In the book The World That Trade Created by Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik, the authors examine how trade has affected the world that we currently reside in today. With the help of seven chapters filled with various articles, the authors uncover how trade is interconnected with many other subjects such as economics, culture, and industrialization. The book examines trade from the New World with few references to the Old World with ties to all habitable continents. The book lets the reader get lost in history by showing how everything in interconnected in history. In the first chapter, the authors uncover how trade started in the New World. I feel like this was one of the weaker chapters of the book. The chapter features articles on …show more content…
The chapter first introduces us to the railroad, then the steamship. It later clarifies that shipping products by water was by far cheaper than land transportation. One of the articles it contains reveals how Shanghai thrived as a port during the nineteenth century. The city was situated near the Yangzi River where ships were allowed to carry various products to inland China. Another article featured Stamford Raffles and how he found Singapore. Raffles created Singapore by making it an entrepot for trade; therefore, his city flourished due to its prime location in the East Indies. Articles like these clearly demonstrate why transportation was so important. The third chapter will introduce the reader into how drugs stimulated the world economy. Tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar, and cocoa were all considered ‘drugs’ in international trade. Many readers often associated negative connotations with drugs, but they were a very essential part of an economy. This chapter contains articles on chocolate and its uses, the story of coffee, and sugarcane in Haiti. My favorite article in this chapter had to be about how Haiti transformed from a tropical paradise to a slave plantation when slaves were brought to Haiti to grow the luxurious product. The growth of sugar hit its prime about two centuries ago. To this date, sugar is found in most of the products we consume daily. Additionally, the article on chocolate uncovers that the sweet
“No nation was ever ruined by trade.” This quote was said by Benjamin Franklin in the late 1700s. These words are so simple, and it seems like anyone could have said them. However, this quote has a bigger meaning in that throughout world history, trade has been so important to so many countries and it has led to many empires successes. It has occurred for a very long time, and it has progressed dramatically. Trade has changed a lot, but some parts of trade stayed the same over a long periods of time. In the era between 300 CE and 1450 CE, trade between Eurasia and Africa changed because the empires and kingdoms in power were replaced and their control over trade differed;
4.1.I How did the global trade network after 1500 CE affect the pre-existing regional trade
Daily Life through Trade: Buying and Selling in World History. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2013. Print.
It was the largest producer of sugar, and also the most valuable sugar producing colony, with much as eighty-eight thousand tons of sugar were being processed annually. In addition to the massive amounts of sugar being produced in Haiti, it was also a large producer of a variety of other commodities, one of which being coffee which it produced about thirty-seven thousand tons annually. Even further, the commodities that were being exported from Haiti totalled approximately one third of France’s external commerce. Moreover, a tremendous amount of the sugar that was being consumed in France came from Haiti. However, it was not exclusively France who was indulging on the commodities being produced and exported here, as the United States had participated as well. As a matter of fact, about all of the sugar and other commodities, such as molasses, that was being consumed in the United States had been imported from Haiti. The mass production of all the commodities did not happen by itself, but rather it happened due to the intensive labour of the slave population.
It analyzes the interaction between the Chinese, Indians, and Arabs. This chapter examines the trade situation before and after the European invaded. Around 1500, was the first time the trade began and it was one of the greatest generators of the economy. Therefore, it was really important for places like Asia, Africa, and Arabs to get access to the Indian Ocean.
If there was ever an important period historians, and people could put a finger on, this would be it. This is the important period where the world’s countries, kingdoms, and dynasties established trade routes. This is the period where countries were made and countries were destroyed because of the importance of trade and the importance of building a fundamental, religious, and economical way of life. This paper will discuss the goals and functions of trades, and traders, and a historical analysis of world trade. This paper will also get into world trade patterns, of The Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, The Indian Ocean, The Silk routes, China and The South China Sea, Europe and The Mediterranean, and The Atlantic Exploration.
When studying trade and commodities of Empires in any period of time, it is important to look at the changes that the trade created within the involved nations. What crops were popular enough to grow commercially in the empire, what the increase of trade did to the population demographics, and how the global system influenced the interactions of the countries involved can be found through close reading primary sources. Through sources like Trade and Travel in the Far East by G.F. Davidson and Tearful Conversation over the Mulberry Fields and the Sea by Nguyen Thuong Hien, scholars can determine the impact these factors had on the lives of those who experienced empirical trade. In comparing these two documents, the most prominent focus is on
1. Long-distance commerce acted as a motor of change in pre-modern world history by altering consumption and daily life. Essential food and useful tools such as salt were traded from the Sahara desert all the way to West Africa and salt was used as a food preserver. Some incenses essential to religious ceremonies were traded across the world because there was a huge demand for them. Trade diminished economic self-sufficiency by creating a reliance on traded goods and encouraged people to specialize and trade a particular skill. Trade motivated the creation of a state due to the wealth accumulated from controlling and taxing trade. Trade posed the problem of if the government or private
Throughout time every society has had to address enduring themes with different results. One of these enduring themes is cultural diffusion and trade. This is particularly apparent during the 1500s When Europeans arrived in the new world. It is also apparent when slaves were brought to the New World during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Although cultural diffusion was negative in that it caused the death of many Native Americans overall cultural diffusion was positive in that it increased communication between the New World and the Old World and it brought new crops and raw materials to the Old World.
The sugar industry was the most successful of any industry surrounding auxiliary foods because once one tasted its sweetness they could not easily abandon their love of it (Doc 3). Consumers began increasing the sugar content in common household foods such as tea, coffee, and chocolate to make them more pleasing, leading only to further addiction. This caused an even greater increase in the demand for sugar, which was directly associated with the booming demand for the other products mentioned (Doc 4). When sugar consumption increased 11.6lbs per capita annually in a fairly short time span, the amount of sugar being imported from the Caribbean was forced to increase enough to satisfy the need. Severe addiction was becoming an issue and nothing was there to stop this steady increase of the Europeans sugar intake (Doc 5).
Trade has greatly impacted the world in many ways. Trade is the exchange of goods. People trade because they want to better themselves with things they need or want. People can also trade ideas and religions. Sea routes and land routes were most important to be able to trade.
The centuries from 1400 to 1700 were monumental. They marked the first time people from all across the globe were connected socially, politically, and economically. A large contributor to this were the systems of international trade, heralded by advances in maritime technology. The Columbian Exchange, for instance, transported potatoes, corn, and silver from the New World to the Old, and it carried farm animals, vegetables, and slaves from the Old World to the New. Another example is the spice trade between Asia and Europe. This trade network is simulated in an interactive learning experience entitled “Become a Spice Trader.” The purpose of this activity is to educate the participant about the nature of international trade in a fun and engaging manner. I believe that it achieves this goal.
According to Pomeranz, the booming transcontinental trade that lasted up to the Industrial Age was the popularity of “drug foods” such as “coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate, tobacco, and later opium” (77-78). Out of all the drug
Maritime advances of the 1500s made Western Europe’s ambitions for global trade feasible and thus gave birth to Europe’s Age of Exploration. Through the combined use of caravels, compasses, and astrolabes, Europeans stumbled upon commodities in foreign lands known as “drug foods”. Consequently, this introduction would have a lasting impact on the Europeans, they became drug addicts. Furthermore, this addiction, the demand for these drugs, became permanently embedded into European culture. To please an everlasting demand, Europeans had to decide on how to frugally acquire these commodities. The decision taken was one of regarding profit over ethics. Moreover, this decision not only impacted the culture and economy of the exploiters,
Globalization deals with the break down of traditional boundaries in the face of increasingly global financial and cultural trends. It is a process that results in the growing interconnectedness of the world. Globalization is understood as the force that promotes the global interdependence of economies, political systems, and societies. It creates a complex system of exchanges of goods, services, people, wealth, knowledge, and beliefs. Both Timothy Brook’s Vermeer’s Hat and Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power deal with the role of commodities in world history. Mintz analyzes the history of sugar production and consumption in Europe. Mintz discusses how the fall of sugar as a luxurious and exotic product to a necessity for the most common of the working class was able to command a revolution in diet and lifestyle, during industrialization and the rise of capitalism. Brook tells the story of tobacco’s route from the Americas to Europe. As tobacco became a commercial crop, it allowed for a new system of trade, further connecting Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Both works highlight the importance of each respective commodity in the linking of the global community. The integration of both sugar and tobacco in global trade had a profound impact on the power structures of society in the seventeenth century.