Commercial Revolution in the Central Eurasian Middle Ages
Tribute, Capital & Nomadic Aristocracy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2026.1364Keywords:
Abu-Lughod, Capitalism, Central Asia, Afro-Eurasian world system, Capital Accumulation, Marxism, Mongol Empire, Nomads, Silk Road, TaxationAbstract
Janet Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony remains a landmark in both World-Systems Analysis and global medieval historiography. The claim that the height of Mongol Eurasian hegemony c.1250-1350 formed an inflection point in Afro-Eurasian integration remains compelling after more than thirty five years, but many of the theoretical and empirical details can be revised. Theoretically, the long thirteenth century identified by Abu-Lughod saw the final coalescence of a world-market in a pre-existing Afro-Eurasian world-system, rather than a novel world-system as she had argued. This world-market was formed by the secular trend towards the interregional integration of capital circuits, as Abu-Lughod described, and constituted an Afro-Eurasian Commercial Revolution. Nevertheless the world-market spanned a world-system constituted by tributary rather than capitalist regimes of accumulation, resulting in distinct dynamics and tendencies from those theorised for the modern capitalist world-economy. This argument is developed empirically through analysis of the Mongol world-empire, the definitive development in Abu-Lughod’s vision. Central Eurasian nomadism is presented as a variant type of tributary regime, which shaped the patterns and rhythms of the world-market at the height of commercialisation. Thus Abu-Lughod’s overall vision is renovated but reinforced, establishing new claims to be tested in future research, especially the long history of capital accumulation in the tributary regimes that constituted the medieval Afro-Eurasian world-system, both sedentary and nomadic.
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