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. Just as today finds no shortage of anti-globalisation protesters, so throughout history people have complained that this wicked invention called trade has been upsetting cozy monopolies and creating social unrest. In the process, it has also created opportunity and wealth and well-being for the vast majority of humankind. This really should be a basic text book for anyone at undergraduate level who has any curiosity at all about why humans have been able to construct this modern world in which we live.
If there were only three books I could take into exile, this would be one of them. The other two would be The Constitution of Liberty by Hayek and the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. All three shed important light on the human condition in realms both large and small, and all three are a pleasure to read and re-read at one's leisure.
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Top reviews from other countries
Marcelo Buratto
Bem escrito e interessante!
Reviewed in Brazil on January 13, 2024
Marcelo Buratto
Reviewed in Brazil on January 13, 2024
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Gustavo Calvo
un libro muy intesenate para entender la historia y el presente
Reviewed in Spain on March 16, 2018