A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World

Well written

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book that anyone interested in history and trade or economics should acquire. Mr. Bernstein writes well. He has an elegant and witty prose and whilst obviously well versed in his subject he is never pompous or boring. He takes the reader through the history of world trade from Mesopotamia to Doha. Obviously a free trader at heart he has however no religion he tries to preach - indeed he makes the point that the United States would not have grown the way they did in the 19th century without fierce protectionism - and he peppers his account with plenty of fascinating anecdotes. Who would have suspected for instance that an enterprising trader was delivering ice - yes, blocks of ice sawed off in the North - to Calcutta, of all places, shipping it from the New World long before refrigeration, steam powered ships or even electricity ? My only criticism is for the publisher. Once again, we are treated as imbeciles assumed not to buy or read a book that has footnotes in the text. The footnotes to Bernstein's masterpiece are at the end of the book, which is an absolute pain in the neck to the eclectic and curious reader. Moreover they are not complete. For instance, if you are interested in finding out why President Andrew Jackson was actually against lowering tariffs for certain goods from the South, footnote 15 on page 322 sends you to page 418, which cryptically says "Ellis, 158-177". Now, who on earth is this fellow "Ellis"? To find out, you have to work your way through the bibliography and go to page 433 to learn of a Richard Ellis who wrote a book entitled "The Union at Risk". For his next book, Mr.Bernstein may consider going to a publisher who does better in this respect. Otherwise, the book is a delight.

This is broad brush history done in a very interesting way. First the book is very readable. The author seems to write out of love for the subject, rather than to make a name for himself. I can even recommend this book to students of management/economics who are NOT too keen on history. This history book is a very pleasant reading and it links history with economic thinking. Second the examples supporting the main thesis (trade shaped the world) are surprising and interesting. Clearly a lot of thinking has gone into the selection. The non-historian author is clearly widely read. This isn't really a work of original scholarship and as a synthesis it is less serious than Landes's The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. If you haven't read Landes book and only want to read one book on the subject, I would recommend Landes. That is not to say that Bernstein is bad - it is still a five star book.

This is broad brush history done in a very interesting way. First the book is very readable. The author seems to write out of love for the subject, rather than to make a name for himself. I can even recommend this book to students of management/economics who are NOT too keen on history. This history book is a very pleasant reading and it links history with economic thinking. Second the examples supporting the main thesis (trade shaped the world) are surprising and interesting. Clearly a lot of thinking has gone into the selection. The non-historian author is clearly widely read. This isn't really a work of original scholarship and as a synthesis it is less serious than Landes's "The wealth and poverty of nations".

What could be more boring than a book about the history of trade? This may well be the thought that passes through most people's minds when they contemplate the rich cover of Bernstein's latest tome. Yet such an expectation turns out to be totally incorrect. A Splendid Exchange is also A Splendid Read. Bernstein has a remarkable ability to inter-leave arcane details with big-picture perspectives and the result is a work that delights as it informs. I personally learned something new on almost every page, even though I thought I was already fairly well informed about several of the subject areas covered in the book. Second-rate writers often try to impress with displays of recondite learning or excessive verbosity; Bernstein does neither. His prose is light and assured and carries the flow of his thesis forward as on a bubbling ever-cresting wave. He superbly illustrates a general historical point with the specifics of an individual life, as when he notes almost in passing that the first human to circumnavigate the globe was not a well-known historical personage such as Magalhaes (Magellan) or Drake, but rather a slave who has hitherto largely remained absent from the annals of nautical history. As Bernstein points out, humans are the only species to engage in trade. It is a fundamental characteristic of our species, and all the rest of human nature comes into play in its furtherance. The rapid expansion of Islam is partly explained by the fact that Muslims were under religious injunction not to pillage fellow believers, but could consider pillage an almost blessed act when perpetrated on non-believers. Not surprisingly, upon learning of this useful distinction the non-believers rapidly converted, thus sparing themselves further depredations - but forcing the might of Islam to push its boundaries ever-forward in search of new people to loot and slaughter. And lest we fall into the lazy trap of equating Islam alone with violence and intolerance, there's a salutory chapter of the Portugese expansion into the East, which amply demonstrates that no religion, nationality, or ethnic group has any monopoly on repellant behavior. Equally interesting is Bernstein's observation that the Boston Tea Party, far from being all about "no taxation without representation" as faithfully portrayed in the Disneyesque world of American school text books, was actually cant to disguise the protection of middle-men and thus ensure the continuation of overly-high prices for the hapless American consumer of tea. Despite the catalogue of stupidities, atrocities, and double-dealings that is inevitably a large part of any history of humanity, this book ultimately is an optimistic work. Trade, as Bernstein enables the record to show, has been almost single-handedly responsible for the fact that the vast majority of humankind no longer has to grub roots out of parched ground nor resort to trying to bring down the occasional ruminant with wooden spears. Ju

What makes a big-think book stand out is its successful combination of disparate fields of knowledge (think of Jared Diamond's combination of environmental geography AND physiology AND evolutionary biology). In A Splendid Exchange, William Bernstein's multiple areas of expertise come together to produce something extraordinary. Very few professional historians could approach his theoretical understanding of financial economics, fewer still share his practical experience of the functioning of markets, and hardly any share his knowledge of medical science. (Bernstein is a retired neurologist who holds a doctorate in chemistry, and a noted authority on financial investing who is regularly quoted by the Wall Street Journal and whose books on the topic are core reading.) Yet each of these strands of knowledge is critical to fully understanding the rise and development of trade. To these, add another essential strand - encyclopedic knowledge of world history - and then Bernstein's ability to weave it all into an engaging tale. He knows how to clarify abstract points with apposite stories, which range from exotic historical figures to everyday kitchen items. The writing entertains while the thinking enlightens. A Splendid Exchange illuminates more than you would expect. Consider military history: if you think of history as a chronicle of war, here you will learn just how much of that conflict resulted from trade agendas, in ancient times as well as modern. An example is the discussion of geographical "choke points"; I had never before understood how big a role they played in causing historical wars, nor had I understood the role they are likely to play in our own era. Trade is naturally a hot issue in an election year when the economy is rocky; this book helps you put the debates in the largest historical perspective. (You will find previews of today's trade rhetoric going back to the Renaissance.) But don't think of reading this book as a duty; it is a gripping, addictive pleasure.