"Seeking to transcend the hoary insistence on East-West dichotomies, this collection looks at transformations in cultural and political organization across Eurasia that were both more general and more psychologically significant to pre-1830 actors themselves than the problem that has obsessed twentieth-century comparativists, namely, the origins of a unique European industrialism.

Nine coordinated essays explore the proposition that the integration of isolated units to form more cohesive systems in France, Russia, and other European countries c. 1000-1830 correspond in important respects to integrative processes that were occurring at the same time in parts of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Japan.".

"Insofar as similarities between some European and Asian areas exceeded those between different sectors of Asia, this collection invites historians to reject Eurocentric perspectives in favor of more thematic, contextually-specific categories. At the same time it raises the possibility of a broad "early modern" period for Eurasia at large."--BOOK JACKET.