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book1989

Before European Hegemony

Disciplines:
history/world history
religion/islam
tragedy/trade
history/abu-lughod

Summary

Janet Abu-Lughod's 1989 world-systems analysis of the 13th century global trading network — centered on the Islamic Middle East and connecting China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Europe through overlapping trading circuits.

Core Contribution

Reconstructs the pre-European global trading system — demonstrating that in 1250–1350 a sophisticated world-system existed with the Islamic world at its center, and that the Black Death's disruption of this system, rather than European initiative, explains the shift to European-centered capitalism.

Historical Influences

Janet Abu-Lughod

Intellectual Lineage

Janet Abu-Lughod Oxford University Press

Allied Works

The Modern World-SystemContours of the World Economy

Contemporaries & Peers

The Modern World-SystemThe Mediterranean

Minds Influenced

World-systems theory Global history History 102

Intellectual Posterity

Before European Hegemony Islamic world-system

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Before European Hegemony

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