The Long Millennium

This book argues that long-distance trade in luxury items – such as diamonds, gold, cinnamon, scented woods, ivory, and pearls, all of which require little overhead in their acquisition and were relatively easy to transport – played a foundational role in the creation of what we would call "global trade" in the first millennium CE. The book coins the term "dark matter economy" to better describe this complex – though mostly invisible – relationship to normative realities.

The first full integration of the dark matter economy with the emerging global flows took place in South India and Sri Lanka at the beginning of the millennium. The book then moves to other places in the world – "sweet spots" – where a particular type of affluence was generated through the trade in luxury goods. This upstream affluence manifested itself in the creation of shrines, palaces, temples, and engineering works that all thickened the landscape of memory, control, and extraction, and also served as a defence mechanism against intrusions from afar. The book also explains the collapse of the dark matter economy as a result of the cumulative energies of colonialism, modernisation, and nationalism that make it hard for us today to come to terms with this history.

The Long Millennium will appeal to students and scholars alike studying the trade networks and economics of the early Middle Ages, as well as anyone interested in the effect of trade on medieval society in the first millennium CE.