Theories of Change Across Eurasia

This essay compares and contrasts the approaches taken by Victor Lieberman and Jack Goldstone in their cited books toward explaining early modern (c. 1000-c.1830) historical processes of change across Eurasia with particular reference to processes of political/state integration. It also discusses how their respective perspectives might be harmonized.

For the most part, the perspectives of these authors are similar or complimentary and, therefore, are reconcilable. Both authors reject the notion that Asian cultures were static and only European cultures dynamic during early modernity.

They both discovered common features in the makeup of the nationstates they studied, which overlapped only partially in time and space. However, their basic purposes were very different, in Lieberman's case to ascertain what long term political, economic, social and cultural changes took place in Eurasia and why and in Goldstone's case to explain why different cultures faced state breakdowns and how they coped with the resulting crises. They were looking at two facets of the same coin, Lieberman at political integration, Goldstone at state breakdown or political disintegration. Each recognizes that their subjects are only part of the whole picture.

Important differences exist in their approaches to the causation of the phenomena they observe, some of which are more readily reconcilable than others. There is no way to reconcile Goldst

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petition provided a powerful incentive to political integration" (p. 70). Military needs dictated territorial expansion and consolidation. Economic factors, especially the expansion of trade and free markets, helped drive the process of political integration by bringing the core and peripheral areas closer together and by spreading new ideas. In the case of Japan, Berry said that three large population centers "required production and marketing organization across the country" (p. 126). Capitalism took different forms in Western Europe and Asia but Lieberman said "in every area under consideration between c. 1450 and 1830 total output expanded while agricultural and craft production became more specialized and commodified" (p. 56) And he found that "the widespread transition from subsistence to market production . . . was both a symptom and a cause of [political] integration" (p. 63). Cultural integration followed from unifying and expansionary government policies. He said "rising literacy promoted standardization in all six societies" (p. 67). Likewise, the emergence of centralizing elites, who stood to gain from political integration, such as the Confucian literati in Dai Viet and the lower samurai in Japan, served as leaders of
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Arguments Lieberman, Southeast Asia, Interestingly Goldstone, Eurasia Goldstone's, Consider Lieberman's, Russia Lieberman, Jack Goldstone, Asia Lieberman, Mughal India, Ming Chinese, political integration, ming china, integration goldstone, modern world, population growth, political collapses, population increases, cultural integration, empire ming china, ottoman empire ming, goldstone found, ann arbor university, eurasia 1830, arbor university michigan, university michigan press,
Approximate Word count = 2044
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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