Reorient

The world economic view held by most of the west is the result the mass dissemination of "Eurocentric" texts. ReOrient shows us that European countries lacked the technology and productive capacities to supply the world economies with the quantities of goods necessary to meet demand. Most of the world's productive capacities were in Asia and India up until the industrial revolution, according to Frank. This was the result of high population rates in Asia and the resulting lower wage rates, because of a lack of specialization and skilled labor in Asian markets. Frank revolves his entire book around the idea that Europeans were only able to usurp power and influence by controlling the money supply from South America, the labor supply from Africa and the productive capacity of Asia. The high ratio of labor to land and high productivity rates meant that Asian countries did not have the need to mechanize resulting in a "High Level Equilibrium trap" that enabled Europeans to take advantage of the vast industries in Asia. These facts when taken into account with European control of trade routes and everyone else's narrow Eurocentric, micro view of world economic development make up Franks view of the development of global trade and economic history.
             Frank claims to be taking every continent into account in his book; in fact it is one of the central tenets of his argument. However, the actual presentation focuses heavily on Europe and Asia. The other continents of the world are dismissed and mention only as suppliers of economic goods such as capital and labor. Vast and wealthy empires were in existence in both South America and Africa during this same time period and in Frank's view they had little to no influence on world economic development. The peoples in theses countries, while supplying labor and silver, were also interacting and influencing those they came in contact with as the Europeans sailed the globe and plundered what they wanted from each country.