ABSTRACT
Indeed, the first definition, which puts the stress on interconnectedness and interdependence, seems to be purely descriptive o f the progress in economic exchange between nations. Such exchange has existed since times immemorial, and hardly any nation, at any point in history has been immune to such exchange or completely isolated from it, at least for not very long historical time periods. Economic historians usually associate the beginnings o f world (global) trade, world markets and the world economy with the Great Geographic Discoveries o f the late 15th and early 16th centuries which established the first regular sea trade links between Europe and most other continents. Besides the fact that trade routes over land between Europe, Asia and Africa existed long before Christopher Columbus, this view is obviously Eurocentric, since it ignores the obvious fact that earlier civilizations might have contributed even more to global economic progress than ancient or feudal Europe. The new book by Andre Gunder Global Economy in
The Asian Age (University o f California Press, forthcoming) is a brilliant analysis o f the global economy as it existed in pre-Columbian times and provides (in the words o f one reviewer) ‘a compelling argument against Eurocentrism’ and ‘forces us to turn the telescope o f world history around to see that the focus was, and is Asia NOT Europe’.1
