While he has a tendency to meander a bit, circling around the same topics repeatedly, he has certainly marshaled an impressive array of data and cites to back up his thesis. China in particular looms as an economic elephant, with a standard of living and adjusted per capita gnp, if Frank's cites are to be believed, higher than what was to be found in much of Europe as late as 1800. Until the opium trade started to bleed hard currency out of China in the early 19th century, it was the ultimate silver sink, absorbing most of the tremendous New World production in exchange for luxury goods that formed only a minor part of the state's internal revenue. Frank's hypothesis as to how the west's method of rising to dominance in that economic system is now being duplicated by nations like China itself in the modern world, seem more speculative and problematic. But that aside and even if one ends up not buying his arguments, this book is a single-source goldmine for cites on pre-modern comparative economic data. For that alone it is indispensable.