Cowrie shells and cowrie money : a global history / Bin Yang
- Author:
- Yang, Bin, 1972-
- Published:
- Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource
Access Online
- Series:
- Contents:
- Global phenomenon, local varieties -- The Maldives: procurement and export -- India: in the beginning -- Southeast Asia: intra-Asian interactions -- Yunnan: an Indian influence in the Southeast Asian-Chinese world -- Why not in early China? -- Cowrie money in West Africa: connecting the worlds, old and new -- The Pacific Islands and North America: out of the Bengali system -- More than just money -- The cowrie money world.
- Summary:
- "Originating in the sea, especially in the waters surrounding the low-lying islands of the Maldives, Cypraea moneta (sometimes confused with Cypraea annulus) was transported to various parts of Afro-Eurasia in the prehistoric era, and in many cases, it was gradually transformed into a form of money in various societies for a long span of time. Yang provides a global examination of cowrie money within and beyond Afro-Eurasia from the archaeological period to the early twentieth century. By focusing on cowrie money in Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asian, and West African societies and shell money in Pacific and North American societies, Yang synthsises and illustrates the economic and cultural connections, networks and interactions over a longue durée and in a cross-regional context, analysing locally varied experiences of cowrie money from a global perspective, arguing that cowrie money was the first global money that shaped Afro-Eurasian societies both individually and collectively, proposing a paradigm of the cowrie world and thus engaging many local, regional, transregional and global themes"--
- Subject(s):
- Genre(s):
- ISBN:
- 9780429489587 (electronic bk.)
0429489587 (electronic bk.)
9780429952333 (electronic bk.)
0429952333 (electronic bk.) - Bibliography Note:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Source of Acquisition:
- Purchased with funds from the The Hastings Libraries Endowment ; 2018
- Endowment Note:
- The Hastings Libraries Endowment
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