When the Genoese merchant, Marco Polo, first arrived in Dynastic China he was faced with a society far advanced of anything he had encountered in Europe. The ports were filled with commodities from all over the eastern world, while new technology was driving the economy forward. It would take another 400 years before European trade in the Atlantic eclipsed the Pacific markets.From China's phenomenally successful Sung dynasty (c. AD 960-1279), Cargoes reveals the power of the Mughals merchants of Gujarat, who built an empire so powerful that, even in the 17th century, the richest man in the world was a Gujarat trader. It was not until the opening up of the spice routes and the discovery of South American gold that medieval Iberia came to the fore. It was only then that the Atlantic Empire of the west came to dominate world trade, first the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, then the British Empire in the age of the Industrial Revolution, American supremacy in the twentieth century, and the development of post-war Japan. Along the way Greg Clydesdale looks at the parallel lives and ideas of merchants and explorers, missionaries, kings, bankers and emperors. He shows how great trading nations rise on a wave of technological and financial innovation and how in that success lies the cause of their inevitable decline.
Il n'y a pas encore de discussion sur ce livre
Soyez le premier à en lancer une !
Si certaines sont impressionnantes et effrayantes, d'autres sont drôles et rassurantes !
A gagner : la BD jeunesse adaptée du classique de Mary Shelley !
Caraïbes, 1492. "Ce sont ceux qui ont posé le pied sur ces terres qui ont amené la barbarie, la torture, la cruauté, la destruction des lieux, la mort..."
Un véritable puzzle et un incroyable tour de force !
