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The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, And the World Economy, 1400 to the Present (Sources and Studies in World History)
by Kenneth Pomeranz, Steven Topik
from M.E. Sharpe
Customer Reviews:
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Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0 
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Overrated and full of hyperbole 
The authors have written a book with a clear-cut agenda--to force American students to recognize and overcome their evil "Eurocentric" biases. (The word "Eurocentric" too often today is code for racist.) While I do agree that there are other histories, other perspectives, trashing Europe, Europeans, and by extension Americans, to build up an argument for knowing about the Chinese, Aztecs, and Africans fails to impress. This book is the textual equivalent of shouting the loudest to gain the greatest... more info
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The world that Pommeranz and Topik invent
Fun reading for those that enjoy economic history. The problem is that it is impossible to know what is real.
For example, when talking about the euro, they say that by 2003 "pesos, francs, and marks had become things of the past." That is, Messrs. Pommeranz and Topik confuse pesos (used in several Latin American countries) with pesetas (the vanished Spanish currency). A superficial mistake, no doubt, but one that any well-informed student would avoid making. One can only wonder about the world the... more info
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fast and loose with the facts
Written by college professors, "The World that Trade Created" tries to sound like a textbook, but is in reality a fictionalized novel that uses history as its vehicle.
Warning sign: there are no footnotes. The book contains thousands of quotes and factoids, but the authors give no indication where they came from. This intellectually dishonest technique keeps the reader from determining for themselves whether the "facts" presented are reliable, unreliable, or made up.
Yes, sometimes stuff is simply... more info
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only a stiff could possibly find this book remotely interesting
After reading this book and writing this review, I considered reporting it to the U.S Consumer Product Safety Commision, because this book is dangerously boring! I found no new information relevent to anything important. In addition, I believed that certain parts were extremely repetitive, and the topics were dull. The AP teachers may find this book interesting, however, they obviously do not care how their students will react to reading such a dry group of essays. I would highly not recommend this book to... more info
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