Part II

The second part of Before European Hegemony, The middle east heartland focuses on the passages used, who was using them and why they were using them. This section is introduced to us, by presenting some history on the northern, middle and southern route. In the first chapter we learn about some of the famous explores such as the Polo’s that used this route. We see the conflicts that these explores were faced with as well as the financial drive for them to do it. In the second chapter, we discuss Sinbad’s way, or the middle route. We learn that this route is the cheapest and easiest, but because of certain events, many Europeans chose the northeast route described earlier. We focus on some of the key cities like Baghdad and Cairo, but mainly look at how this route was not used and suffered economically. In the final chapter of this section our focus is directed towards Cairo’s monopoly under the slave sultanate. This happened because of the strength of the location of this city. We learn about the impact that contracts, banking, and merchants had on the slaves, and how the black death had an impact on this.

Like the first section of this book, this section was very dry. I was introduced to lots of facts, and I felt as if I was reading a history book. The information being presented to us was reminded me of my third grade history class. I liked being reminded of voyages of the Polo’s, and the information of the different paths was also interesting to me. I spent four years in the Navy, and it was interesting to see how the paths that my ship took to get to certain ports were similar to those that were discussed in our readings. When I can relate the material that I am reading to real life situations that I am in, I find the information more interesting.

A question that I thought about when I was reading this was how is it related to other social theories that we have learned about. In what ways did these navigational paths and explores pave the way that Marx looked at classes? I think this book allows us to think about how the past can pave the future. In order to understand what is going on now, we need to know where we came from.