When Asia Was the World

Brilliant. Each chapter is an individual in depth view of the ways and times of ancient trade throughout greater Asia. Wins losses. Marriages and heartbreaks. These were all but easy times. However, between wars and trade routes they found their way, made children, and made it through life. We are reminded of human tenacity and the will to evolve culture amidst all odds.

Reading this book opened my eyes to a prejudice that I never knew I had. I love stories about explorers - Marco Polo, Lewis & Clark, Harrison Forman, etc., but I never thought about the Asian explorers whose trips spread culture throughout the known world. Stewart Gordon passionately recounts their stories and their contributions to civilization in this wonderful collection of narratives of great Asian travelers who represented... Read Full Review

Before Marco Polo and other noted world explorers there was cultural and commercial trade around the world: Asia had its own explorers, traders and travelers who crossed the globe to exchange ideas. Research scholar Stewart Gordon has traveled the world to examine original texts in science, history, philosophy and sociology to create WHEN ASIA WAS THE WORLD, and here provides an Asian focus unique in the world of Western focuses... Read Full Review

Like most people brought up in the American public school system my knowledge of Asian history consisted of "China invented noodles and gunpowder and then Europe took over and some Chinese guys thought that their kung ku was so good that bullets couldn't hurt them". When I got older I learned that there was a LOT more to it than that but really- it was all pretty vague. Stewart Gordon's book is an excellent remedy to this... Read Full Review

Stewart Gordon is an artist (wood sculpture, automata) and historian whose previous books have been informed by a vision and concern for cross-cultural relations (Robes and Honor; Marathas, Marauders and State Formation in Eighteenth-Century India). When Asia Was the World continues this exploration on two levels, about Asia during the years 500-1500 CE, and about the voyagers who left us records of these times. The subjects... Read Full Review