Andre Gunder Frank asks us to ReOrient our views away from Eurocentrism--to see the rise of the West as a mere blip in what was, and is again becoming, an Asia-centered world. In a bold challenge to received historiography and social theory he turns on its head the world according to Marx, Weber, and other theorists, including Polanyi, Rostow, Braudel, and Wallerstein. Frank explains the Rise of the West in world economic and demographic terms that relate it in a single historical sweep to the decline of the East around 1800. European states, he says, used the silver extracted from the...

Andre Gunder Frank was a path-breaking scholar in several disciplines over an illustrious and contentious 50-year career. Premier among his many important works is the book, ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age, which sought to correct a Eurocentric worldview of the development of the global political economy. As Gunder Frank continued his research, he realized that many of the myths of European industrialization, hegemony, and capitalism hid the fact that Asia remained a serious power not just into the 18th century, as he argued in 1998, but well into the 19th century as well. Gunder...