[A-List] Re: EH.N: All-Ohio Economic History Seminar presents David Landes LIVE on web

[Andre Gunder Frank <franka@xxxxxxx>]

I can present my friend DAVID even MORE LIVEly than that
in the form of a C-Span video broadcast ''live''  nationwide
and now available from them for the royal sum of 30 bucks.

Therein dear David makes eminently clear that he does not know the first
thing about China, and what he knows about the West is ALL WRONG.
What I can say for David is that his  showmanship is excellent and
charming [as he is himself], so much so that he manages to bamboozle his
audience.  Happy days.
gunder

p.s, my review of his book is available on my web page  [and his of mine
in the Journal of Econ Hist]. And in case you have neither time nor
pleasure to tune in on OSU or Landes/Frank, I can offer you a selction of
what dear David has to say about China. Let him then speak for himself,

Although Landes writes "anyone who wants to understand world economic
history must study China," [23] his 'study' finds that
[every word hereinafter is a direct quote from his book]

the Chinese lacked range, focus, and above all, curiosity; they were
a culturally and intellectually homeostatic society that
could live with little change; they had indifference to technology,
technological and scientific torpor; lacked institutions for finding
and learning [in the world's most literate society!]; abhorred mercantile
success, and were not motivated by greed and passion.
They showed deliberate introversion, isolationism, risk aversion,
irrationality, xenophobia, arrogance, haughtiness, stunned
submissiveness, self-defeating escapism; were insecure and brittle, and so
on and on
-------------
QED ! ?

Alas, although David's prose about the Rise of the West is less
high-flying than it is about China,  his rendition of it is equally
base-less



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                    ANDRE  GUNDER  FRANK
Department of History			   Home
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E-Mail: franka@xxxxxxx          Web Page: csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/