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The Structures o f Everyday Life

eleventh century; the Venetians and Genoese at Caffa and Tana in the thirteenth century; and the Chinese in the Indian Archipelago, which had been their market for gold dust, spices, pepper, slaves, precious woods and swallows nests even before the thirteenth century. During the period covered by this book, a host of Chinese transporters, merchants, usurers, pedlars and middlemen exploited these colonial markets. If China remained so uninventive and so backward at the capitalist level, despite its intellectual power and its discoveries (paper money for example), it is to the extent that this exploitation was so easy and widespread. The Chinese had things too easy. It is only a step from market to colony. The exploited have only to cheat, or to protest, and conquest immediately follows. But it has been proved that the cultures, the semi-civilizations (the term is even applicable to the Tartars in the Crimea) were no mean adversaries. They were pushed back but they reappeared; they were stubborn enough to survive. They could not be permanently deprived of their future.

Civilization against civilization When civilizations clash the consequences are dramatic. Todays world is still embroiled in them. One civilization can get the better of another: Indias tragedy resulted from the British victory at Plassey (1757), which marked the beginning of a new era for Britain and the whole world. Not that Plassey (or rather Palassy, near present-day Calcutta) was an exceptional victory. The French could claim that Dupleix or Bussy were just as successful. But Plassey had immense conse quences, which is how great events are recognized: they have a sequel. In the same way the absurd Opium War (1840-2) marked the beginning of a century of inequality for China, colonized without really being so. As for Islam, it foundered completely in the nineteenth century, with the possible exception of Turkey. But China, India and Islam (or rather its various parts) recovered their independence with the series of decolonization measures after 1945. So certain stormy conquests looked at retrospectively, through the eyes of men today, seem like episodes, whatever their duration. They are achieved quickly or slowly. Then, one fine day, they collapse like stage sets. I am not suggesting that the path of history, thus telescoped and simplified, has been entirely dominated by numbers. It is not simply a question of strength or sheer weight. But numbers have mattered, throughout the centuries and we would do well to remember it. They provide one of the regular explanations, or rather constraints or constants of material life. If one neglects the role played by war for instance, a whole social, political and cultural (religious) area is imme diately left out of account. And exchanges lose their meaning, since they are often unequal. Europe cannot be understood without its slaves and its subject economies. China similarly cannot be understood if we ignore the savage cultures