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mjlopez128's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
2.0
The Year 1000 presents a picture of the world that is very interconnected outside of Western Europe, which was going through a relative low point in trade and influence. I enjoy history books and found some of the information interesting. The most engaging and relevant part was the chapter on maritime trade among the Arabs, Middle East, East Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and China. Unfortunately, the book read more as a series of facts than a coherent whole with a clear message. I feel it could have used improvement in organization, focus, and editing.
The author writes in a meandering style that starts a chapter with one set of details, then chains through various topics for the remainder. This makes it difficult to get the big picture or understand how the sub-topics fit together thematically. I would have preferred a clearer organization where each chapter starts by introducing one to three main points, provides a map of how things will be presented, and divides the rest into sub-sections that support those main points. It also didn't help that the title of the book (The Year 1000) and the chapter titles were not always indicative of the bulk of the content.
I also think that the book could have benefited from a tightening of focus. It's nominally about globalization. However, this is used to mean anything from how two cultures interacted a bit then went their separate ways, to how the trade in aromatics affected the daily lives of rich Chinese people, to how political leaders influenced the future worldwide spread of certain religions through very practical decision making at specific moments in time. Without a clear theme, the book ends up being a bit of a grab-bag survey of the world outside of Western Europe across several hundred years on either side of 1000.
A more focused approach could have gone in one of several directions, for instance:
I also think that the book could have benefited from a tightening of focus. It's nominally about globalization. However, this is used to mean anything from how two cultures interacted a bit then went their separate ways, to how the trade in aromatics affected the daily lives of rich Chinese people, to how political leaders influenced the future worldwide spread of certain religions through very practical decision making at specific moments in time. Without a clear theme, the book ends up being a bit of a grab-bag survey of the world outside of Western Europe across several hundred years on either side of 1000.
A more focused approach could have gone in one of several directions, for instance:
- The Asian maritime trade mentioned earlier seems global enough and thematically rich enough to illustrate various topics of globalization. Each chapter could be about a particular topic.
- The author could have partnered with an economist to co-write a book diving deeper into analogies between modern economic globalization (both its problems and benefits) and what was seen around 1000. The book occasionally touches on this topic, but more as sporadic superficial side comments when things like low-quality knockoff goods come up.
- Illustrate the effects of globalization in people's lives by writing each chapter from the point of view of a fictional or historical figure in a different part of the world. Additional historical and archeological context could be handled as side stories within each chapter.
In any case, I probably would have dropped the two chapters on the Americas. The story of how the Vikings discovered America is interesting enough, but from a globalization point of view doesn't seem to have had much lasting impact on either side. The chapter on the Mayans and Chaco Canyon seemed overly speculative; it feels like there either wasn't enough evidence to fill in the details or this just wasn't the author's area of expertise.
peterp3's review against another edition
4.5
This is an excellent account of the world 1000 years ago, with a focus on global trade. It’s clearly underpinned by a great deal of scholarly research, but it’s very accessible and readable. It’s very refreshing to read world history from a non-European-centric point of view. Fascinating to realise that even 1000 years ago, China was the world’s biggest manufacturer and exporter, trading ceramics and silk throughout Asia, India, Middle East and Africa.
murphyc1's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.75
Read again someday. It was too dense to listen to.
bmadisonw's review against another edition
challenging
informative
fast-paced
3.0
Don’t let the title deceive you; this book covers way more than just the year 1000. Unlike similarly-titled and narrowly-focused tomes like Mark Kurlansky’s 1968 or 1421 by Gavin Menzies (which gets a special shoutout in this book for its unverified and professionally disbelieved central premise that Chinese explorers discovered America in the titular year), The Year 1000 spins a web of world history from circa 800 to the roots of Europe’s Age of Imperialism in 1500.
Hansen explores economic, religious, and ethnic contact during this period, where cultures advanced technologically, supporting larger populations and spreading around the globe. I was particularly intrigued by descriptions of trade routes and patterns of succession in the early Americas, as these civilizations are often only described in isolation. The author also highlights how deliberately and dispassionately rulers of the time chose their religion--and usually that of their nation--in order to consolidate power and maximize benefit to themselves, laying the foundations for the religious blocks that still hold today. To think, the centuries of ongoing religious conflicts our world has suffered are primarily rooted in some power-hungry man’s whims nearly a thousand years ago.
This book doesn’t shy from the horrors of the past, offering a full portrait of a pivotal period of human history. The writing is fairly dry, even for nonfiction, but the information is certainly worth learning.