A Splendid Exchange
MGT 5312: International Management
Book Review # 1
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World. Bernstein, William J. New York: Grove Press, 2008. 467 pp.
A Splendid Exchange is an inside look at how trade has had an impact on human development. The book answers the questions of how trade developed, how it expanded, and how trade is an essential economic force. The author, William J. Bernstein, explains how trade almost always benefits the nations that engage in it, but only when averaged over the entire national economy. The push for to trade is been a part of our history, and new patterns of trade always produce advantages and disadvantages. Bernstein explains that from a historical standpoint, which has been going on for centuries. For example, tea parties protesting taxes have been going on throughout history. The historical Boston Tea Party had almost nothing to do with taxes; to a certain extent, it was a protectionist reaction by middlemen and smugglers cut out of the tea trade by the decision to allow the East India Company to directly market its products in the colonies. This stunt launched the American Revolutionary War.
The focus within each chapter comes from the following areas. Foreign trade has a full place for millennia and has had a deep impact on human growth. Throughout history, trade has been mainly nations’ key cause of success. The initial long-distance trade goods were the most valuable, hard-to-get items: silk, incense, jewels and gold. Spices replaced these pickings as the world’s most pleasing possessions. The hardy camel was essential for moving supplies over long desert convoy routes. Ancient land and sea trade was hard, dangerous and crime-ridden, but very profitable. Nations long fought to control trade routes and to control world commerce. They succeeded in turns, from Islam’s merchants to the oceangoing Portuguese and Dutch. The discovery of the New World vividly changed world trade, bringing a mass of new products to
Book Review # 1
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World. Bernstein, William J. New York: Grove Press, 2008. 467 pp.
A Splendid Exchange is an inside look at how trade has had an impact on human development. The book answers the questions of how trade developed, how it expanded, and how trade is an essential economic force. The author, William J. Bernstein, explains how trade almost always benefits the nations that engage in it, but only when averaged over the entire national economy. The push for to trade is been a part of our history, and new patterns of trade always produce advantages and disadvantages. Bernstein explains that from a historical standpoint, which has been going on for centuries. For example, tea parties protesting taxes have been going on throughout history. The historical Boston Tea Party had almost nothing to do with taxes; to a certain extent, it was a protectionist reaction by middlemen and smugglers cut out of the tea trade by the decision to allow the East India Company to directly market its products in the colonies. This stunt launched the American Revolutionary War.
The focus within each chapter comes from the following areas. Foreign trade has a full place for millennia and has had a deep impact on human growth. Throughout history, trade has been mainly nations’ key cause of success. The initial long-distance trade goods were the most valuable, hard-to-get items: silk, incense, jewels and gold. Spices replaced these pickings as the world’s most pleasing possessions. The hardy camel was essential for moving supplies over long desert convoy routes. Ancient land and sea trade was hard, dangerous and crime-ridden, but very profitable. Nations long fought to control trade routes and to control world commerce. They succeeded in turns, from Islam’s merchants to the oceangoing Portuguese and Dutch. The discovery of the New World vividly changed world trade, bringing a mass of new products to