Nov. 4, 2012

   It was incredibly fascinating to read about the origins of global trade. Today, we take such things completely for granted. From goods and products to breaking news, we here in the US can know exactly whats going on anywhere in the world. Reading about the Silk Road and sea-going trade in the Indian Ocean shows that although we do take these things for granted, the origins are far more complex than what is immediately apparent. Also, as previously discussed, it is foolish to consider China to be an "emerging" economic power. Anyone who possesses that view obviously does not know much about global history!
   Studying history is not as useful without relating it to the present. As a US citizen, I have fallen into the funk of looking at the news and seeing the country falling into economic hard times, while concurrently, China rises in economic, and therefore political, power. Well, at it turns out, all this stuff happened a thousand years ago! Everything moves in cycles, and everything "comes full circle." As soon as the "merchant trade" came into being, the truth became such things as "to the victor go the spoils" and "survival of the fittest" in the "cut-throat" business world. The moment power rested with those who controlled "trade," the door was opened for the shrewd and the resourceful to determine the fate of people and nations. Instead of power being measured by square miles of land, or the number of standing armies, real power came down to who controlled the money. And, in the case of the era of history we're looking at, the "money" could be silk, or spices, or knowledge. This is the world we live in today - wars are fought and peoples' lives are at stake, but so much of it comes down to corporate profit margins and the wealthy doing everything is their power to remain wealthy.
   But back to the world of the Silk Roads and the Byzantines, and Marco Polo, it would have been an exciting, and trecherous, time to be alive. The world was changing rapidly, and this was the first time in history where people saw substantial change within their own lifetimes. Instead of global change occuring on the scale of millenia, power and change could sway within a matter of years. Here was the beginning of a trend - fortunes could be made overnight, and lost just as swiftly. The picture of this time painted by Strayer evokes all the adventure and romance associated with this brave new era of long-distance trade, but reading about the suffering and chaos that went along with it does not spur envy. Reading about the effects of disease on malequipped native populations is especially disheartening. But somehow, humankind survived, and although there have been ups and downs, we as a global population know what it takes to live in peace and unity. The question is, will everyone someday be willing to set aside personal ambitions for wealth and power so that all may live in comfort and with opportunity?