The economic developments of the late nineteenth century,
combined with the transportation revolution that
saw the growth of marine transport and railroads, fostered
a true world economy. By 1900, Europeans were receiving
beef and wool from Argentina and Australia, coffee
from Brazil, nitrates from Chile, iron ore from Algeria,
and sugar from Java. European capital was also invested
abroad to develop railways, mines, electric power plants,
and banks. High rates of return provided plenty of incentive.
Of course, foreign countries also provided markets
for the surplus manufactured goods of Europe. With its
capital, industries, and military might, Europe dominated
the world economy by the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
Trade among various regions of the world, of course,
had taken place for centuries. As early as the first millennium
c.e., China and the Roman Empire had exchanged
goods through intermediaries on both the maritime route
across the Indian Ocean and over the famous Silk Road
through the parched deserts of Central Asia. Trade across
the Eurasian supercontinent increased with the rise of the
Arab empire in the Middle East in the ninth century and
then reached a peak during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, when the Mongol Empire stretched from the
shores of the Pacific to the borders of eastern Europe.
Trade routes also snaked across the Sahara to central and
western Africa and along the eastern coast from the Red
Sea to the island of Madagascar.
Not until the beginning of the sixteenth century, however,
was a truly global economy created, a product of the
circumnavigation of the globe by the Portuguese adventurer
Ferdinand Magellan and the voyages of exploration
that followed. With the establishment of contacts between
the Old World and the societies in the Western
Hemisphere, trade now literally spanned the globe. New
crops from the Americas, such as corn, potatoes, and
manioc, entered the world market and changed eating
habits and social patterns as far away as China. Tobacco
from the New World and coffee and tea from the Orient
became the new craze in affluent circles in Europe and the
Middle East.
In the view of some contemporary historians, it was
this process that enabled a resurgent Europe to launch the
economic and technological advances that led to the Industrial
Revolution. According to historian Immanuel
Wallerstein, one of the leading proponents of this theory,
the age of exploration led to the creation of a new “world
system” characterized by the emergence of global trade
networks dominated by the rising force of European capitalism.
This commercial revolution, in fact, operated
much to the advantage of the European countries. Profits
from the spice trade with eastern Asia, along with gold
and silver from the Americas, flowed into state treasuries
and the pockets of private traders in London, Paris, and
Amsterdam. The wealth and power of Europe increased
rapidly during this period, thus laying the groundwork for
the economic revolution of the nineteenth century.
World History
