, 261–2

   naval strength, 59–60, 126, 145

   navigational and nautical innovations, 57–8, 123, 141

   opium trade, 273

   paper-making, 129

   paper money, 54, 56

   printing innovations, 57, 183–5

   share of world manufacturing, 76

   ships, 57–8, 125, 216, 217

   standard of living, 77

   steam engines, 207

   stirrups, 103

   Sung economy, 70–3, 298

   taxation, 54–6

   textile manufacturing, 53, 128–9, 213–14

   trade, ban on foreign, 61–5, 68–70, 151

   trade, post-1434, 63–70

   transport revolution, 54

   tribute system, 63–5, 68–9, 308

   unequal treaties, 260–2

   urbanisation, 56

   water-mills, 127

’China clauses’, 23, 61, 67

Chinoiserie, 195

Christendom

   as construct, 107–14

   crisis of identity, 135–6

   Europe as, 111–12, 309

Cipolla, Carlo, 126

citizenship rights, 290–3

civilisations, classification of, 231–3

Clastres, Pierre, 265

Clerc, Nicolas-Gabriel, 196

clock-making, 130–1

coal, use of, 53, 210

Cobden, Richard, 259

Collins, Randall, 15

Columbus, Christopher

   as crusader, 163

   in Eurocentric thought, 161

   ’impossibility of America’, 164

   views of the Natives, 164

commenda, 119–21

commodification, 266

compasses, 57, 122–3

Copernicus, 180

cotton manufacturing, 212–14

crop rotation, 206

crusades, against Islam, 111, 135, 163, 182

Cunningham, Peter, 232

Curse of Canaan, 167

Curtin, Philip, 35

Dampier, William, 232

Dante Alighieri, 108

Darity, William, 266

Darwin, Charles, 236

Davis, Lance, 278

Deane, Phyllis, 191

democracy, 289–93

diffusion

   Chinese ideas and technologies, 185–8, 198–201, 204, 213

   Eastern navigation techniques, 140–4

   Eastern resources to West, 2, 21–3, 301–3

Discovery, age of see Afro-Asian age of discovery; European age of discovery

drills and drilling, 215

Du Bois, W. E. B., 4, 11, 317

Dutch East India Company, 155

East

   as antithesis of progressive West, 7–10, 222–3, 226–9, 240

   economic dominance over West, 74

   influence on Renaissance, 173–86

   as oriental despotism, 17–18, 224–8, 230

   as passive, dependent and child-like, 9, 228–31

   see also diffusion; oriental globalisation; oriental West

Egypt

   contributions to scientific knowledge, 181

   medical thought, 179

   trading hegemony, 47–9

Engerman, Stanley, 266, 268, 272

Enlightenment

   Chinese influence on, 194–8

   emergence of implicit racism, 229, 231–2

   Western man as rational, 229

Eurocentric myths

   Britain’s autonomous industrialisation, 190–3

   Britain’s liberal industrialisation, 244–57, 287

   centralised rational Western state, 283–7

   China’s isolationism, 61–8

   Chinese ban on international trade, 68–70

   Columbus’s discovery of Americas, 161–2

   democratic Western state, 289–93

   Europe as home of democracy, 227–8

   European military superiority, 144–8, 171

   European political dominance in Asia, 154–6

   European trading monopoly in Asia, 148–54

   Gutenberg as printing press inventor, 183

   Indian isolationism, 79–86

   isolationism of Tokugawa Japan, 93–5

   Italy as commercial pioneer, 116–21

   liberal minimalist Western state, 287–9

   oriental despotism in India, 79–86

   oriental despotism of Tokugawa Japan, 88, 91, 93, 95

   Portuguese voyages of discovery, 137–40

   stagnation of post-Sung Chinese economy, 70–3

   West’s inevitable and pristine rise, 1–3, 9–11, 18–19, 295–9, 312

Eurocentrism

   and Chinese achievements, 60

   as construct, 1–5, 7–11, 222–34

   denial of Eastern agency, 5

   depiction of Mongols, 45

   explanation of West’s rise, 10–19, 295–9, 316–17

   Landes on, 19–20

   ’orientalist clauses’ in, 22–3

   and origins of globalisation, 29, 31–2

   Roberts on, 135

   superiority of West over East, 7–9

   world before 1500, 29

   see also anti-Eurocentrism; Eurocentric myths; Orientalism

European Age of Discovery

   as defence of Christendom, 135–7

   and Eastern navigational knowledge, 140–4

   as myth, 134–40

European agency, 5, 23–6, 305, 307–9, 312

European identity

   as antithesis of East, 220

   as aspect of agency, 23–6, 305–9

   as Christendom, 24, 107–14

   as embodiment of advanced civilisation, 172–3, 222–8, 311

   as liberal and democratic, 226–9

   see also imperial discourse; racism; West

exploration see Afro-Asian age of discovery; Columbus, Christopher; European age of discovery; Gama, Vasco da

al-Fārābi, Abu Nasr (Avennasar), 179

Fêng Tao, 184

Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, 4, 70, 264, 314

feudalism

   and Asian migrations, 105

   Eastern economic technologies, 101–2, 126–8

   Eastern military technologies, 103–4

   order and legitimacy, 113–14

   social and political system, 104, 106, 113–14

financial institutions

   China, 54

   India, 81

   Italy, 119–21

   Middle East, 119–21

   Tokugawa Japan, 91–2

forced savings, 254

France, 284

franchise see citizenship rights

Frank, Andre Gunder, 78, 305

free trade

   Britain, 248

   Britain’s imposition on East, 260, 262–5

   as civilising force, 259

   Europe, 251–3, 287–8

Gama, Vasco da, 21, 137, 139, 143–4

Genghis Khan, 44

Genoese traders, 47, 49

geometry, 176

Gernet, Jacques, 67, 72

Gibbon, Edward, 109

Gladstone, William, 252

global economic power, 30

global economy

   Afro-Asian-led, 29–31, 303

   European trade deficit with Asia, 77–9, 171

   as polycentric, 61

   silver recycling process, 66–7

   Sinocentric, 61, 66–7

   trade routes, 40, 44–9, 117–19

   see also globalisation; oriental globalisation

globalisation

   concept, 34

   Eastern origins, 31–6

   see also global economy; oriental globalisation

gold, 172

Goody, Jack, 35, 299, 316

Great Exhibition, 216

Greece, Ancient, 227–8

’Greek clause’, 23

Greek fire (petrol), 188

Greek science and thought

   Islamic additions and reformulations, 175–6, 178

   Muslims as custodians and translators, 174–5

Gujarati merchants, 80, 83, 153–4

gunpowder, 58–9, 186

guns, 59, 186, 189

Gutenberg, Johann, 183–6

Hanley, Susan, 77

Harris, Nigel, 35

Hobson, John A., 251, 278

Hodgson, Marshall G. S., 6, 7, 39, 192

Holton, Robert, 34, 112

horse-hoeing husbandry, 203–5

horses

   collar harnesses, 101, 102

   horseshoes, 101, 102

   import of Middle Eastern stock, 206

   use in warfare, 103–4

Huttenback, Robert, 278

Hyam, Ronald, 272

I-Ching, 42

Ibn Mājid, Ahmad, 21, 138, 143, 144

Ibn Rushd (Averroës), 178

Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), 179

imperial discourse

   British, 224–41

   Catholic, 135–7, 166–7

   Protestant, 234–6

   racist foundations, 220–2, 223–4, 234–6

   Spanish, sixteenth century, 162–8

imperialism, 2

   as civilising mission, 230, 240–1, 308

   as containment of the East, 241, 258–9, 260, 262–5

   as cultural construct, 223

   as cultural conversion, 258–62, 275–7

   materialist interpretations, 223, 239, 306, 309

   see also imperial discourse

incendiary devices, 188

India

   commerce and capitalism, 79–86

   de-industrialisation by Britain, 263–4

   financing British trade, 84

   in global economy, 83–5

   indentured labour, 272

   intensive economic power, 85

   iron and steel production, 85, 211–12, 256, 264

   merchants and traders, 80–1, 83–4

   myth of its isolationism, 79

   numerical system, 176–7

   opium exports, 273

   as oriental despotism, 79

   Portuguese encounter with, 138–40

   tea growing, 273

   textile manufacturing, 86, 255, 264

industrial revolution (Britain)

   African contribution, 266–72

   as autonomous, 190–3, 207

   Chinese origins, 207–14

   global-historical-cumulative perspective, 218

   inventions and innovations, 207, 210–11, 212

   land-saving imports, 274

   military aspects, 245–6, 250, 253–5, 278–9

   myth of laissez-faire context, 243–57, 287

   role of colonial markets, 269–72, 279–80

   and tariffs, 248–51, 255–7

   through appropriation of Eastern resources, 257–8, 260, 262–5

   use of forced savings, 254

industrial revolution (Sung China), 51–6

Inikori, Joseph, 269

international law, 238

iron and steel production

   Britain, 207, 210–12

   China, 51–3, 210–11

   diffusion of Eastern techniques, 130

   India, 85, 211–12

Islam

   constructed as threat, 136, 182

   crusades against, 111, 136–7, 163, 182

   similarities with Christianity, 108–9

Islamic civilisation

   astronomy, 142, 180

   capitalist activity, 37–8, 297

   concept of rational man, 177–8

   global extensive power, 36, 38–41, 46–7

   global intensive power, 42–4

   in global silver trade, 149

   influence on Renaissance, 174–5

   iron and steel production, 130

   mathematics, 142, 176–7

   medicine, 179

   military innovations, 104, 188

   navigational and nautical achievements, 122–5, 138, 141–4

   paper-making, 129

   raids on Europe, 105, 110

   scientific method, 178–81

   textiles, 129

   water-managing schemes, 127

   water-mills, 127

’Islamic clause’, 23, 174, 181

Italy

   as commercial/financial pioneer, 116–21

   distinctive food, 132

   textile production, 128–9, 214

   see also Renaissance

James, George, 317

Japan

   agricultural productivity, 90

   commercialisation of economy, 91

   as early developer, 88–93, 96

   foreign trade in Tokugawa period, 93–5

   humiliation of Dutch, 156

   Meiji industrialisation, 96

   sakoku policy, 93

   silver exports, 94

   standard of living, 77, 89

   Tokugawa financial institutions, 91–2

   urbanisation, 91

’Japan clause’, 88

Jesuits, 198–200

Jevons, W. S., 274

Jewish traders, 42

Jones, Eric L., 42, 44, 55, 72, 89, 274

Kabbani, Rana, 108

Kennedy, Paul, 279

al-Khwārizmī, Muhammad ibn Musa, 176–7, 180

Kingsley, Charles, 265

Korea, 184, 185

laissez-faire, 196–7, 284, 287

Landes, David, 3, 19–20, 62, 75, 130, 184, 191, 316

Lane, Frederic C., 60

Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 165

lateen sails, 123–5, 142

Leonardo da Vinci, 133

Levathes, Louise E., 70

Lewis, Bernard, 110

Linnaeus, Carl, 232

List, Friedrich, 263, 264, 275

Lombe, John, 214

Macao, 145

Maddison, Angus, 75, 96

Maeterlinck, Maurice, 233

Mann, Michael, 30, 299, 304

Manuel I (king of Portugal), 156

maps and map-making

   al-Khwārizmī, 180

   China, 57

   Mercator, Hobo–Dyer and Peters projections, xiv, 5–6

Marco Polo, 40, 56, 59, 216

Martel, Charles, 103, 109

Marx, Karl, 12–14

Marxism, Orientalism in, 12–14

materialist perspectives, 24, 306

mathematics, 176–7

Mathias, Peter, 191, 245, 255

McCloskey, D. N., 279

McNeill, William, 34, 55, 105

medicine, 179–80

Melaka, 86–7

Mercator world map, 5

Middle East

   as Bridge of the World, 38, 49, 301

   trade routes through, 46–9

   see also Islam; Islamic civilisation

migrations, into Europe, 105

military revolutions

   China, 58–60

   Europe, 186–9

military technologies, 58–60, 103–4, 189

mills, 102, 126–8

mines and mining, 207–8, 215

Mongol empire, 44–6

Muhammad, 37, 120

   European depiction of, 108

Native Americans

   deaths from European incursion, 170, 171

   economic exploitation, 171

   as noble savages, 164

   Puritans’ antipathy towards, 165

Native Indians see Native Americans

Navigation Acts, 270

navigational revolution

   China, 57–8, 141

   Eastern origins and influences, 121–6, 140–4

Needham, Joseph, 52, 131, 132, 139

Netherlands

   political weakness in Asia, 147–8

   trade with Asia, 147–8, 152–4, 155–6

   see also Dutch East India Company

numerical systems, 176–7

O’Brien, Patrick K., 258, 271, 272

Occidentalism, 24, 307

Offer, Avner, 279

opium trade, 273

optics, 179

oriental despotism

   China, 55

   concept, 7–8, 224–8

   India, 79

   Marx on, 13

   Tokugawa Japan, 88, 93, 95

   Weber on, 17–18

oriental globalisation, 2, 5, 174, 301–3, 304

   before 1500, 31–49

   concept, 32

   Mongol contribution, 44–6

   see also diffusion

oriental West

   concept, 2

   rise through appropriation, 23–5, 305–12

   rise through diffusion, 21–2, 301–3

   role of contingency in rise, 313–16

Orientalism, 239

   as construct, 7–11, 222–39

   in Marxism, 12–14

   in Weberianism, 14–18

   see also Eurocentrism

’Orientalist clauses’, 22–3

Pacey, Arnold, 126

paper-making, 56, 129–30

Peter Pan theory of the East, 7–10, 228–31

Peters projection map, 6

petroleum, 54, 188

Physiocrats, 196

Pi Shêng, 184

Pirenne thesis, 35

Pires, Tomé, 152

ploughs, 100–2, 201–2

political economy, 195–7

polygenesis, 233

Pomeranz, Kenneth, 67, 71, 77, 207–10, 274, 313

Ponte Vecchio, 132

Portugal

   Asian presence, 146–7

   borrowing of Islamic science, 141

   cartaz system, 151

   discovery of Asia, 137–40

   exploration as Crusade, 137

   maritime inferiority, 144–6

   in Middle East, 146

   military inferiority, 145–8

   political inferiority, 154–5

   trade with East, 145, 148–52, 154–5

pound-locks see canals and locks

power see global economic power

printing, 56, 57, 183–5

Protestant revival, 234–6

Prussia, 285–6, 291

Quesnay, François, 196

racism

   Christian justification, 233

   implicit versus explicit, 220–1

   racial and civilisational hierarchies, 224, 231–6, 237–9, 240–1

   scientific racism, 236–7

   and slavery, 168

   see also Africa; imperial discourse; imperialism; slavery and slave trade

rationality

   man as rational agent, 8, 177–8, 229

   of the Western state, 283–9

al-Rāzī, 178, 179

reason, 194

   see also rationality

Renaissance

   Black African contributions, 181–2

   Eastern origins, 133

   Islamic influences, 173–86

Roberts, John, 3, 134, 171, 316

Rodinson, Maxime, 37, 111

Said, Edward, 7, 108, 239, 317

scientific methods, 178–81

seed-drills, 203–5

Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de, 165

ships

   China, 57–8, 217

   invention of bulkheads, 215

   use of lateen sails, 123–5

   Vasco da Gama’s, 144

silk-reeling machines, 128–9, 214

silver

   appropriated from Americas, 171

   Chinese demand for, 66–7, 72

   export to Asia, 149, 171

   global recycling process, 172

   Japan’s export of, 94

slavery and slave trade

   African, 167–70

   Christian justification, 167

   dehumanising aspects, 169

   Egypt, 48–9

   ’horrors of the Middle Passage’, 168–9

   impact on Britain’s industrialisation, 266–9

Smith, Adam, 117, 195, 287

social Darwinism, 236

Solow, Barbara, 266

South-east Asia

   global trading links, 41, 86–8

   Śrīvijaya, 42, 86

Spain

   conquest of Americas, 163, 166

   Islamic learning, 175

   Islamic textiles, 129

Spencer, Herbert, 236

spice trade, 150, 152

Springborg, Patricia, 293

Śrīvijaya, 42, 86

steam engines, 207–10

steel see iron and steel production

stirrups, 103

strategic trade policy, 256

suffrage see citizenship rights

Suleyman (the Magnificent), 157

tariffs

   Britain, 255–6, 287–8

   Europe, 287–9

   see also free trade

Tartars, 45–6

taxation

   Britain, 247, 254

   China, 56

   France, 284

   Western Europe, 288

terra nullius, 238–9

textile manufacturing

   Britain, 212–14, 255, 268

   China, 53, 128–9, 212–14

   Eastern origins, 128–9, 212–14

   India, 83, 85

Thomas, Robert P., 279

trade routes, 40, 44–9, 149–50

trigonometry, 177

Trismegistus, Hermes, 180

Tull, Jethro, 203, 205

Turner, Bryan S., 7

al-Tūsī, Nasīr al-Dīn, 177

unequal treaties, 260–2

United States

   citizenship rights, 292–3

   see also slavery and slave trade

Valladolid controversy, 164–5

Venetian traders, 47, 48

Venice

   galleys and warships, 126

   trade with East, 47–9, 118

VOC see Dutch East India Company

Voltaire, 195, 197

Wang Chên, 208

warfare see military revolutions; military technologies

water-mills, 54, 102, 126–7

Weber, Max, 286, 287

   Orientalism in, 14–18

Weberianism, Orientalism in, 14–18

West

   adaptive capacity, 303–4

   inevitable and pristine rise, 1–3, 9–11, 18–19, 222–3, 295–9

   as progressive antithesis of the East, 7–9, 222–3, 226–9, 240

   see also Eurocentrism; European identity; Orientalism

White, Lynn, 20, 123, 131, 301

Williams, Eric, 272

windmills, 102, 127–8

Wink, André, 35

winnowing machines, 203

Wolf, Eric, 10, 306

Wong, R. Bin, 55, 69

Wootz steel, 211–12