This chapter analyzes the major trends in late Ottoman Gaza’s economy, society, and geostrategic importance. It tackles the misconception that during this period Gaza was a city in “decline.” It discusses a wide range of topics such as the impact of early globalization and the change in the hajj pilgrimage route on the status of Gaza as a caravan city; the impact of the barley boom in the Northern Negev between 1890 and 1910 as a result of the growing demand of Britain’s beer industry on Gaza’s economy; the city’s lack of a proper port infrastructure and its implications; the Ottoman government state-building measures and division of the region’s administrative borders, the establishment of Beersheba to reduce Gaza’s influence on the Bedouins of the Negev, and the governmental development plans envisioned for the Gaza region; the extensive relationships between Gaza and Egypt, including the effects of the occupation of Egypt by Britain in 1882 and the creation of the administrate dividing line between Egypt and Palestine in 1906 on Gaza’s geostrategic importance. Finally, it explores whether the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 constituted a turning point in Gaza’s importance in the eyes of the central government and how it affected the city’s development.

If Indians and Asians had been the leading producers and traders in the first global economy, as chapters 2 through 5 argue, then chapter 6 considers who they were as well as where and how they operated so effectively. It uses the Multānīs as a key example of Indian trading firms that plied the overland caravan routes. This gains added significance because Eurocentrism presumes that the so-called European-dominated High Seas displaced the trade on the overland routes. The chapter places special emphasis on critiquing the Eurocentric model of the Asian pedlar by revealing the rational methods and activities of the large-scale Multānī firms. Indeed, these matched the scale of leading European firms and bankers such as the Rothschilds and Warburgs. And it also problematises the Eurocentric Oriental despotism thesis by revealing the many ways in which the major Asian states—Mughal, Ottoman, Safavid and the Central Asian Uzbek Khanates—provided a highly conducive environment for the Multānī firmsto flourish.