The relationship between trade and civilization is, or should be, of great interest to anyone exploring the evolution of human societies globally. Whether in micro- or macro-scale, networks, movements of goods, craftspeople, warriors, finished products, ideas, and even viruses and diseases should be taken under consideration in our attempt to comprehend the mechanisms that make groups of people thrive or societies collapse.
This edited volume is a collection of papers on the central theme of trade and civilization that is clearly the result of copious research, fruitful discussions amongst the contributors, and hard work on the editors’ part to bring this all together. As stated in the ‘Preface’, the book is the product of three interdisciplinary conferences that took place in 2011, 2012, and 2013, after which the manuscripts were finalized. The contributors are established scholars, experienced in their relevant fields, something evident from the amount of data and information provided within the chapters, as well as their contributions in other publications and conferences. In fact, several of them also contributed to a volume on systemic interaction in Eurasia, entitled Interweaving Worlds (Wilkinson et al., Reference Wilkinson, Sherratt and Bennet2011), which must have been a milestone for the editors, and especially Kristiansen, considering that the world-systems approach is greatly appreciated and used in the current volume as well. As Kristiansen notes (2011: 243) ‘The Bronze Age world-system is a heuristic device that allows us to think big and trace the forces of history in their full extent’.
In terms of scope, the editors put forward an ambitious plan to explore various aspects of the connection between trade and civilization, such as the role of merchants, the use of trade networks, the division of labour, the significance of landscape and various technologies, from the fifth millennium bc to ad 1600 with case studies from East Africa, the Pacific, the Andes, Europe, the Aegean region and the Near East. This meets the editors’ wish not to apply an Eurocentric view on the topic of the volume. A number of these case studies examine intra- and inter-regional networks, almost exclusively through the lens of world-systems theory, a theoretical model very popular in the study of pre-industrial economies, even though it was initially developed to understand capitalism. The authors approach their topics carefully through a methodological and social framework befitting the research questions and regional needs of their selected topics that is very informative for the reader. Occasionally these methodological concerns lead to the rather brave conclusion that there are certain fields, as in the case of Africanist archaeology, where our knowledge of particular societies will continue to remain blurry (Kusimba, Ch. 12, p. 347). The contributors discuss a wide range of topics and themes ranging from textile circulation and access to resources to Phoenician textual evidence and consumption of luxurious products. This allows the reader to explore a variety of approaches regarding material culture, and it provides food for thought for future research in other areas of the world. As Kristiansen (p. 19) states in the introductory Chapter 1, it remains a matter of debate whether the term civilization defines ‘its core areas and their long-term history’ or if it should be expanded ‘to encompass the whole geographical range on which it depended’. The fact that the contributors took different stances is highlighted by Kristiansen and this adds significantly to the importance and attractiveness of the volume.
In the first chapter, Kristiansen enthusiastically introduces all the aspects raised in this volume, such as connectivity, networks and mobile technologies, as well as the role of traders and the (very interesting) issues of predictability or unpredictability of trade systems. In fact, his essay functions as a ‘prologue to the book’ (p. 1). Making extensive reference to ethnographic examples, Wilkinson (Ch. 2) presents his views on the importance of textiles, clothes and their relation to status in Eurasia from the fifth to the second millennium bc. Warburton (Ch. 3) writes on money, religion, and values in the Bronze Age Near East in order to argue that religion and value systems were frequently related. In a holistic approach, Kristiansen returns in Ch. 4 to evaluate the impact of the new technologies of mobility and warfare as driving forces leading to new values at different times over a wide period (1950 to 1100 bc). Chapter 5 hosts the work by Barjamovic on the establishment of a proper infrastructure in connection to the ‘Old Assyrian’ commercial system with the help of the well-known written records from the area. In Chapter 6, Galaty compares Messenia and Argolid in southern mainland Greece in his discussion of the Mycenaean states through the study of a number of trajectories (such as travel times, least-cost paths, sacred landscapes and political economies). He suggests that Pylos followed a different path to social complexity compared to Mycenae, because of its strong ties to the Adriatic Sea. Focusing on Africa and western Eurasia, Rowlands and Fuller challenge the definition of civilization in Chapter 7 by suggesting that it is not necessary for all social groups to follow certain forms of governance but other, more local, ways of exercising power can be applied. In other words, it is possible to have networks of regions, not just major centres and peripheries. Already from the first line of the lengthy Chapter 8, Monroe brings to the forefront the debate on the nature of ‘Phoenician civilization’ within its wider eastern Mediterranean context and discusses the post-colonial critique of world-systems categories that foster anachronism and ignore agency (p. 226). In a short but compact Chapter 9, Beaujard discusses the Afro-Eurasian world system through the rise and fall of major regional empires and the re-establishment of a global world system within an eight-centuries-long period. In Chapter 10, Whitfield takes a historical archaeology approach, studying the Buddhist temples and shrines of the Tarim region in order to explore the movements of goods and people. The Trading Systems Model (TSM) is put forward by Oka in Chapter 11, to propose that merchants and their institutions in East Asia adapted to the changing social and economic conditions. TSM is a quantitative model ‘that shows the expansion, contraction and evolution of trading behaviours and institutions responding to changes in their socio-political and regulatory environments’ (Oka p. 280) and, according to Kristiansen (p. 8), it can be applied more widely. Oka pays great attention to the extent of trader autonomy in relation to local powers. Based on a comparative analysis of data collected from a variety of sites, in Chapter 12 Kusimba investigates the role of the East African coast in the rise of cosmopolitan urban polities. In Chapter 13, Junker emphasizes the value of a multiscalar research approach in her study of the maritime communities of the Philippines (ad tenth to sixteenth centuries) as she highlights that ‘interregional relationships are not straightforward cyphers of diffusion from powerful elite-controlled “centers” to passive “peripheries”’ (p. 382). The creation of a common mercantile identity in western and northern medieval Europe through imported practices as attested in the archaeological record is stressed by Gaimster in Chapter 14. Spriggs (Ch. 15) refers to and highlights the work of Grafton Elliot Smith (1871–1937, a well-established anatomist, physical anthropologist, and expert on the mummification process, whose views have been challenged significantly) and others on global systems and long-distance communications with a case study from the prehistoric Pacific, focusing on how spheres of interaction (and knowledge) operated in the area before the arrival of Europeans. Contrary to what was happening in Eurasia, Earle (Ch.16) argues that, in the Andes and the isolated islands of Hawaii, the upper classes derived their status and power from the production of prestige objects and not from their import. Hornborg in Chapter 17 brings to the foreground the social milieu of the pre-Hispanic Andes, focusing on how the world-systems model allows us to rethink major aspects of local practices, such as going to war or controlling prestigious trade goods. In Chapter 18, Bang brings together aspects of the Roman economy, (i.e. the control of resources, imperial taxation, and luxurious consumption) in their Mediterranean-wide empire to argue that that these consumptive needs and practices of the capital were responsible for the expansion of the market sphere beyond previously established commercial networks.
According to Kristiansen (p.1), Chapters 19 and 20 function as the ‘epilogue’ of the volume; although, admittedly, in Chapter 19 Lindkvist and Myrdal mostly discuss ad fifteenth and sixteenth century networks, as they provide a more general view on the long-distance trade routes in Afro-Eurasia. They suggest that, around ad 1500, western Europe and the growing European market become more integrated in the global trade system. Friedman then wraps up (Ch. 20) the main points of the book through a discussion of imperialism, hierarchy, and social order. As he states (p. 544), ‘as a perspective on world history, the approach featured in this book highlights the centrality of external relations in the formation and reproduction of civilization with all of its internal contradictions, expansions, contractions, and declines’. This is a particularly attractive perspective when discussing the erosion of civilizations as the collapse of traditional structures of long-distance trade is strongly implicated (amongst many other factors) in the end of the Bronze Age administrative systems in the Eastern Mediterranean (e.g. Cline, Reference Cline2014: 148–52).
Lavishly illustrated, this book is a real treasure for those who love maps. These are the main visual tool, forming the backbone in the majority of the contributions, and are frequently accompanied by illustrations of artefacts and tabular data. It is very refreshing to see good quality illustrations that add significantly to the overall presentation; although, admittedly, certain maps and diagrams are more complex than others. Only very few appear less ‘reader-friendly’, due to the large amount of data and small print (for example p. 306, fig. 11.8).
A number of formatting and style discrepancies were noted, but they have minimal impact on the overall excellent presentation of the volume. The contributors had most likely the freedom to organize the layout of their papers according to their own preference, judging from the fact that sometimes the ‘Acknowledgements’ can be seen at the end of the text (p. 434), or as a footnote with a star (p. 195), and both ce and ad are used in a variety of papers. Similarly, not everybody is using notes after the main text, while certain papers are significantly longer than others (for example Ch. 8 when compared to Ch. 9). Perhaps the only inconsistency that should have been dealt with is the absence of the image source in a number of illustrations, mainly maps. One might assume that the author of each essay is the map creator; but, as several illustrations do mention the image provenance, it would have been better to be consistent throughout.
The contributions come from a wide geographical area in terms of academic institutions and research interests, strengthening the original objective of the editors for offering a global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilization. It is noteworthy, however, that, even though it is not possible to know the composition of the original panels of the three conferences from which the volume derived (and who subsequently may have not submitted a contribution), only two contributors in a list of twenty-one are female.
A couple of additions would be useful, yet this volume will be very welcomed by its audience even without them. Firstly, it would be beneficial, but not essential, to have some kind of a collective chronological table, similar to the one presented by Broodbank in his monumental work on the Middle Sea (Reference Broodbank2013: 10–14). Naturally, the global nature of the volume makes this difficult, and it would be hard to include significant dates in a single table. Instead, contributors have each used chronological tables that served their individual purposes within their own essays rather than referring to a collective one. This works fine but makes comparisons between case studies a little cumbersome. Secondly, and from a personal perspective, it would be valuable to have a more comprehensive ‘Index’, as, for example, entries of key importance, like ‘warrior’ are not present.
Perhaps the only omission that is noticeable is the absence of a chapter on Archaic and/or Classical Greece, as the only reference to this region is the contribution by Galaty on the prehistoric Aegean (also discussed in Kristiansen's paper, Ch. 4). Undoubtedly, this is an area that has been the focus of several researchers. A recent volume (also by CUP) edited by Harris et al. (Reference Harris, Lewis and Woolmer2016) discussed aspects of trade, economy, and markets. However, an essay exploring the Greek economy and trade as a whole (beyond the Athenian case) and its connection to civilization, cores, and peripheries would have completed the geographic and chronological coverage of the volume.
This is a collection of essays that will be greatly appreciated by a large, mostly academic audience. Although it requires some familiarity with the themes under discussion, the papers provide a good framework for the discussion of trade and civilization at both introductory level and for more in-depth engagement. A large number of topics are explored in depth, with the contributors drawing on evidence from literary sources, iconography, portable material culture, and architectural remains. To anyone with an interest in trade and civilization this is a most useful reference point from a global and diachronic perspective and, indeed, an extremely informative volume.
