The Questions of World History Books: Spence and Frank
Shintaro TOKUNAGA*

Keywords : World History, French Jesuits, World Economy, Macro-history, Micro-history

Introduction
There are numerous ways to observe the world, and these two books may contribute to ourcomprehension of the chaotic dynamism of the world which keeps changing for centuries even though
their methods and attitudes are totally different. Some humanities scholars seek rules in their fields andtry to simplify them by turning the chaos of diversity into linear logic. Within the humanities, world
historians have one of the most difficult jobs. Researching on pre-modern world history which entails
foreign trades and personal exchanges, historians face the lack of historical materials and the imbalanceof available sources between multiple cultures. Two eminent historians, however, daringly challenge
thinking about human history. In The Question of Hu, Jonathan D. Spence provides the story of a Chinese
gatekeeper John Hu who traveled between China and France in the 18th century. This personal story canbe categorized under micro-history. On the other hand, as macro-history, Andre Gunder Frank had
written the controversial history book, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, which deals with premodern world trade from the 15th century to the 20th century. Comparing and contrasting these two books,
world history could be researched by both macro-scopic and micro-scopic points of view though as
previously noted the historical materials are limited or imbalanced. Also, both books have raised thequestion of how the East and West had been interchanging in the pre-modern world.

The Question of Hu

The Question of Hu 1) is the story of one Chinese gatekeeper John Hu, a forty year old widower.
Hu accompanied Jean-François Foucquet, a French Jesuit priest, on a journey to France, staying
temporarily in several places in France such as Vanne, Nantes, Blois, Orléans and Paris. Later he iscommitted to the asylum of Charanten, as a “mentally ill patient.” After living in captivity for more than
two years, Hu is released and finally returns to China. In The Question of Hu, Jonathan D. Spence writes
a diary-style historical account of Hu’s experiences on his journey from China to Paris and back to China.
While Spence writes about Hu’s journey based on historical materials, he fleshes out the story with someknowledge and imagination to complete this book with a quasi-fictionalized account. The important thing
in this book is not necessarily historical accuracy in the 18th century, but Spence’s messages indirectlywritten in the story.
This is obviously an atypical history book. Since Spence is one of the eminent historians inChinese history, he writes more than just a simple story. Although Spence deals with only fragmental
historical records about Hu’s journey, the historian keeps an omniscient attitude presenting the story
diaristically. In a review, Standarest describes its style as a “free-flowing and compelling narrative” is“arranged as a diary” and “based on detailed historical research."2) In Spence’s historical research, the* Department of General Education, National Institute of Technology, Kagawa College123

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primary sources are mostly letters and diaries written by European — mainly French — monks.
Therefore, he created this story mostly with both primary and secondary sources written by Europeans.
Since Hu left only one distraught letter addressed to Father Foucquet as historical material, he does nothave enough say in conveying his own life to people of later periods. Spence uses Hu as a taciturnstoryteller.
In the first chapter, Spence introduces the question of Hu, “Why have I been locked up?”3) This
question leads to other broad questions: How did the European people interpret Hu’s behavior in Paris?,Why were there differences between Hu and people in Europe?, Why and how are they different? Eachquestion poses another question like a chain reaction.
Although Hu could read and write Chinese, his behaviors in the new environment revealed that
he was presumably from the working class rather than from a cadre of Chinese society. When Hu arrives
in Paris, he loves everything about it and tells Fouquet “it’s a paradise on earth.”4) But later he has toaccept the fact that this paradise is not for him. Admittedly Hu’s behavior in Europe is quite strange andincoherent. Although Fouquet prepares a coach and a horses for Hu, he declines and “wants to be a begger”
and “walk all across France, begging his way.”5) Hu might not know how to behave as a guest in Paris, orjust follows the Chinese rule in France. Later, in the asylum of Charenton, the suburb of Paris, when oneof the staff gives Hu a warm blanket to ward away the night cold, he “tears the blanket to shreds.”6) Thisaction can be interpreted as a defiant attitude claiming that he wants freedom, not a warm blanket. Whoknows?
In the last chapter, Hu finally returns to Canton, the south-east region of China. When children
ask him “what it’s like over there, in the West,” he closes his eyes and answers “…It’s like this.”7) The end
is left open ended. Hu’s suggestive comment leads readers to another question: How did he talk about hisjourney by himself? As Spence is an eminent researcher in Chinese history, the historian could haveimagined this story from the alternative view of French monks. Unfortunately, as Standest points outthat “further information is lacking” to reveal the unclear and incomprehensible parts of the story.
Obviously he could not talk with the people in Europe because of the language barrier. Also, in his homecountry, China, the other barrier of social class didn’t allow him to talk to people of the aristocracy who
might have officially recorded his opinions. Hu just told his story to the children in the farm village.
Jonathan D. Spence’s The Question of Hu is a short and simple story, and written in plain
language, but this story puzzles readers with the questions Spence poses. It provides the readers withmore riddles than historical facts. This simple book makes the readers have complicated thoughts unlessthey conclude that it is just the story of one crazy man. The interpretation is up to the readers.

ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age
Compaired to The Question of Hu, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age8) is a much larger
book not only in words or pages but also in a concept of boldness and scale. In ReOrient, Andre GunderFrank writes about the world economy from 1400 to present. The first half is full of information about
economic conditions of the world. And the second half mainly consists of arguments about how the regionsof the world are interconnected with each other. The author insists that world history is horizontally —or spherically — integrated. At least after the year 1400, the world developed as one group of people eventhough there were regional imbalances and waves of ups and downs between the East and West.
Throughout this book, he consistently claims the superiority of Asia, especially China, and thebackwardness of Europe until the eighteenth century. Europeans used silver to trade with Easterncountries, while Asian people were producers of goods. European people were just exploiters of people inthe Americas and traders with people in Asia. Considering the transition of the world economy, Frank124

Shintaro TOKUNAGA ; The Questions of World History Books: Spence and Franksomehow uses Kondratieff Wave9), a 50-60 year economical cycle discovered by research based on theEuro-American economy, to explain the fall of Asia and “temporary” rise of Europe.
The first half of the book — chapters 2, 3 and 4 — contains the narratives of the economic
conditions of the world. In these chapters he makes convincing explanations of how Europe waseconomically peripheral in the international community, and the rest of the world was advanced in thetrading business. The provided maps and lists of each region in this book convey the flows of world
trades.10) Unfortunately, however, there is no citation pertaining to the information such as trading routes
and traded goods. China might have been a fountain of wealth and resources, and the Americas might
have been Europe’s magic wands. Frank tends to disagree with Eurocentrism, but the achievement ofEuropeans is exceptionally successful and effective. They seem to have exploited the rest of the world.
Europeans chose to benefit by trading not fighting because they knew they could not conquer. They
invented plundering trade and colonization in the fifteenth century. Can we apply the Europeans’ newinventions to Kondratieff’s long term cycles ?
In the second half of the book — chapter 5, 6 and 7 — Frank starts commenting on the world
even more personally because those chapters seem to contain his grand hypothesis about world history
rather than answers to the question of how the world’s ebbs and flows were driven by economics. Inchapter 5, Frank points out that Fernand Braudel separates the Boston Tea Party from the rest of theworld, and Emmanuel Wallerstein also fails to explain that “the intervening recession in the 1770s”“sparked the American Revolution.”11) Frank insists that simultaneity is no coincidence12) by quoting andcriticizing eminent world historians.
As a world history resource, Reorient is boldly a framed book. Interestingly, in the preface, Frankadmits: “this book is full of holes”13) In this respect, Subrahmanyam criticizes Frank’s bold attitude in hisreview which is written in French, pointing out that Frank arrives at the conclusions without mastering
the basic ideas. 14) Because of the broad topics and bold hypothesis, indeed, there are many holes in thisbook. Without his anti-Western attitude, he maybe could have filled more holes in his book. Also, Frankadmits his book lacks explanation about the fall of Oriental countries as follows: “We are able to say very
little about why the Asian economies and Ottoman, Safavid, Mugal, and Qing empires declined.”15) Franksays that “the European bought themselves a seat”16) to trade with the rest of the world. Then he explains
about trades of slaves and silver, the other controversial issues.
Andre Gunder Frank’s ReOrient is a masterpiece of world history, and the legacy of twentiethcentury’s historiography of macro-history. The criticisms from readers would contribute to ReOrient eventhough they disagree with Frank. This is because he needs a broader view and deeper understanding inorder to describe pre-modern world history even more precisely. It is safe to say that he had left the workfor historians of the twenty-first century to ask the question of how world trade worked in the pre-modernera and currently.
ConclusionSince those deceased eminent historians, Jonathan D. Spence and Andre Gunder Frank, hadleft inspiring books, by comparing and contrasting the research styles of The Question of Hu andReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, world history could be analyzed by both macro-scopic andmicro-scopic points of view even with only scarce and partial primary sources available to us. It is not only
simple but also terribly naïve to criticize them as idealists or megalomaniacs. As some regional conflicts
or personal decisions can influence the rest of the world economically and politically even more rapidly
than previous centuries, world history is worthy of serious consideration.

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Notes1) Spence, Jonathan D. “The Question of Hu”, Vintage Books, 1989
2) Standarest, Nicolas, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), p136
3) Spence, p44) Spence, p70
5) Spence, p55
6) Spence, p118
7) Spence, p134
8) Frank, Andre Gunder, “ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age”, University of California Press,
19989) Frank, p xxi
10) Frank, p69
11) Frank, p25312) Frank, p228
13) Frank, p xxix
14) Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 55e Année, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 2000),p946
15) Frank, p264
16) Frank, p277
Bibliography
Frank, Andre Gunder, “ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age”, University of California Press, 1998
Spence, Jonathan D. “The Question of Hu”, Vintage Books, 1989
Standarest, Nicolas, The Journal of Asian Studies, pp. 136-137 (2 pages), Association for Asian Studies,Vol. 49, No. 1 (Feb., 1990)
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 55e Année, pp. 944-946 (3 pages),
Cambridge University Press, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 2000)

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