The second section of "Before European Hegemony" by Abu-Lughod describes three major trade routes that went through the Middle East and connected Europe to China. The first trade route described is the northernmost one. This route went mostly through the Mongol empire which Kublilai Khan eventually unified. This was a difficult path to take because most of it consisted of long stretches of desert, devoid of natural resources. Before the unification, each town charged the merchant tribute money. The route is the middle one, that went through Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. Baghdad was the Islamic capital for quite some time but declined due to many natural disasters including floods, fires, and earthquakes. The Mongols captured Baghdad in 1258, and the trade route was altered so it went around the city. The new route went to Hormuz, in the Persian Gulf, from there the merchant sailed to India. The final route, the most southern, involved Mamluk controlled Cairo. To use this route, the Genoese offered slaves to the Egyptians because the Mamluks did not enslave Muslims, while the Venetians offered reliabe business. The chapter also stresses the importance of advanced business practices of Egyptians in the form of: contracts, partnerships. and agreements.
This section of the book was fact based and difficult for me to read. It did not hold my attention very well. One thing that kind of interested me was the effect the Black Plague had on the whole world. The book said that some locations took 150 years to recover. I wonder what the effect of an outbreak of such a scale would be on the modern world and how long it would take for us to recover, even though it is very unlikely that an epidemic of that scale would occur again due to modern medicine. Hopefully they find a cure for HIV soon.
I also wondered why the Europeans wanted to align themselves with the Asians to fight the Crusades when they were believed to be Tartars, demons from hell. I would think that they would want the "tartars" to be as far away from the holy land as possible.
Interesting point Estelle! I think that Mongol Empire though sometimes brutal, did have quite adaptive capabilities. I think from the conversion of Islam, Mongols certainly played their cards in a manner that would not have anything threaten their empire.
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