Interesting, readable summary though there are plenty of aspects I didn’t love, per below. The subtitle - “A New History of the World” - suggests too much scope - hard to be comprehensive - yet I like the focus on the old Silk Road territories (though he applies the “____ Road” concept pretty much around the world).
Presents history in this part of the world as sort of a discovery, unknown; I think anyone that’s read much history would have quite a bit of knowledge here. Still - it’s a useful book, a good overview notwithstanding the annoyances.
I do the think the author falls prey to the 2015 (not new in 2015, and persisting) trend of demonizing the West and acting like other regions lack agency. Maybe I’m too sensitive to this approach but I don’t think so. The chapter about slavery suggesting Europe more or less invented it - c’mon. Dismiss European motives as gold, power. Europeans as backward, venal. Mongols as wise administrators - OK a little violent in the conquest phase but then long periods of peace and prosperity, OK maybe so. Muslims as tolerant, open minded. Etc. Seems to selectively present the histories on these topics.
British actions post-WWI described as making the Middle East unstable - this after hundreds of pages often describing conflicts in the Middle East going back thousands of years. OK.
Interesting - the idea that the spread of the religions along the trade routes somewhat threatened those same religions, motivating the religions to become more strident. Buddhism starts using big statues and nice shrines and stupas to stand out; Zoroastrianism becomes more nationalistic, loses much of its famous tolerance; Christianity more of a threat especially when Constantine gets on board. This lets up when Rome weakens due to the Huns, etc., but then resurfaces when the Huns weaken. And has continued.
Vikings/Rus were effective, a bigger factor than I normally think.
His summary of the run-up to the Crusades was a useful complement to this recently-read book.
Spanish taking silver and gold from the Americas on the ships; later oil is taken from the Middle East; this is discussed as some sort of illegitimate plundering. Not sure if this can be distinguished from actions of conquering groups throughout history. And these supposedly advanced-peaceful societies didn’t have the know-how or interest to ever utilize these resources in the same way anyway. See Venezuelan oil. Yes, local labor was not treated well at all as part of the resource extraction, at least in the 16th-17th century Americas. As it happens.
Russia experiencing difficulties in handling new central Asian territories, including fear of Islamic populations. Some history here.
Author kind of got bogged down in a lot of detail about Iran and Iraq in mid-20th century and into the 21st, I didn’t need that much detail plus the history here isn’t aged enough to draw conclusions. Britain trying to hang in there especially with Iran, I can see why Saeed’s generation saw the British behind so many things - they often were! US kind of steps into this role later. Lots of blame assigned to Brits and US.
Russian revolution in early 20th-century - he writes that Russia was pushing self-determination in the various republics ha ha. Hilarious Lenin quote about freedom and rights on 335.
Page 391, Stalin’s speech opposing capitalism; author says (I think or hope paraphrasing Stalin) that capitalism is responsible for suffering, mass murder and horrors of the war of the twentieth century. Communism as “a new system that accentuated similarities rather than differences, that replaced hierarchies with equality” (author’s words) What?
Page 503 - the usual wrap up - everything is in a transition stage at the time the book is written, totally unclear what’s coming next! (As to everything looking back, it was obvious and easy to criticize.)
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