★ 02/03/2020
The year 1000 CE marked the first chapter in the story of globalization, according to this vivid and edifying account by Yale University history professor Hansen (coauthor, Voyages in World History). Contending that trade networks established during this period set the stage for Europe’s age of exploration five centuries later, Hansen highlights Viking voyages to North America, goods and information that traveled 2,000 miles between the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá and Chaco Canyon in present-day New Mexico, and the slave and fur trades that linked the Byzantine Empire to Scandinavia. Hansen also documents the spread of Islam to Africa and central Asia, China’s thirst for Middle Eastern aromatics, and the arrival of Malaysian sailors in Madagascar. Noting that travelers who met each other in 1000 CE “were much closer technologically” than 16th-century Europeans were to the indigenous peoples of the New World, Hansen suggests that the period offers a key lesson for today: “Those who remained open to the unfamiliar did much better than those who rejected anything new.” She displays a remarkable lightness of touch while stuffing the book full of fascinating details, and easily toggles between the big picture and local affairs. This astonishingly comprehensive account casts world history in a brilliant new light. (Apr.)
New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
“Fascinating … [a] highly impressive, deeply researched, lively and imaginative work.”
—The New York Times Book Review
"A gripping account of exploration and ingenuity, sweeping across the economic alliances and great networks of trade that connected disparate regions around the globe….Through this generous and accessible distillation of global history, Ms. Hansen opens our minds to a world where it was still possible to venture, fearlessly, into the unknown."
—Wall Street Journal
“The Year 1000 is a tour-de-force and offers many new ways of thinking about the past.”
—The Spectator
“Outstanding…a lively and engrossing book that describes in fascinating detail how trade enriched the world. [Hansen] displays the delightful exuberance of an author deeply in love with her subject.”
—The Times (London)
“As Valerie Hansen shows in this fascinating book, much of the inhabited globe already had complex systems of long-distance trade more than a millennium ago.”
—The Telegraph (UK)
“Daring…A smart, broad-ranging survey of the global Middle Ages that is learned, thought-provoking—and perfectly tuned to our times.”
—London Sunday Times
“[A] meticulous portrayal of the explorers, traders, and rulers who built a complex network which linked a disparate world…deeply engrossing.”
—Booklist
“Covers a vast amount of territory in a concise, readable manner…A thoroughly satisfying history of a distant era and people.”
—Kirkus
“Vivid and edifying… [Hansen] displays a remarkable lightness of touch while stuffing the book full of fascinating details, and easily toggles between the big picture and local affairs. This astonishingly comprehensive account casts world history in a brilliant new light.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Breezily written but intensively researched…The Year 1000 happily abounds with checkmate discoveries.”
—Boyd Tonkin, TheArtsDesk.com
“Full of eye-opening surprises. Hansen tells a rich and fascinating story of the many ways that far-flung societies a millennium ago forged connections....A masterly work of scholarship.”
—Liaquat Ahamed, author of Lords of Finance
“Typically wide-ranging, informative, and illuminating, Valerie Hansen has written a lovely book that puts together the pieces of the global jigsaw puzzle of a millennium ago.”
—Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
“Valerie Hansen takes us on an informative and entertaining romp around the world of a thousand years ago, on everything from Viking longboats to camel caravans...Anyone who thinks that globalization is something new needs to read this book!”
—Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules—for Now
“The myth of the ‘European Middle Ages’ dissolves in the ocean currents and trade winds of this stimulating account…Bolstered by facts and enlivened by intriguing theories, Hansen’s book presents a world of objects, ideas, people, animals, and know-how constantly on the move.”
—Barbara H. Rosenwein, author of A Short History of the Middle Ages and Generations of Feeling
“A whole new way of looking at the world. If you have the idea that medieval history was a time when there were few connections between those who inhabited different places on the map, this book will reorient you in the most stimulating way possible….Brilliant.”
—Rana Mitter, author of Forgotten Ally
“Hansen has not only fashioned a coherent and original vision of the world in the year 1000, in itself a remarkable feat of scholarship, but described it in a clear, concrete, and absorbing narrative that will entertain and enlighten every reader.”
—R.I. Moore, author of The First European Revolution and The War on Heresy
“Elegantly written and meticulously researched…a whirlwind world tour that challenges the notion of a more recently hyper-connected globe.”
—Sarah Parcak, author of Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past
“Spotlighting the encounters of Norse, Maya, African, Chinese, and Arabic peoples—and more—the book shows how their coming together in war and peace, and commerce and culture, profoundly shaped the world to come. A lively read filled with surprises.”
—Joanne B. Freeman, author of Affairs of Honor and The Field of Blood
“The world has been connected longer than the schoolbooks tell you, a whole millennium longer at least: connections of gold and spices, dragons and slaves and faith. Valerie Hansen teases out the unfamiliar links between Chinese markets, Baghdad fortunes, strange blonds on the walls of Mayan temples, and Vikings on Russian rivers in a careful but accessible and truly global history.”
—Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World
“Remarkable… More than a history of global trade, this is a story of human encounters brought to life by vignettes and voices from every corner of a connected medieval planet.”
—Nile Green, author of Sufism: A Global History
“Bold and entertaining…ultimately, a celebration of difference—and readiness—for the unfamiliar.”
—Arezou Azad, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Humboldt Fellow at the Freie University of Berlin
02/07/2020
Hansen (Chinese history, Yale Univ.; The Silk Road: A New History) argues that globalization is not modern, but began around the year 1000 CE. She bases her thesis upon accepted evidence of Norse explorers reaching Canada and perhaps connecting with the pre-existing trade routes of Amerindians and evidence of South East Asians, Chinese, and Arabs expanding their networks into Africa, the Pacific Islands, and elsewhere. While intriguing, the argument proves insufficient: The presence of the Norse in North America and their potential trade—tenuous and brief—does not a global network make. Plus, trade routes in Afro-Eurasia were neither new nor unique. These networks and information exchanges have deep historical antecedents: Eric Cline's 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed details several examples existing two millennia prior. Yet, only the broad sweep fails. When the author focuses on specific developments, particularly in China, the work is engrossing and informative. VERDICT Readers of medieval history and anyone interested in the achievements of non-Europeans will enjoy this work. However, readers wanting to get a better understanding of globalism may be disappointed.—Evan M. Anderson, Kirkendall P.L., Ankeny, IA
2020-01-05
If any reader still believes that the year 1000 marked the Dark Ages, this insightful history will set them right.
Though Hansen (Chinese and World History/Yale Univ.; The Silk Road: A New History With Documents, 2016, etc.) pays some attention to the politics, religion, and culture of the era, she focuses on commerce, making a convincing case that this date "marked the start of globalization…when trade routes took shape all around the world that allowed goods, technologies, religions, and people to leave home and go somewhere new." For commerce to circle the globe, traders had to reach the New World, which happened around 1000, although no one knew it at the time. As befits that era's greatest explorers, Hansen begins with the Norse, who, after centuries of raiding around Europe and the Mediterranean, sailed to Iceland, then Greenland, then North America, where later chroniclers and recent archaeological evidence (plus the usual fakes) indicated their arrival around 1000 and some trading but no permanent settlement. Less known but far more significant, the Norse also battled their way east. Known by the locals as "Rus," by 1000, they had reached the Caspian Sea, adopted Christianity, and laid the foundation of Russia. Despite the nearly complete absence of writing, when Columbus reached America in 1492 and Islamic slave traders penetrated Africa well before 1000, they found complex cultures with well-established trade routes. Hansen then moves on to the flourishing, prosperous, technically advanced Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia, ending with superpower China, the center of a massive trading system stretching from the Indies to Arabia and Africa. The author covers a vast amount of territory in a concise, readable manner, making for a welcome contribution to the popular literature on early global trade and geopolitics.A thoroughly satisfying history of a distant era and people.
