Before European Hegemony 3-184

In the beginning of "Before European Hegemony" challenges the common Eurocentric idea that European nations were essential in early trade. Abu-Lughod claims that Europe was relatively new on the scene in the 13th century, the time when she claims the world economy truly began to form. The author is attempting to show how will eventually dominate trade throughout the world by going back to a time when Europe was new to international trade and looking at what factors would cause it to move to the forefront of this trade. She then goes on to describe how trade developed in different European areas. She also describes what the factors were at the time that was affecting this trade, and growing it in Europe. Abu-Lughod also describes the European trade with the Mongols and how that developed.

One of the things that I found most interesting about Abu-Lughod's writing was in her description of the problems that historians face when writing these types of books. I often take it for granted that behind all these different books is someone who has to sift through a great deal of information to wring out what's relevant. Even first hand descriptions are flawed by bias and simply by what the person chose to record. Her example of Marco Polo is one that I found to be extremely interesting. He wasn't the first to do anything, but by chance he was the first to have his travels recorded. The problem is that his observations are extremely European. He notices only the things that are relevant to his culture and his way life. She also describes how hard it is to write comparatively when sometimes you don't have the records necessary to do adequate comparisons. I'm also pleased to see that Abu-Lughold has chosen to trace European Hegemony to its source. To understand what made Europe so powerful we need to compare it to other regions who were in similar positions at the time. It is only then that we will be able to see what Europe did differently to set them apart from the rest of the world.

Chris N