Urban World History: An Economic and Geographical Perspective

Chapter 3 - The Two First Economy-Worlds: The Roman and Chinese Empires

CHAPTER 3The Two First Economy-Worlds: The Roman and Chinese Empires© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch3_EP4.indd 131 G1588_ch3_EP4.indd 131 10/02/09 13:37:13 10/02/09 13:37:13 © 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch3_EP4.indd 132 G1588_ch3_EP4.indd 132 10/02/09 13:37:14 10/02/09 13:37:14 The two first economy-worlds the world has known appeared in an interval of only 250 years at the two extremities of the Eurasian continent: in the Mediterranean region and in China. They have in common the fact that they are compact, and they became politically united thanks to two empires, which covered them. However, they differ by their geography. The Roman Empire was, above all, a maritime empire built around the Mediterranean Sea, mare nostrum also called mare internum, while the Chinese Empire was basically continental although, at some epochs, it tended to make of the China Sea a Chinese mare nostrum. There is another major difference: the Roman urbexplosion was relatively recent when it gave birth to the Mediterranean economy-world, whereas the Chinese economy-world was dominated for a long time by the old Changan-Xi’an urbexplosion. Actually, before dominating, the Roman urbexplosion had to supplant the old Babylonian urbexplosion and marginalize the emerging Greek urbexplosion, while, in order for the Chinese economy-world to take form, the Changan-Xi’an urbexplosion did not have to yield ground to a new urbexplosion. It is just around AD 1400 that the urbexplosion dominated by Nanking-Nanjing and Hangzhou came to definitely take away from Changan-Xi’an’s urbexplosion the leadership of the Chinese economy-world. The very long domination of Changan-Xi’an is all the more worth underlining since, between AD 800 and 900, the center of gravity of the Chinese Empire passed from the north to the south, and China moved from a civilization based on wheat and millet to a civilization based on rice. On the contrary, in the case of the Roman Empire, the economic and geographical basis of the economy-world remained the cultivation of wheat, vine, and olive trees, even after the center of the economy-world had moved from Rome to Constantinople.© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés G1588_ch3_EP4.indd 133 G1588_ch3_EP4.indd 133 10/02/09 13:37:14 10/02/09 13:37:14 134 Urban World History© 2009 – Presses de l’Université du Québec Édifice Le Delta I, 2875, boul. Laurier, bureau 450, Québec, Québec G1V 2M2 • Tél.: (418) 657-4399 – www.puq.ca Tiré de: Urban World History, Luc-Normand Tellier, ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1 • G1588 Tous droits de reproduction, de traduction et d’adaptation réservés s THE EMERGENCE OF THE ROMAN ECONOMY-WORLD At its peak, under the Antonine dynasty and, more precisely, at the end of Trajan’s reign that lasted from AD 98 to 117, the Roman Empire covered the whole Mediterranean Sea and most of the Black Sea. It extended to the limits of Scotland, the Rhine, the Danube and its tributary the Pruth River, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, the Tigris, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Desert, the Red Sea, the Nile’s first cataract, the Sahara, and the Atlantic. Its territory was criss-crossed by the immense network of the Roman roads, which is at the very origin of the present-day European urban system. Needham estimated that the Roman Empire had about 164...