The Songs of Asia I have more than a little sympathy for a somewhat lazy idea that the bulk of the money and wealth in this world have always been based historically in civilisations around the Indian Ocean and in Asia generally. The sources of wealth, of course, are not fungible and nor are they immutable and ideal. New wealth can be discovered, and new things generated. Something seems to have happened three hundred or so years ago, however. Europe went to Asia with superior technologies and universalist ideas, and a history of immigrant mixing, expansive and aggressive warfare and the wealth of the Americas and Africa at its disposal. In a real sense, it dispropriated Asia; that's how a fragment of the Hapsburg monarchy and the Napoleonic wars like Belgium could become the eighth richest country in the world. Now, there is a tremendous temptation to accept the typically grand and sweeping observation that Napoleon could have made that power and money are sweeping back. I'v...
This is a collection of personal and largely unedited observations covering the years from 2006 to now; I assert my copyright but am fine with links and footnotes. Some posts are obviously much more researched than others, and any errors are wholly mine except where I have innocently disseminated or linked to other bloggers or commentators.