Venice sent wine, grain, and timber to Constantinople in exchange for silk cloth, which was then peddled to other communities. Other coastal communities in western Italy, such as Genoa and Pisa, also opened new trade routes. By 1100, Italian merchants began to benefit from the Crusades and were able to establish new trading centers in eastern ports. In the High Middle Ages, Italian merchants became even more daring in their trade activities. They established trading posts in Cairo, Damascus, and a number of Black Sea ports, where they acquired goods bought by Muslim merchants from India, China, and Southeast Asia.
Human species developed techniques and organized their societies to live more comfortably and stably. And these societies have interacted with one another, using routes in various ways to promote their standard of lives in more efficiently. The usage of these routes varied from trade to war, and trans-Saharan caravan routes is not an exception. Between about 300B.C.E to 100 C.E, Nubian kingdom and Moroë used trans-Saharan caravan routes to trade with India, Arabia and Mediterranean countries. Mineral wealth flowed out of Moroë and luxury goods in Arabia and India flowed in When Roman Empire thrived, trans-Saharan route revived as one of the most important trading routes connecting Africa and Eurasia.
This opened up trade routes between Asia and Europe with most of the goods originating or passing through Southeast Asia. Along with the exchange routes came more people and ideas into Southeast Asia and ultimately increased the cultural and economical development. (Upshur, 2002) The second contributing factor was the trade policy of Southern Sung China. The Chinese government needed revenue to support their efforts to please the northern invaders. For this reason the Chinese government encouraged exporting of porcelain and other goods to Southeast Asia.
Mercantilism was the dominant school of thought in Europe throughout the late Renaissance and early modern period (from the 15th-18th century). Mercantilism encouraged the many intra-European wars of the period and arguably fueled European expansion and imperialism — both in Europe and throughout the rest of the world — until the 19th century or early 20th century. Arguments have been made[by whom?] for the historical promotion of mercantilism in Europe since recorded history, with authors noting the trade policies of Athens and its Delian League specifically mention[clarification needed] control of value of trade in bullion as necessary for the promotion of the Greek polis. Additionally, the noted competition of medieval monarchs for control of the market town trade and of the spice trade, as well as the copious documentation of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa regarding control of the Mediterranean trade of bullion clearly points to an early understanding of mercantilistic principles.
Since then, Hong Kong emerged as an important entrepot by the early twentieth century. The location as an entrepot prompted merchants to invest in industries relating to entrepot trade, including banking, insurance and shipbuilding. The government also spent more on infrastructure, including transport and communication systems, to support trading activities. Shanghai Similar to Hong Kong, Shanghai’s location has been influenced by Western colonialism and it was designated as a treaty port in 1842 (Abbas, 2000). The city then gradually developed into the leading industrial and commercial centre in the national economy by 1920.
During the years between 650 an 1750 AD, the Indian Ocean saw changes and continuities in commerce through new methods of transportation, new commodities, and new European involvement. Innovation in transportation, new and unexpected commodities, and the Europeans spurned change in commerce in the Indian Ocean region from 650 to 1750 AD. Change in commerce in the Indian Ocean began with the invention of the Dhow. An Arab invention, Dhows are ships whose sails can maximize monsoon winds that are often found in the Indian Ocean. This enabled trade that region to occur faster than ever before.
Some, like Palmyra and Petra on the fringes of the Syrian Desert, flourished mainly as centers of trade supplying merchant caravans and policing the trade routes. They also became cultural and artistic centers, where peoples of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds could meet and intermingle. The trade routes were the communications highways of the ancient world. New inventions, religious beliefs, artistic styles, languages, and social customs, as well as goods and raw materials, were transmitted by people moving from one place to another to conduct business. These connections are
It was at these stations that ships from all over Afro-Eurasia docked to pick up and give goods. With these new metropolsis came also new trading regulations which made trade even better. Also we start to see partnerships and trust systems between
Access to commodities such as fabrics, spices, and gold motivated a European quest for a faster means to reach South Asia. It was this search that led the Portuguese down the coast of West Africa to Sierra Leone in 1460. Due to several technological and cultural advantages, Portugal dominated world trade for nearly 200 years, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth centuries. While, in the fifteenth century, the rest of Europe was decimated by the Black Plague, Portugal was protected by its physical isolation. Additionally, Portugal had an unusually strong national identity, due to its natural geographic borders, allowing the pooling of the considerable economic resources necessary to fund these ambitious explorations.
That’s why; the Renaissance was a time of great social and cultural changes in Europe. It was a period characterized by innovation, imagination and creativity. Algebra in the Renaissance Introduction The general cultural movement of the Renaissance in Europe had a pro-found impact also on the mathematics of the time. Italy was especially impacted. Up to this time, the Italian merchants traveled widely throughout the East, bringing goods back in hopes of making a profit.