Charles Issawi

The Tabriz–Trabzon Trade, 1830–1900: Rise and Decline of a Route

One of the main obstacles to the development of Irans foreign trade over the centuries has been the location of its fertile northern provinces, which are shut off from the worlds open seas by vast deserts and huge mountain chains. Since these provinces produced the countrys most valuable export—silk—and since, after the transfer of the capital to Tehran, they included its largest consuming centers, trade had to be conducted over long caravan routes. In the seventeenth century, much silk was shipped through the Persian Gulf ports, but with the end of the Turco-Persian wars the bulk of Irans westward trade passed across the Ottoman Empire—through Baghdad, and thence to either the Persian Gulf or the Mediterranean, or through Erzurum (Erzerum), and thence to Istanbul (Constantinople), Izmir (Smyrna) or Aleppo. However, all these routes were long, insecure, and expensive.

The Middle East Economy: Decline and Recovery: Selected Essays by Charles Issawi

Charles Issawi focuses on the main reasons for the economic decline of the Middle East. He discusses climate, geography, and religion, with particular emphasis on the military elite, whose contempt for artisans and merchants thwarted positive economic initiatives. The role played by minorities and foreigners throughout the regions history is also examined. Finally, the author compares the economic histories of different Middle Eastern countries with each other, and with other areas of the world where similar conditions prevailed.

Technology, Energy, and Civilization: Some Historical Observations

The degree of development (or, if you prefer, material civilization) of any society is set by the size of its surplus (the total amount it produces minus the amount needed for the bare subsistence of the population) and the uses to which the surplus is put. In Emersons wise words, “The question of history is what each generation has done with its surplus produce. One bought crusades, one churches, one villas, one horses and one railroads.” The size of the surplus is, in turn, determined by four factors: the amount of energy available to the society, the societys technology, the mix of its economy, and the size of its population. Until comparatively recently, energy was, with the important exception of sailing ships, provided exclusively by human or animal power. 1 Two important steps forward were the invention of the watermill and that of the windmill; their development will be discussed later. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that until the Industrial Revolution, some 80–85 percent of total energy was provided by plants, animals, and people. 2 This means that the basic factors determining the amount of energy available to a society were the amount of land (arable, pasture, and woodland) it had at its disposal and the lands productivity. Land “was not simply the principal source of food for the population [the other being the seas and rivers] but also virtually the sole source of the raw materials used in industrial production”—fibers, hides, hair, wood, and so forth; almost all industrial workers were engaged in processing agricultural materials.

Egypt, Iran and Turkey, 1800–1970: Patterns of Growth and Development

An assessment of the relative economic performance of Egypt, Iran and Turkey1 from 1800 to 1970 is more meaningful than most such comparisons. Throughout the period, the three countries have had populations of much the same size and degree of development, and around 1800 their per capita incomes must have been roughly equal and their economic structures basically similar. Until the Oil Revolution of 1970–73, which drastically changed their relative positions, there was no significant difference in their resource endowments. All three share a common historical and cultural legacy: each had originated one of the major ancient civilisations, each had greatly contributed to the formation of Islamic society and culture, and all three had experienced the stagnation and decline that characterised the Middle East in the modern period. Lastly, all three were integrated in the world economy at much the same time and subjected to the same major forces: the thrust of European imperialism, the expansion of world trade, the spread of mechanical transport and electric communications, the flow of vast amounts of foreign capital, the unsettling Western ideas of nationalism, secularism and political liberty, and the influx of hundreds and thousands of Europeans with the technical, business or administrative skills required for the modernisation of society which the Middle Eastern governments were, with various degrees of commitment and success, attempting to carry out.

1973 Presidential Address Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting

Anything coming after the floor show we have just seen can only be an anticlimax, and my impulse is to tear up my prepared text and just quote two great men: Thomas Carlyle, who described economics as “the dismal science” and Henry Ford, who said “history is bunk” — from which it presumably follows that economic history is dismal bunk. Instead, I should like to take advantage of this captive audience and speak to you in praise of economic history. This is an old Arabic genre : mahasin al-iqtisad . And of course economic history means giving as little history for as much money as possible, so you will not expect a long speech.