Chapter 11: Commerce, Conquest, and Colonization
Research Topics
The Age of Exploration
How do we explain the quest for new worlds in the 1300 to 1600s? What were the implications of all that wealth flooding into the courts of European kings and princes?
By the middle of the 16th century, European explorers had "discovered" new worlds both to the east and the west. This great Age of Discovery stimulated the imaginations of men and women while it flooded Europe with spices from the east and gold and silver from the Americas. In retrospect, these European explorers, along with their governments, turned Europe into the first global power.
How do we explain the quest for new worlds in the 1300 to 1600s? What were the implications of all that wealth flooding into the courts of European kings and princes?
By the middle of the 16th century, European explorers had "discovered" new worlds both to the east and the west. This great Age of Discovery stimulated the imaginations of men and women while it flooded Europe with spices from the east and gold and silver from the Americas. In retrospect, these European explorers, along with their governments, turned Europe into the first global power.
- Marco Polo, The Glories Of Kinsay [Hangchow] (c. 1300)
Marco Polo (1254-1324) traveled on the Silk Road on a journey through Asia that lasted 24 years. He traveled the whole of China and returned to tell the tale. - Vasco da Gama, Round Africa to India (1497-1498)
De Gama is most well-known for securing outposts on the eastern coast of Africa which became necessary to maintain trade routes to China and the Far East. - A Venetian Account of Germany, 1507
A contemporary account of German society and government. - Quentin Massys, The Moneylender and His Wife (1514)
Massys' didactic painting depicts the tensions brewing between gold and silver and faith and devotion. - Magellan's Voyage Around the World, c. 1519-1522
A description of Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe in 1522. Magellan was of Portuguese origin but sailed under the Spanish flag. - Thomas Mun and the Theory and Practice of Mercantilism, mid-17th century
A member of the East India Company, Mun argued that trade was the only way for England to increase her wealth.
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