trade route

The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began
by Valerie Hansen
Published 13 Apr 2020

It demonstrated the feasibility of conducting trade from a coastal base to which Portuguese ships could sail directly, obtain the goods they desired, and return home. After the Portuguese established El Mina, African entrepreneurs moved existing trade routes in the interior to the coast so that traders could deliver gold and slaves to the Atlantic ports. This wasn’t the first time that Africans changed their trade routes: when, around 1000, Sijilmasa replaced Zuwila as a key node of trade in North Africa, the major trans-Saharan gold and slave trade route also shifted west. After da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, he was no longer pioneering a new maritime route. He joined the much frequented Persian Gulf–China maritime route connecting East African port cities with Indian Ocean ports.

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Abbasid empire, 16 Central Asian rulers and, 144, 146, 151 ceramics in, 183 Chinese trade with, 183 Egypt’s break from, 126–27, 129 geographic information for expansion of, 123–24 Mongol invasion and end of, 127 Muslim commonwealth and, 127–28 slave rebellions under, 118 spread of Islam under, 96, 126 unification of territory during, 9–10 Abaoji, 156–57, 168, 212 Adam of Bremen, 39–40, 49, 50, 84–85 Afghanistan, 151, 189 Islam in, 144, 150, 152, 153 slaves from, 119, 121 trade pathways in, 86, 161 Africa Almoravids’ triangular trade route in, 134–35 bead trade in, 113, 133 Cairo and trade routes across, 128 caravans across, 121, 122, 128, 132, 135, 136, 138, 140, 142 China’s trade and, 199, 225, 226, 228 crops traded by, 134 crucial role of Africans in trade and, 114 da Gama’s exploration of, 227–28 gold trade and, 114, 115, 117, 130–32, 133, 134, 135, 136–39, 141, 172 Indian Ocean trade and, 135 Jenne-jeno example of local benefits of trade in, 14–16, 133 metal goods and trade routes across, 133 Portuguese exploration of, 139–41, 142, 225, 226, 227 slaves from, 114–16, 118, 119–21, 147, 172, 203, 231 spread of Islam in, 126 system of pathways connecting outside world to, 141 trade between Europe and, 135–36 trade routes in, 112 (map), 228 trade with Islamic world and Islamicization of, 113–14 voyages to Yucatan Peninsula by, 59–60 al-Bakri, 123, 125, 130–33, 135–36, 137 al-Biruni, 17–18, 147–49, 150, 152, 153, 154, 161 al-Dukkali, 138 Alexander the Great, 19 Alexandria, Egypt, 104–5, 129–30 Alexios I, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, 108 Algonquian peoples, 36, 38, 61 al-Hakim, 128–29 al-Idrisi, 18, 91 al-Marwazi, 160, 161 al-Masudi, 136–37 Almoravid dynasty, 134–35, 137 aloeswood, 196, 199–200, 201, 213, 214, 217, 220, 223 Alptegin, 150 al-Warraq, 123 al-Zawawi, 138–39 Amalfi, Italy, merchants, 130, 234 amber trade, 160 Americas ball games in, 53–55 climate change and, 70 Greenland, contacts with, 46–47 hide-covered canoes in, 28 indigenous peoples in, during period of Norse voyages, 35–36 Leif Erikson’s voyage to, 27–28, 81 map (1590) of, 50–51 Norse decision to abandon settlements in, 47, 50 Norse presence in, 57 Norse voyages to, 27–28, 51–52, 81 pathway networks in, 78–79 Spanish explorers in, 55, 59, 77–79, 228–29 Squanto and the Pilgrims in, 229–30 trade between Scandinavia and, 46, 47, 52 trading centers of, 54 (map) Viking exploration of, 26 (map), 27 Vinland sagas’ information on, 35 Amerindians.

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By this time, Cairo was rising as a major city, marking a turning point in North African history. The Nile Delta, with its strategic location, may seem a natural choice for the capital of Egypt. But with the exception of Memphis, the capitals of the past were located far to the south of Cairo. The spread of Islam and establishment of new trade routes across Africa contributed to Cairo’s prosperity. The trade routes, whether by land or sea, converged where the Nile met the Mediterranean. Caravans and boats laden with West African goods traveled along the Mediterranean coast while goods shipped north along the East African coast were carried from the Persian Gulf ports overland to Cairo.

Origins: How Earth's History Shaped Human History
by Lewis Dartnell
Published 13 May 2019

Here these thrust faults frequently lie at the junction between low-lying barren deserts and high-rising inhospitable mountains or plateaus, and so trade routes often pass along these geological boundaries. Towns dotted along the way accommodate the travelling merchants, supported by the water springs at the foot of the mountains.43 But while tectonic movements can provide water sources in otherwise arid environments, these settlements are also vulnerable to destructive earthquakes with each new slip of the crust.44 In 1994 the small desert village of Sefidabeh in south-eastern Iran was utterly destroyed by an earthquake. The curious thing was that Sefidabeh is exceedingly remote: one of the few stops on a long trade route to the Indian Ocean, it’s the only settlement for 100 kilometres in any direction.

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The growth of the southerly branch, the East African Rift, set the stage for our evolution as a species, while the deeper fracture to the north-west tore off the Arabian Peninsula as a shard from Africa, with water pooling into this 2,000-kilometre-long crack to create the Red Sea.* The major east–west Eurasian maritime trade routes and crucial straits. The Arabian Peninsula remains hanging off Africa by only a narrow sinew of land in the north–the Sinai Desert–and as the Red Sea has widened the Arabian block has swung east to slam into the southern edge of the Eurasian plate. This folded up the Zagros Mountains in Iran, and along the foot of this range, where the crust has been depressed down into a wedge-shaped foreland basin, the Indian Ocean washed in to create the Persian Gulf. The earliest trade routes from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to India hugged the coastline.

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For centuries the dhows and caravans of Muslim merchants now dominated the three great east–west trade routes across Asia: the maritime passages from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf across the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through Central Asia.27 This is the world of Sinbad the Sailor in One Thousand and One Nights, who loaded up with trade goods in Baghdad and set sail from Basra down the Persian Gulf on his seven adventurous voyages. Prior to the rise of Islamic supremacy over these trade routes, India had been well known to Greek and Roman geographers like Strabo and Ptolemy, but after the blocking of the Red Sea passage knowledge of its location faded into the obscurity of myths.28 It would be the best part of another millennium before Europeans once again sailed into the Indian Ocean, as we’ll see in Chapter 8.

The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean
by David Abulafia
Published 4 May 2011

Its rulers were often embroiled in faction-fighting, but the dynasty managed to survive for two more centuries, supported by the prosperity Cyprus derived from its intensive trade with neighbouring lands.7 Massive communities of foreign merchants visited and settled: Famagusta was the base for merchants from Venice, Genoa, Barcelona, Ancona, Narbonne, Messina, Montpellier, Marseilles and elsewhere; its ruined Gothic churches still testify to the wealth its merchants accumulated.8 From Cyprus, trade routes extended to another Christian kingdom, Cilician Armenia, on the south-east coast of modern Turkey. Western merchants supplied wheat to Armenia by way of Cyprus, and they used Armenia as a gateway to exotic and arduous trade routes that took them away from the Mediterranean, to the silk markets of Persian Tabriz and beyond. Cyprus enjoyed close links to Beirut, where Syrian Christian merchants acted as agents of businessmen from Ancona and Venice, furnishing them with massive quantities of raw cotton for processing into cloth in Italy and even in Germany, a clear sign that a single economic system was emerging in the Mediterranean, crossing the boundaries between Christendom and Islam.

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The aims, however, were quite limited: ‘Amr ibn al- ‘As, the Arab conqueror of Egypt, used the canal system to convey Egyptian wheat to Mecca.4 The idea that a canal might link the trade routes of the Mediterranean with those of the Indian Ocean was not seriously broached before the nineteenth century, for good reason: Egypt was to all intents the Nile waterway, and a parallel waterway through the desert would deprive its rulers of the tax revenues on which the Ptolemies, Fatimids and Mamluks had depended so heavily. There were other ideas about how to create a trade route linking the two seas. In the 1820s the young English entrepreneur Thomas Waghorn noticed the long delays incurred when sending mail from India to England, and saw the potential of a route from Bombay to Suez, which could also carry those passengers who were willing to endure the heat and discomfort of a journey by carriage across the desert from the Red Sea to the Nile.

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Early metallurgists had learned they could strengthen the relatively soft metal copper by alloying it with tin. Bringing together the ingredients of bronze and establishing a system of exchanges meant that the network of connections across the Aegean developed into what can at last be described as trade routes: links established regularly according to the seasons, from one year to the next, for the purpose of exchange, in which the intermediaries travelled by boat, though it would be going too far to assume that they were professional merchants who lived entirely from the proceeds of trade. In consequence the Mediterranean was coming alive, criss-crossed by people of varied origins, in search of or anxious to dispose of goods that were of equally varied origins.

The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans
by David Abulafia
Published 2 Oct 2019

The word used by the Quechua Indians in South America for the sweet potato, kamote , has been imaginatively compared to Easter Island kumara and Polynesian kuumala .20 Seasonal winds made journeys to South America possible, but there is no evidence for any attempt to settle there and no evidence for active commerce between South America and any part of Polynesia.21 It might be argued that the sweet potato was diffused by the Spaniards when they gained control over trans-Pacific trade routes in the sixteenth century. However, the places where they were most actively cultivated lay some way from the Spanish trade routes – Hawai’i, New Zealand and Easter Island – and carbonized tubers of sweet potato excavated by archaeologists in New Zealand, Hawai’i and Mangaia can all be dated to the period before the arrival of the Europeans. Mangaia lies in the Cook Islands, part of Remote Oceania situated north-east of New Zealand; its specimens have been carbon-dated to about AD 1000.

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More attention is paid nowadays to the environmental changes that dried out the Indus Valley and resulted in the gradual decline of the great cities, while across the wider region something of Indus culture, even the writing system, lingered for several centuries, in some places until around 1300 BC .65 The great trade with Mesopotamia became a trickle; an occasional Indus object turns up on sites in Iraq, but routes across the sea had become less important to the inhabitants of north-west India. This did not mean the end of Dilmun, which still appeared (assuming it is the same place) in a document from eighth-century Assyria. And the history of Dilmun is also the history of the first maritime trading route along the coasts of Asia – to all intents the first trade route we know about anywhere in the world that linked two great civilizations. In later centuries, there were severe contractions and long interruptions during which trade and other contact faltered and vanished; but the history of the Indian Ocean as a great seaway began in the Persian Gulf. 4 The Journey to the Land of the God I One great Bronze Age civilization of the Middle East has been left out of this account so far: Egypt.

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Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History , vol. 2, p. 927; R. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India, and China (London, 2010), p. 24. 6. Mastering the Monsoon 1. David Abulafia, The Great Sea: a Human History of the Mediterranean (London, 2011), pp. 164–5; M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World (3 vols., Oxford, 1940–41), vol. 2, pp. 920–24. 2. Cited in R. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India, and China (London, 2010), p. 143. 3. McLaughlin, Rome and the Distant East , p. 28. 4.

A Short History of Russia
by Mark Galeotti
Published 1 May 2020

The Arrival of the Ryurikids There was a Ryurik, possibly one Rorik of Dorestad, an ambitious Danish upstart whose raids so enraged Louis the Pious, King of the Franks, that he was banished in 860. This conveniently coincides with the date of Ryurik’s arrival—generally set somewhere between 860 and 862—and his disappearance from Western chronicles. Scandinavian raider-traders had long known of the lands of the Slavs, not least in their quest to find new trading routes to Miklagarðr, “Great City”—the Eastern Roman capital of Byzantium, today’s Istanbul—far to the south. The Byzantine emperor’s elite Varangian Guard was drawn from Scandinavian mercenaries, after all. Thus, when Rorik of Dorestad found himself dispossessed at home, why not carve himself a new principality in these territories?

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One could, for example, sail along the Neva from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, as Ryurik did, then make for the source of the Volga, the longest river in Europe. With just a 5–10-kilometer (3–6-mile) stretch of portage—carrying boats overland—the travelers could then sail all the way south to the Caspian Sea. In these lands there was timber and amber, furs and honey, and the most lucrative commodity of all: slaves. More importantly, there were trade routes to Constantinople and directly to “Serkland”—Land of Silk—as the Muslim territories of the east were known. Scandinavians had extracted tribute in the forms of goods and silver from the northwestern tribes until the risings in 860 forced them from their timber-walled forts and back home, but it was hard to see why they would stay away.

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It was not in charge, though, and power was slipping imperceptibly through its fingers. The archaeological evidence suggests that despite sporadic dynastic conflicts, Russia was prospering. Kiev was periodically sacked, but it nonetheless always managed quickly to rebuild and rebound. The Novgorodians were busy driving new trade routes into northern Siberia and their city was host to a thriving community of Baltic traders. The principality of Vladimir-Suzdal was pushing into the Bulgar lands. Even the rise of a new nomad threat, the Cumans and the Kipchaks, whom the Russians together called Polovtsians, was manageable. They first appeared in 1055, and by 1061 were raiding Rus’ lands.

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World
by Tim Marshall
Published 14 Oct 2021

However, all Ethiopian leaders since 1993 have faced the same geographical problem: lack of access to the sea. Modern Ethiopia has no designs on a return to the empire of the Aksum era, but knows that to survive and prosper it must be able to secure reliable trade routes. Ethiopia’s imports and exports mostly pass through its neighbours’ territory. The most important trade route is via the Red Sea, a maritime trade bottleneck which includes the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and passes along the coastlines of ten countries. Approximately 90 per cent of Ethiopia’s imports and exports travel by sea, and almost all cargo goes via the deep-water port of Djibouti.

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Hence Spain is involved in training government forces in Mali and elsewhere. The other main navy base is in the Canary Islands, which also hosts army and air-force installations. The Canaries face the Gulf of Guinea, where Spain has economic interests and which is crucial for its trading routes and modern communication system via underwater cables. To achieve the defence of trade routes and shipping and fishing fleets, the navy has about 130 ships, 20,000 personnel, and can call on 11,500 troops in the Infantería de Marina – the Marines. They are backed by the army and air force, and the Americans and NATO. The USA retains two bases in Spain, Naval Station Rota near Gibraltar and Morón Air Base located about 50 kilometres south of Seville.

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In 2018, a similar journey became somewhat easier when the first road across the desert was opened, connecting Oman to Riyadh, the Saudi capital. If you decide to drive it you may not need to be as intrepid as Thomas and his friends, but do bear in mind that there are no service stations along the way. Climate and the ancient trade routes shaped by geography explain most of today’s population centres. All of the high ground in Saudi is in the western half. The Red Sea coastal plains are relatively narrow, and a series of hills and mountains run inland parallel to the coast almost the entire length. Jeddah is on flat land but Mecca, 60 kilometres inland, is 277 metres above sea level, and some of the hills behind it are as high as 1,879 metres.

Fall of Civilizations: Stories of Greatness and Decline
by Paul Cooper
Published 31 Mar 2024

The Ghana Empire, which had dominated West Africa for five hundred years, went into decline at some point during the thirteenth century. Its power weakened, its client states demanded independence, and finally one of its own conquered subjects eclipsed it in power, snapping up its old dominions and seizing control of the lucrative Saharan trade routes. This rising power would become known as Mali, and it further embraced the system of trans-Saharan trade. Cultures also travelled along these trade routes too, and soon West Africa was introduced to the young religion of Islam. For the early kings of Mali, conversion to Islam was an entry point into the Mediterranean world, a way to gain acceptance and influence — but religion would always form a fracture that ran the length of West African society.

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You would see farmers carrying large sheaves of reeds and wheat on their backs and drovers bringing their long-haired sheep and oxen in from the fields, while women worked as weavers, ground flour, towed boats along canals, gathered clay and sand, and wove baskets out of rushes. You would have seen circles of men in shaded courtyards, sharing a large jar of beer flavoured with herbs and honey, all sipping through long straws made of hollow reeds. With trade routes reaching as far as India, the influence of the metropolitan Uruk civilization spread like ripples on a pond — and its success soon spawned local copycats. As the third millennium drew to a close, another Sumerian city state was rising that would soon take Uruk’s place as the pre-eminent regional power.

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THE LATE BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE C. 1600 BCE–C. 1150 BCE From the ashes of Sumer, a host of successors arose in the millennium that followed, and by 1200 BCE, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were ruled by a diverse scattering of kingdoms, minor empires and city states. Languages and cultures mingled as trade routes criss-crossed land and sea. Markets bustled in the thriving cities of Ugarit, Hattusha, Mycenae and Babylon, and the Mediterranean experienced a golden age of literacy and culture. But within just a few decades, every one of these cities lay in ruins. Their stones were scattered, their libraries burned, their people left unburied in the streets.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
by Peter Frankopan
Published 26 Aug 2015

This was where critical decisions were taken in the battle for the soul of Islam.52 The Muslims had taken over a world that was well ordered and studded with hundreds of cities of consumers – taxable citizens, in other words. As each fell into the hands of the caliphate, more resources and assets came under the control of the centre. Trade routes, oases, cities and natural resources were targeted and subsumed. Ports that connected trade between the Persian Gulf and China were annexed, as were the trans-Saharan trade routes that had built up, allowing Fez (in modern Morocco) to become ‘immensely prosperous’ and home to trade that in the words of one contemporary observer produced ‘huge profits’. The subjugation of new regions and peoples brought astonishing sums of money into the Muslim empire: one Arab historian estimated that the conquest of Sindh (in what is now Pakistan) yielded 60 million dirhams, to say nothing of the future riches to be drawn from taxes, levies and other duties.53 In today’s terms, this was worth billions of dollars.

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The decades that followed Alexander’s death saw a gradual and unmistakable programme of Hellenisation, as ideas, themes and symbols from ancient Greece were introduced to the east. The descendants of his generals remembered their Greek roots and actively emphasised them, for example on the coinage struck in the mints of the major towns that were located in strategically important points along the trade routes or in agriculturally vibrant centres. The form of these coins became standardised: an image of the current ruler on the obverse with ringlets held by a diadem, and invariably looking to the right as Alexander had done, with an image of Apollo on the reverse, identified by Greek letters.23 The Greek language could be heard – and seen – all over Central Asia and the Indus valley.

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They also traded finely worked glass, silver and gold, as well as coral and topaz from the Red Sea and frankincense from Arabia in exchange for textiles, spices and dyes like indigo.88 Whatever form it took, the outflow of capital on this scale had far-reaching consequences. One was a strengthening of local economies along the trade routes. Villages turned into towns and towns turned into cities as business flourished and communication and commercial networks extended and became ever more connected. Increasingly impressive architectural monuments were erected in places like Palmyra, on the edge of the Syrian desert, which did well as a trading centre linking east with west.

Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States
by James C. Scott
Published 21 Aug 2017

This perspective overlooks the centrality of trade and the degree to which raiding was often a means rather than an end in itself. Christopher Beckwith’s emphasis on trade routes is illuminating: Chinese, Greek and Arab historical sources agree that the steppe peoples were above all interested in trade. The careful manner in which Central Eurasians generally undertook their conquests is revealing. They attempted to avoid conflict and tried to get cities to submit peacefully. Only when they resisted, or rebelled, was retribution necessary. . . . The Central Eurasians’ conquests were designed to acquire trade routes or trading cities. But the reason for the acquisition was to secure occupied territory that could be taxed in order to pay for the rulers’ socio-political infrastructure.

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The copper and tin would have been semiprocessed, as the alluvium lacked the high-quality fuel required to smelt. 14. The obvious exceptions would be the natural “chokepoints” on overland trade routes, such as mountain passes and fords and desert oases. The Straits of Melaka, an important node of state formation in Southeast Asia, is a classic example of both water transport routes and a chokepoint, in this case commanding the early India-China maritime trade route. 15. This assertion, which I distinctly recall reading in the opening paragraphs of a history of nineteenth-century Britain, was challenged by one of my readers as a possible “urban myth.”

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David Wengrow (personal communication) believes that the contact via trade and exchange throughout the area would have worked against the isolation of populations that makes possible epidemics among immunologically “naïve” populations. While this is surely true for the major population centers and the trade routes between them, it may be less true for nonstate peoples off the major trade routes and living in populations small enough that many of the common infectious diseases would not have become endemic. McNeill’s conjecture remains just that and awaits further investigation. 7. THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE BARBARIANS 1. By “taxation” I mean any more or less regular charge on the production, labor, or revenue of subjects.

The City: A Global History
by Joel Kotkin
Published 1 Jan 2005

By the thirteenth century, over thirty independent Islamic trading states, including Mombasa and Mogadishu, arose along the East African coast. Islam also flourished in West African commercial centers such as Kano and Timbuktu, where slaves and gold attracted merchants from across Dar al-Islam. Connected to Cairo by southerly trade routes, Timbuktu by the fourteenth century had grown into a city of fifty thousand.30 The Persians controlled the even richer trade routes to India and China.31 In cities such as Isfahan, Tabriz, and Shiraz, burgeoning transcontinental trade, supplemented by local industry, created sprawling bazaars that, along with the mosque, served as the central points of a renewed Iranian urbanism.32 By the fourteenth century, both Persian and Islamic cultural influence began to have an impact on nomadic groups such as the Turks and Mongols, whose conquests gave them control over cities in Central Asia and India.

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But certainly these presented only a modest barrier to a determined and accomplished conqueror. Rome enjoyed some basic economic assets, but nothing more than many other towns. The mild climate and decent soil supported a small community of shepherds and farmers. The city lay close to a point where the Tiber is most easily crossed, making early Rome a natural trade route for the surrounding peoples, notably the Etruscans, possessors at the time of a more advanced culture. Deposits of salt provided a significant item for the Romans to trade.6 The source of Roman greatness lay instead in their peculiar civic mythology and sense of divine mission. The city was said to be founded in the year 753 B.C. by two brothers, Romulus and Remus, abandoned by the Tiber and raised by a she-wolf.

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It now stood as the only European city among the twenty largest in the world; almost all the rest were part of the Oriental world, either in China or within Dar al-Islam.1 Muslim primacy had contributed much to the weakening of European urbanism. By taking control of both the Mediterranean and the trade routes to the East, Muslims had cut off European commerce from critical sources of both wealth and knowledge.2 “The Christians,” observed the Arab historian ibn Khaldun, “could no longer float a plank on the sea.”3 Products like papyrus disappeared from European monasteries; wine long purchased from the Mediterranean now had to be grown locally.

Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future
by Ian Goldin , Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan
Published 20 Dec 2010

By 300 CE, camel-riding pastoralists and traders were connecting West Africa with the Mediterranean—they carried gold, copper, and sometimes slaves into the north. The wealth and traffic along these trade routes eventually fostered the growth of cities and states where farmers had settled to produce sorghum and millet.59 Near the end of the millennium, the trading empire of Kanem had developed near Lake Chad, and the Wagoudu (or Ghana) Empire emerged near contemporary Mali and Mauritania. The development of the Silk Road trade routes corresponded with the consolidation of vast empires between 400 and 200 BCE. Prior to this time, merchants faced significant threats of banditry along trade routes. An increased tempo of long-distance trade required the security that was provided by large Eurasian states and the nomadic barbarians in between.

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Positional value notation was adapted from the Indians in the creation of Arabic numbers (which are still used today), and Chinese inventions like the compass passed through the Arabs to Europe. Trade routes linking Europe, Africa, and Asia became increasingly significant during the Abbasid Caliphate. Islam spread widely through trade, establishing Muslim populations where Arab armies never trod—such as Indonesia and China, where the world's largest Muslim populations currently live.74 The improved security of long-distance trade routes under the Caliphate led to the expansion of trade diasporas, among the most important of which was the Jewish Radaniyya, which means “those who know the way” in Persian—the dominant trade language.

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–John Stuart Mill Contents List of Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction PART I: PAST 1 Migration from Prehistory to Columbus Early Migration Connecting Humanity Migration and Humanity 2 Global Migrations: Toward a World Economy The Age of Exploration Imperialism and Coercion Unfree Migrations: Slavery and Indentured Labor Global “Free” Migrations (ca. 1840–1914) Builders of the Modern World 3 “Managed” Migration in the Twentieth Century (1914-1973) The End of the Liberal Period The Interwar Period: Economic Decline and Regulated Migration Post-WWII Migrations Finding Reasons to Regulate PART II: PRESENT 4 Leaving Home: Migration Decisions and Processes Micro-Level: Individuals and Families Meso-Level: Networks and Systems Macro-Level: Demographic, Political, and Economic Conditions Individual, Society, and National Influences 5 Immigration and Border Control Channels and Flows of Migration Economic Migration Social Migration Refugee Migration Border Control Beyond Border Controls 6 The Impacts of Migration Impacts on Receiving Countries Impacts on Sending Countries Impacts on Migrants Impacts on Societies and Migrants PART III: FUTURE 7 The Future of Migration The Backdrop of Globalization Supply of Migrants Demand for Migrants 8 A Global Migration Agenda Thought Experiments A Long-Term Vision of Freer Movement Principles for Global Migration The Need for Global Leadership Notes References Index Illustrations and Tables ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1.1. The genetic pathways of human migration Figure 2.1. African slave trade routes, 1500-1900 Figure 2.2. Estimates of slave exports to America from Africa, 1662-1867 Figure 2.3. Annual average slave and indentured labor imports (by thousands) into the Caribbean and Mascarenes, by decade, 1801-1810 to 1911-1920 Figure 2.4. Gross migration of indentured workers by origin, 1840-1920 Figure 2.5.

The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World
by Ruchir Sharma
Published 5 Jun 2016

The richest of the three Andean members, Chile, has also become a major investor in the other two, pouring $2.3 billion into Peru and Colombia in 2011, up from $70 million in 2004. That’s not to say the prospects for all three nations are equal, but a shared commitment to making the most of a location well off the major global trade routes is positive for all involved. Geography Is Not Destiny With sufficient political will and the right policies, nations can redraw the map of global trade routes to their own advantage. In the early twentieth century, the major global trade routes crisscrossed the Atlantic, but after World War II Japan and China managed to carve out a new route anchored at one end on their own coasts. Within a generation the Asian powers used cheap labor to more than make up for the cost of shipping goods all the way from the Pacific to Europe and the United States.

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Geography matters for growth: Today Poland and Mexico have a big potential advantage in global competition thanks to their location on the border of the vast commercial markets of western Europe and the United States. Vietnam and Bangladesh are taking advantage of their position on existing trade routes between China and the West to take away some of the export manufacturing business that had been done mainly in China. (For a map of the current geographic sweet spots and global shipping routes, see p. 402.) But geography is not destiny; the potential advantage of proximity to the United States or China will ebb and flow with the strength of those economies, and many countries on or near major trade routes and rich markets will not take the steps necessary to prosper from their position. Morocco is taking advantage of its location, a short hop across the Mediterranean from southern Europe, to develop export industries, but nearby on the same coast Libya and Sudan are crumbling politically and economically.

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A nation’s chances of economic success are greatly improved by prowess in manufacturing goods for export, which highlights the importance of location. Any nation that wants to thrive as an export power has a huge advantage if it starts with a base close to trade routes that connect the richest customers to the most competitive suppliers. It Is Partly the Luck of Location Economic growth has followed existing trade routes since well before the modern era. In the sixteenth century the nations of western Europe suddenly started to grow faster than their rivals in Asia and Latin America; for the first time in history, the inhabitants of one region clearly distanced themselves from all others in terms of average income.

Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World
by Andrew Lambert
Published 1 Oct 2018

We forget that so soon as the mercantile marine became a recognised burden on the navy, the main lines of commerce became also the main lines of naval strategy, and the crossing of the trade routes its focal points. This, although strategists, for the purposes of commending their views to the public and Treasury, naturally write in terms of commerce, we must never forget that what they were really aiming at was the command of the sea by the domination of the great trade routes and the acquisition of focal points as naval stations.14 There would be no going back: henceforth the City of London would expect naval protection, whoever sat on the throne.

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• They give the commercial classes a significant share in political power. • They prioritise naval over military power. • They enact legislation to create, secure or improve the maritime and naval resource base – be it ships, seamen, raw materials or trade routes. • They are active in suppressing piracy – which is both a hindrance to trade and the cause of higher insurance rates. • They depend on core trade routes, for which they are prepared to fight. • They use naval power to protect trade, convoying merchant shipping. • They are open to trade with other nations – but use economic measures to crush dangerous rivals. • They secure a limited portfolio of overseas bases, either as imperial outposts or through alliances, which provide critical logistics and strategic facilities for naval forces.

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The first strategic commodity to be traded was timber. Both Egypt and Mesopotamia needed large, strong timbers for shipbuilding and temple projects, timbers that indigenous tree species could not supply. Not only did they import timber, but they fought for control of the cedar and resinous forests in the Lebanese mountains. The first maritime trade routes carried Lebanese timber south to Egypt, or north to the port of Byblos and then over the mountains to Mesopotamia. Economic need breached the cultural isolationism of these static riverine societies. The expansion of long-distance sea trade to include strategic metals began the process of creating Mediterranean civilisation, a cultural space defined by the sea.2 Although the sea was marginal to the great river-based civilisations, their reliance on imported resources generated maritime trade.

1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half
by Stephen R. Bown
Published 15 Feb 2011

WHEN THE walls of the ancient city of Constantinople were battered to the ground by the siege cannons of Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453, the patterns of travel and trade in the Mediterranean that had reigned for centuries rapidly changed. One of the immediate consequences, as long-standing trade routes closed, was the decline of Genoa’s influence and power. Thousands of Genoese seafarers, cartographers and merchants emigrated from their home city seeking a livelihood, and a good many were drawn by the flourishing slave trade south along the African coast. One of the beneficiaries of this great outpouring of Genoese talent was Portugal, then the pre-eminent maritime nation of Atlantic Europe. Portugal was opening new trade routes in Africa and the western Atlantic islands, secure in its monopoly by papal decree and international treaty.

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Spaniards were particularly interested in the golden ornaments and jewellery worn by the kidnapped “Indians” of Cuba and Hispaniola. Gold meant wealth and power. There was, however, a complication. Columbus’s successful return infuriated King João II of Portugal, who claimed that a series of papal decrees clearly intended that any new trade routes to heathen lands belonged to him alone. The king soon began outfitting a fleet to cross the ocean and claim the “Indies” for Portugal. With war imminent, the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella sent an official envoy to the papal court in Rome to argue their case. Pope Alexander VI, also head of the notorious Borgia clan, issued the first Inter Caetera, which proclaimed “by the authority of the Almighty God” that Ferdinand and Isabella and their heirs in perpetuity were to have the exclusive right to travel in, trade with and colonize Columbus’s new-found lands.

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Spain and Portugal affirmed the papal decrees of the Inter Caetera in the treaty signed in the Spanish town of Tordesillas in June 1494 . But they moved the line of demarcation between the Spanish and Portuguese zones of influence several hundred miles farther west. This placed an as-yet-undiscovered Brazil in the Portuguese half of the world, as well as protected Portugal’s African trade route from any European competition. The world was now officially divided. Although it was initially believed that Columbus had discovered the eastern extremity of Asia, it soon became apparent that the world was much larger than supposed, and that the pope had given to Spain and Portugal far more territory than anyone could have imagined.

Antwerp: The Glory Years
by Michael Pye
Published 4 Aug 2021

There was a curious semicircular castle built around 980 by the German Emperor Otto II, so it was worth defending. But Antwerp had no court, no bishop, no very famous lord to help define its past, only a Margrave on the fringe of the Holy Roman Empire. Even the old-established trade routes did not explain much, because what made Antwerp rich was the change in trade routes: ships going by ocean to Asia and America. Antwerp was waiting for other histories to catch up, and meanwhile it honoured its legend Brabo.6 Reality is more mundane. All the ports in Flanders and Brabant were vying for the attention of foreign merchants and selling ease of access to Northern Europe for the trade and goods of the world.

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The girls even knocked the boys’ hats into the river just like equals.1 Zoncha thought he’d found a world of liberty, very different from courtly, formal Venice but in a city which was at least its equal. Antwerp seemed to be inventing a new way to be rich, cultured and easy at the hub of the ever-expanding world that Europe knew. The very idea had worried Venetians all century. They had reason for concern, because their life and business were still organized around the Mediterranean and the trade routes that fed into it through the Red Sea. Antwerp was already dealing with India across the oceanic route that rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and with Brazil and America across the Atlantic by way of Seville and Lisbon. It belonged to a new world and a new system. One by one the Venetian ambassadors reported home.

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The golden age in the minds of Antwerp’s citizens was almost the exact opposite of the civilized golden age we imagine they were living in. ‘Golden’ is our word for any period that produced things we still value – pictures, buildings, books, music, riches – but Ortelius saw civilization as where we end up when the golden times are long gone.14 The name of Antwerp was familiar all along the trade routes that came together in the queue of ships at its docks: it was city as celebrity. Its stories went out with the English wool on its way to Hungary and the Levant, with traders taking German copper and silver to Africa to exchange for gold and slaves, with the ships sailing back to Asia after dropping their cargoes of pepper, diamonds and spices.

An Edible History of Humanity
by Tom Standage
Published 30 Jun 2009

One has certain proofs of this communication although no one has been able to confirm it by sight.” Al-Biruni’s informants were undoubtedly merchants. Religious beliefs were another kind of information that spread naturally along trade routes, as missionaries followed routes opened up by traders, and traders themselves took their beliefs to new lands. Mahayana Buddhism spread along trade routes from India to China and Japan, and Hinayana Buddhism spread from Sri Lanka to Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam. Tradition has it that Thomas the Apostle took Christianity to India’s Malabar coast in the first century A.D., arriving on a spice-trader’s ship in Cranganore (modern Kodun-gallur) in 52 A.D.

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The production of agricultural food surpluses and the development of communal food-storage and irrigation systems fostered political centralization; agricultural fertility rituals developed into state religions; food became a medium of payment and taxation; feasts were used to garner influence and demonstrate status; food handouts were used to define and reinforce power structures. Throughout the ancient world, long before the invention of money, food was wealth—and control of food was power. Once civilizations had emerged in various parts of the world, food helped to connect them together. Food-trade routes acted as international communications networks that fostered not just commercial exchange, but cultural and religious exchange too. The spice routes that spanned the Old World led to cross-cultural fertilization in fields as diverse as architecture, science, and religion. Early geographers started to take an interest in the customs and peoples of distant lands and compiled the first attempts at world maps.

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Early geographers started to take an interest in the customs and peoples of distant lands and compiled the first attempts at world maps. By far the greatest transformation caused by food trade was a result of the European desire to circumvent the Arab spice monopoly. This led to the discovery of the New World, the opening of maritime trade routes between Europe, America, and Asia, and the establishment by European nations of their first colonial outposts. Along the way, it also revealed the true layout of the world. As European nations vied to build global empires, food helped to bring about the next big shift in human history: a surge in economic development through industrialization.

After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405
by John Darwin
Published 5 Feb 2008

THE OCCIDENTAL BREAKOUT The Portuguese were the oceanic frontiersmen of European expansion. The Portuguese kingdom was a small weak state perched on the Atlantic periphery. But by c. 1400 its rulers and merchants were able to exploit its one magnificent asset, the harbour of Lisbon. Europe’s Atlantic coast had become an important trade route between the Mediterranean and North West Europe. Lisbon was where the two great maritime economies of Europe – the Mediterranean and the Atlantic – met and overlapped.1 It was an entrepô t for trade and commercial information and for the exchange of ideas about shipping and seamanship.2 It was the jumping-off point for the colonization of the Atlantic islands (Madeira was occupied in 1426, the Azores were settled in the 1430s), and for the crusading filibuster that led to the capture of Ceuta in Morocco in 1415.

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Lisbon was where the two great maritime economies of Europe – the Mediterranean and the Atlantic – met and overlapped.1 It was an entrepô t for trade and commercial information and for the exchange of ideas about shipping and seamanship.2 It was the jumping-off point for the colonization of the Atlantic islands (Madeira was occupied in 1426, the Azores were settled in the 1430s), and for the crusading filibuster that led to the capture of Ceuta in Morocco in 1415. Thus, long before they ventured beyond Cape Bojador on the west coast of Africa in 1434, the Portuguese had experimented with different kinds of empire-building. Their geographical ideas were shaped not only by knowledge of the great Asian trade routes that had their western terminus in the Mediterranean, but also by the influence of crusading ideology.3 Ironically, the crusading impulse assumed that Portugal lay at the western edge of the known world and that the object was to drive eastward towards its centre in the Holy Land. Perhaps it was this and Portugal’s early forays into North Africa after 1415 (where it heard of Morocco’s West African gold supplies) that pulled the Portuguese first south and east rather than westward across the Atlantic.

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Most African states looked inland, regarding the ocean as an aquatic desert and (in West Africa) seeing the dry desert of the Sahara as the real highway to distant markets. In these favourable conditions, the Portuguese traversed the empty seas and then pushed north from the Cape until they ran across the southern terminus of the Indo-African trade route near the mouth of the Zambezi. From there they could rely upon local knowledge, and a local pilot who could direct them to India. Once north of the Zambezi, Vasco da Gama re-entered the known world, as if emerging from a long detour through pathless wastes. When he arrived in Calicut on India’s Malabar coast, he re-established contact with Europe via the familiar Middle Eastern route used by travellers and merchants.

Nepal Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

Everest Region Astounding high mountain scenery and cosy Sherpa lodges, but try to visit outside of October (Click here) Annapurna Circuit Nepal’s most popular trek has lots of variety, passing Tibetan-style villages, fabulous mountain views and a challenging 5500m pass (Click here) Langtang Quieter trails, alpine valleys and lots of route combinations make this a good low-key option (Click here) Annapurna Sanctuary A straight shot past Gurung villages and bamboo groves into an incredible amphitheatre of frozen Himalayan peaks (Click here) Villages & Day Hikes Nepal’s ridges and valleys are laced with a network of footpaths travelled for centuries by traders and holy men. Bring your daypack to the following for a fine taste of rural Nepali life. Tansen Wander ancient trade routes, visit a potters’ village or explore the eerie ruins of a riverside palace, once the home of an exiled politician (Click here) Jomsom Plane and now minibus connections mean you can use this hub as a base to visit fabulous nearby Himalayan villages like Kagbeni and Marpha (see the boxed text on Click here) Bandipur Base yourself in comfortable digs at this charming medieval village and day hike out to temples, viewpoints and caves (Click here) Pokhara There are loads of options here, from a day’s stroll around Phewa Tal to cardio hikes up to Sarangkot or the Peace Pagoda, all offering superb views (Click here) Porter team ascending a ridge in the Annapurna Range (Click here) GARRY WEARE/LONELY PLANET IMAGES © Wildlife Watching Nepal’s subtropical plains hide an array of wildlife worthy of the The Jungle Book.

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While the documented history of the valley goes back to the Kiratis, around the 7th century BC, the foundation of Kathmandu itself dates from the 12th century AD, during the time of the Malla dynasty. The original settlements of Yambu and Yangala, at the confluence of the Bagmati and Vishnumati Rivers in what is now the southern half of the old town, grew up around the trade route to Tibet. Traders and pilgrims stayed at rest houses such as the Kasthamandap, which later lent its name to the city. Originally known as Kantipur, the city flourished during the Malla era, and the bulk of its superb temples, buildings and other monuments date from this time. Initially, Kathmandu was an independent city within the valley, but in the 14th century the valley was united under the rule of the Malla king of Bhaktapur.

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Bhimsen Temple BUDDHIST TEMPLE Offline map Google map The Newari deity Bhimsen is said to watch over traders and artisans, so it’s quite appropriate that the ground floor of this well-kept temple should be devoted to shop stalls. An image of Bhimsen used to be carried to Lhasa in Tibet every 12 years to protect those vital trade routes, until the route was closed by the flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959. Tourists are not allowed inside the temple, which is fronted by a brass lion on a pedestal, ducking under the electric wires. Start Durbar Sq Finish Durbar Sq Distance 2km Duration one hour Walking Tour South from Durbar Square Starting from the Kasthamandap in the southwestern corner of Durbar Sq, fork right at the Singh Sattal, and follow the road past a Shiva temple with a finely carved pilgrim shelter.

Belgium - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
by Bernadett Varga
Published 14 Aug 2022

• Written Communication • Face-to-Face • The Media • Phones and Sim Cards • The Internet and Social Media • Mail • Conclusion Appendix: Useful Apps Further Reading Acknowledgment MAP OF BELGIUM INTRODUCTION Situated on the western seaboard of Europe, Belgium is bordered to the north by the Netherlands, to the east by Germany and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and to the south and west by France. A small country, its location at the meeting point of historically important trading routes has made it the economic and urban nerve center of Europe. Somehow, Belgium has acquired the reputation of being Europe’s most boring country, a reputation that is entirely undeserved. In fact, if you are looking for the eccentric and the surreal, Belgium is the place to find it. Perhaps this bland image is a smokescreen, the conventional exterior hiding a subversive sense of humor, a surreal imagination, and a deep-rooted disdain for authority.

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Time Zone 1 hour ahead of GMT; normally 6 hours ahead of US Eastern Time, 9 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time. CHAPTER ONE LAND & PEOPLE “It’s quite simple, really, and at the same time rather complicated.” (Captain Haddock, in Hergé, Land of Black Gold) GEOGRAPHY Small but perfectly placed, Belgium is the historical meeting point of northern Europe’s chief trading routes. It sits on the continent’s northwestern seaboard, with several important ports, and borders on the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and France. Its countryside and cities are diverse, ranging from flat polder land to densely forested mountains, and from the slightly museum-like charm of Bruges to the industrial sprawl of Liège.

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The Growth of Towns and Trade Monastic communities had begun reclaiming the coastal marshland from the sea, and the medieval landscape from Bruges to the sea and along the Scheldt as far inland as Antwerp was one of polders crisscrossed by protective dikes. From the late eleventh century onward, trade routes developed along the rivers, and trading posts gradually became busy, prosperous walled towns. Industry and trade blossomed, particularly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The towns were granted charters by the counts of Flanders. Different regions specialized in different industries: cloth (from wool imported from England) in Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, and metalworking in the Meuse region of Wallonia.

Venice: A New History
by Thomas F. Madden
Published 24 Oct 2012

Along the way, the state taxed every transaction and the Venetian economy flourished. Safe trade routes overland had traditionally not been a concern of Venetians, who very deliberately focused their attention on the lagoon and the sea. Since northern Italy was fragmented into competing communes and petty regional powers, there was little fear that all routes could ever be closed. But by the late fourteenth century the rise of the signori had produced powerful and expansionistic states in Italy that could conceivably cut off Venice’s access to the trade routes, produce, and raw materials of the mainland. Indeed, that had been the goal of Genoa and Padua during the War of Chioggia.

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The thirteenth century saw the creation of the state Arsenale, a vast workshop for the production of war vessels that would remain active for centuries—indeed, it remains a military installation to this day. Venetian expansion into the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Seas also came at a fortuitous time. The recent victories of Genghis Khan in China and westward had allowed stable trade routes to develop along the Silk Road stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the markets of the Black Sea, Constantinople, and Syria. At the same time, the growth of towns, revival of trade, and return of capital in western Europe meant that there was now a ready market for Eastern luxury goods, which the Venetians were in an ideal position to exploit.

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And eventually all those things worked. After a few years of carnage, the plague invariably faltered, unable to make headway among those who had developed antibodies against it. But new victims lived just down the road. Just as it had followed the merchants from China to Italy, the Black Death moved along the trade routes in Europe from Venice, Genoa, and Marseille to every point northward, even as far away as Iceland. Everywhere the death toll was horrendous. Millions perished—probably 50 percent of the total population of Europe died in the first decade of the disease. And this blow came only a few years after some of Europe’s worst famines, brought on by a sustained period of global cooling.

The Atlas of Disease
by Sandra Hempel
Published 15 Sep 2018

Spreading from the subcontinent The disease first emerged from the Sundarbans forest of the Bay of Bengal, in the Ganges delta, where the bacterium Vibrio cholera had probably been mutating for millennia. The organism is found naturally in the environment in some coastal and brackish waters, where shellfish sometimes carry the infection. Only in the early 1800s, however, when the British were opening up new trade routes in India and moving troops across the subcontinent, did cholera begin to move out of its home territory, first across India and eventually across the world in a series of huge pandemics. In August 1817, the British government received a report of a ‘malignant disorder’ in the Sundarbans, killing twenty to thirty people a day.

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Doctors in Russia, France and Britain began studying the disease as a matter of urgency and the Russian government offered a prize of twenty-five thousand roubles (more than fifty thousand pounds today) for the best essay on the subject. But finding answers proved to be a difficult business. With hindsight, it should have been obvious that cholera was contagious – that is, spread from person to person. It steadily followed the trade routes and appeared in new places only after the arrival of people from an infected area. Yet throughout most of the nineteenth century, there was huge debate about its mode of transmission. This was because of the way it killed large numbers of people very fast and broke out seemingly at random, striking dozens or even hundreds overnight and then disappearing, only to reappear a few days later in some apparently unconnected place miles away.

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It began in AD 541 in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), before spreading east into Persia and west into southern Europe, eventually killing an estimated 33 to 40 per cent of the world’s population. While the plague’s progress after Constantinople is mapped, it is still unclear how the disease reached the city. The Byzantine historian Procopius, who witnessed the devastation, claimed plague came from Egypt, following the trade routes. More recent theories suggest it originated in sub-Saharan African, possibly Kenya, Uganda, and/or Zaire, before either moving into Egypt or taking a different route to the Byzantine capital. Other experts believe the source was from the region spanning what is now Russia and China, now generally agreed to be the source for the Black Death some eight hundred years later.

Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World
by Anthony Sattin
Published 25 May 2022

The Almohads showed what nomads could achieve when they channelled the power of the asabiyya, but Ibn Khaldun’s system to explain the rise and fall of civilisations found a more significant example in the past of his own people. As with many nomad stories, this one starts with ‘open lands and pastures grazed by camels’,16 with tribes and trade routes, and with one trader in particular, from a desert city, who claimed to have been visited by an angel. Seventh-Century Messengers A messenger rode out of the Arabian Desert heading east to the Euphrates river. At the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, he delivered this message to the Sasanian ruler, Khosrow II: he had been sent by a man who described himself as ‘the slave of God’ and who called on the emperor to embrace a new religion ‘so that you may remain safe (in this life and the next)’.

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In that year Abbasid and Tang forces had fought an epoch-defining battle at Talas in modern Kyrgyzstan. One result of the battle was the creation of an unofficial border that marked the limit of China’s western expansion, which effectively gave the Abbasids control over much of Central Asia and its trade routes. Another outcome was that one of the Tang prisoners showed his Arab captors how to make paper. The technique was trialled in Abbasid-ruled Samarkand that same year of 751 and by the end of the century paper was being produced and used in Baghdad. The Glorious Age of Settling Down There was a price to pay for these advances, as Ibn Khaldun knew: At the time of the first Umayyad caliphs, the Arabs continued to use the dwellings they had, tents of leather and wool.

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Samarkand, which had fallen to Muhammad Shah in 1208, had quickly become Khwarazm’s political capital and one of the great trading centres of the Silk Roads. Bukhara, one of the largest cities in the Islamic world, was the empire’s religious centre and a refuge of scholarship. Gurganj had earned immense wealth from its pivotal position on the north–south and east–west trade routes. Before each city, Mongol leaders paused to demand that the city’s governor open the gates. The terms offered were always the same: acknowledge sovereignty and pay tribute, usually in the form of gold, and the city and its people would be safe. But the governors were confident that their cities could withstand the brunt of Mongol arms and they did not concede.

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens
by Jack Weatherford
Published 14 Oct 2010

The Mongols exercised ownership of the trade system, but since they knew nothing about commerce, they let the merchants run it. Mongols reaped the rewards and enjoyed the luxuries while opening up all the trade routes under a unified system and consistent policies. The Mongols simply supplied the infrastructure of safe routes, frequent resting stations, ample wells, relief animals, a speedy postal service, stable currency, bridges, and equal access for merchants, without regard to their nationality or religion. The daughters of Genghis Khan did not create the interlocking network of trade routes, but they made it work much faster. Mongol protection and the organization of an intercontinental system of rest and relay stations permitted new supercaravans that were not only much larger than the old ones but could travel considerably farther by obtaining supplies and replacing animals as needed.

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As usual in the nuptial edicts, Genghis Khan added some more personal advice. “Be sincere always,” he was quoted as saying. “Maintain your soul as one in the night and the day.” And with fatherly concern he added, “Get up early and go to bed late.” Checheyigen’s position over the Oirat gave the Mongols control of the northern trade routes all the way into the Arctic. Even with this new source of trade goods, Genghis Khan still needed access into the Silk Route. The “Silk Route” or “Silk Road” referred to the network of trade connections between the three main civilizations of China, India, and the Mediterranean, with the Muslim countries dominating the center of this intercontinental triangle.

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The core consisted of some five thousand miles, but the inclusion of alternative, secondary, and connecting routes doubled or tripled the size. In the east, the route began with the ancient Chinese city of Xian, but in the west, where the route fingered out into dozens of streams, almost any major Mediterranean or Indian city could be called the termination point. Trade routes usually follow the path of least geographic resistance. They move around mountains and deserts when possible. Travelers on the Silk Route had to cross two difficult barriers in western China: the Tianshan Mountains and the treacherous Taklamakan Desert. Farther to the east, they faced two more equally formidable obstacles in the Tibetan Plateau and the Mongolian Plateau, but fortunately for the traders, a narrow strip of lowland called the Gansu Corridor runs between the two, and virtually all trade funneled through this area like water through a canyon.

Belt and Road: A Chinese World Order
by Bruno Maçães
Published 1 Feb 2019

Vladislav Surkov, a trusted advisor to President Putin, recently argued that Russia is a “Western-Eastern half-breed nation, with its double-headed statehood, hybrid mentality, intercontinental territory and bipolar history.” In fact Moscow is also looking south to the Middle East, hoping to acquire control over all the main regions of energy production, and to the north, as global warming transforms the Arctic into an important trade route linking Europe and Asia. Eurasia is becoming smaller, more integrated, the stage for intense rivalry and competition between different poles, each of them projecting influence outwards and creating new connections. Japan is financing and building infrastructure across the Indian Ocean, all the way to Djibouti, an initiative to which it has dedicated $250 billion.

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Exporters such as Russia will likely support the move, as they share the same desire to break the dollar’s global dominance. * * * The Belt and Road represents the transformation of China from a regional into a global power. Announcing the initiative in two separate speeches in September and October 2013, President Xi Jinping appealed to the spirit of the ancient Silk Road, the maze of trade routes connecting major civilizations across Europe, Asia and Africa one or two thousand years ago. Referring to a world before European hegemony, the Silk Road could be held up as symbolizing a model of global politics based on cooperation and mutual learning. Less obviously, it contained the seeds of a return to a time when China was the center of the global economy and a technological powerhouse, holding the secrets of silk production and sharp-head, flat-rear high speed junks.

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Standing on the stage of the main auditorium in Nazarbayev University, Xi added: “Today, as I stand here and look back at history, I can almost hear the camel bells echoing in the mountains and see the wisps of smoke rising from the desert, and this gives me a specially good feeling.” Significantly, Xi never describes the initiative he is announcing as a “new Silk Road.” That is because the initiative is wholly new—as the scholar Wang Yiwei puts it, China used a very Chinese concept and name “to demonstrate its intellectual property.”15 It is not a trade route but an economic belt: “We should take an innovative approach and jointly build an economic belt along the Silk Road,” Xi explained. In Beijing’s eyes a Belt is a space of deep economic integration. It may well depend on the development of the necessary transport integration, but it goes much beyond that.

Poland - Culture Smart!
by Allen, Gregory;Lipska, Magdalena;Culture Smart!;
Published 15 Jun 2023

The following section outlines some of the most important developments in the history of the Polish people. Origins Little is known about the origins of Poland’s earliest inhabitants. It is thought that they were a mixture of hunter-gatherers and farmers, who helped develop the first trade routes through the region. The remains of a fortified settlement from the eighth century BCE at Biskupin, in north-central Poland, were unearthed in the 1930s and can be visited today. These ancient trade routes included the lucrative “Amber Road,” linking the Baltic Sea to Rome and the Mediterranean, which dates back to the fifth century BCE. Around the fifth century BCE Celtic and Germanic tribes, among others, started launching raids into the area.

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The year 1331 saw the first sitting of the Polish parliament, the Sejm (pronounced “same”). Kazimierz III greatly extended Poland’s borders and oversaw the writing of the country’s first legal code. The country, and Kraków in particular, thrived thanks largely to the bustling east–west and north–south trade routes that crossed through Poland. It is said that Kazimierz “found Poland built of wood and left her built of stone.” The Jagiełłonian Dynasty (1386–1572) Without a male heir, Kazimierz the Great left the throne to his nephew, Louis the Great of Hungary. After much confusion as to who should sit on the Polish throne, Louis’ crown eventually passed to his eleven-year-old daughter, Jadwiga, in 1384.

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Poznań Located in western Poland, on the banks of the Warta River, Poznań (population 529,000) has existed since at least the ninth century and was home to Poland’s first Christian king, Mieszko I, in the tenth century. The city has benefited from its location at the crossing of two crucial trading routes. Poznan’s golden age began in the sixteenth century. Not only was the city affluent, but it also became a center of learning, known throughout Europe. New universities and printing presses opened and the population doubled. Later years were marked by numerous wars (starting with Swedish Wars in 1703) and Prussian occupation.

A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
by William J. Bernstein
Published 5 May 2009

The silk of Elagabalus was in fact one of the rare luxuries to arrive from India after that period. The dramatic increase in long-distance trade following the battle of Actium and its waning two hundred years later had nothing to do with changes in maritime technology. Certainly, the Roman, Greek, Arab, and Indian traders who plied the Indian Ocean trade routes did not suddenly lose their maritime abilities after the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Now consider the contribution of trade to our planet's agricultural bounty. Try to imagine Italian cuisine without the tomato, the highlands around Darjeeling without tea plants, an American table without wheat bread or beef, a cafe anywhere in the world beyond coffee's birthplace in Yemen, or German cooking without the potato.

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During the seven centuries between the death of the Prophet Muhammad and the Renaissance, the Muslim states of Europe, Asia, and Africa outshone and towered over western Christendom. Muhammad's followers dominated the great conduit of long-range world commerce, the Indian Ocean, and in the process spread his powerful message from west Africa to the South China Sea. Then, with breathtaking speed, a newly resurgent West took control of global trade routes in the decades following the first roundings of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama. Can we understand these events under the larger banner of the history of trade? The great national trading organizations, particularly the English and Dutch East India companies, spearheaded Europe's commercial dominance and made world trade the nearly exclusive province of large corporate entities and, in the twentieth century, of the multinational corporation.

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14 How, then, did we get from the world of the ancient silk trade and the Geniza papers, in which the trader's job was so solitary, expensive, and heroic that only the most precious of cargoes paid their way, to the modern corporate world of wines from Chile, cars from Korea, and apples from New Zealand? Stable countries are trading countries. Commerce between Rome and East Asia took off after Octavian's victory at Actium and ushered in nearly two centuries of relative peace throughout the Mediterranean and Red Sea trade routes. While the Romans controlled, at most, the western third of the route between Alexandria and India, their influence was felt as far east as the Ganges. Although individual merchants rarely carried goods all the way from India to Rome, there were frequent face-to-face diplomatic contacts between various Indian states and Rome.

Egypt Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

The oases enjoyed a period of great prosperity during Roman times, when new wells and improved irrigation led to the production of wheat and grapes for export to Rome. Garrisoned fortresses that protected the oases and trade routes can still be seen in the desert around Al-Kharga and Bahariya, and Roman-era temples and tombs lie scattered across all the oases. When the Romans withdrew from Egypt, the trade routes became a target for attacking nomadic tribes. Trade suffered, the oases went into gradual decline, and the population of settlements shrank. By medieval times, raids by nomads were severe enough to bring Mamluk garrisons to the oases.

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Despite these setbacks, the French still maintained rule. FOREIGN INVADERS The story of ancient Egypt is the story of Egypt’s relationships with its neighbours, for its wealth attracted some and its strategic location on the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and on the trade routes between Africa and Asia, attracted others. When it was strong, it controlled the gold of Nubia and the trade route across the Levant – not for nothing was the image of Ramses II crushing the Hittites at Kadesh splashed across so many temple walls. When it was weak, it caught the attention of the power of the moment. In 663 BC, the Assyrian leader Ashurbanipal sacked Thebes.

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One–Two Weeks Desert Escape Inspired by Lawrence of Arabia and The English Patient scenery, would-be desert rovers can get sand-happy in the amazing Western Desert. Begin with a bus from Cairo or Asyut to Al-Kharga Oasis, the southernmost oasis in the Western Desert loop. Spend a day here exploring the Al-Kharga Museum of Antiquities as well as the Graeco-Roman temples, tombs and other interesting traces of the trade routes that flourished here during the Roman Empire. From Al-Kharga, make your way northwest to Dakhla Oasis to see the fascinating hivelike, mud-walled settlements of Balat and Al-Qasr. Next, hop north to either Farafra Oasis or Bahariya Oasis, where you can make a two- or three-day camp in the stunning White Desert National Park.

Egypt Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

The oases enjoyed a period of great prosperity during Roman times, when new wells and improved irrigation led to the production of wheat and grapes for export to Rome. Garrisoned fortresses that protected the oases and trade routes can still be seen in the desert around Al-Kharga and Bahariya, and Roman-era temples and tombs lie scattered across all the oases. When the Romans withdrew from Egypt, the trade routes became a target for attacking nomadic tribes. Trade suffered, the oases went into gradual decline, and the population of settlements shrank. By medieval times, raids by nomads were severe enough to bring Mamluk garrisons to the oases.

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He was succeeded by His Holiness Pope Theodoros II, the 118th Patriarch of Alexandria. FOREIGN INVADERS The story of ancient Egypt is the story of Egypt’s relationships with its neighbours, for its wealth attracted some and its strategic location on the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and on the trade routes between Africa and Asia, attracted others. When it was strong, it controlled the gold of Nubia and the trade route across the Levant – not for nothing was the image of Ramses II crushing the Hittites at Kadesh splashed across so many temple walls. When it was weak, it caught the attention of the power of the moment. In 663 BC the Assyrian leader Ashurbanipal sacked Thebes.

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White Desert National Park For a truly mind-bending experience, schedule your overnight trip to this eerie landscape during the full moon. Great Sand Sea These picture-perfect dunes extend hundreds of miles into Libya, but you can get a taste of the emptiness even on a short trip. Monastery of St Simeon For desert beauty without the days-long trek, visit this Coptic site in Aswan. Eastern Desert Once criss-crossed by ancient trade routes, with rock inscriptions, gold mines and great landscapes, now only accessible with a guide. Souqs & Shopping Whether you’re just browsing or searching for gifts for everyone on your list, Egypt’s souqs are the perfect destination, with as much entertainment as actual products – not to mention more offers of tea than you could ever drink.

The Future Is Asian
by Parag Khanna
Published 5 Feb 2019

In each phase of Asian history, geopolitical competition for territory and trade routes expanded the reach and intensity of the whole system. Encounters between Arabs and Mongols pushed both each to explore new pathways (and allies), to subdue or evade each other, and to reach key markets. Already in the thirteenth century, the Mongols managed to link much of the world known at the time. For numerous Song Chinese and Southeast Asian maritime entrepôts, external trade was crucial to the survival of local economies. The Chola, Srivijaya, and Ming all jockeyed for control over Indian Ocean trade routes long before the arrival of European merchants.

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Despite the region’s vast geographic and cultural diversity, Buddhism was the glue that held numerous Asian civilizations together. Bamiyan became a major center of Buddhist learning where monks nurtured a distinctive artistic style developed fusing Iranian, Indian, and Gandharan forms. Dunhuang in the Tarim basin, the site of stunning Buddhist grottoes chiseled into mountainsides, was the crossroads of several trade routes linking Mongolia and Tibet to Parthia and the Levant. As Han monks and merchants traveled the Silk Road in search of inspiration, they brought back Buddhist texts translated by Sogdians. Buddhism thus extended its reach through the Han Empire in a pincerlike movement from the west and south from India and Southeast Asia.

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Indeed, the Song were the first Chinese dynasty to commercialize the “tribute system” that focused on gains from trade with secondary powers rather than heavy taxation of the populace. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Pagan unified central and coastal Burma as well as the Malay Peninsula, strengthening overland trade routes that linked the Bay of Bengal via Yunnan to China. The Chola, Song, and Srivijaya all competed to control strategic maritime passageways such as the Strait of Malacca but also amplified the linkages between their external trade and internal economies. Meanwhile, on the other side of Eurasia, Europe had been stagnant for centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Adriatic: A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age
by Robert D. Kaplan
Published 11 Apr 2022

Oakley ends the third volume with the execution of Louis XVI of France in 1793, which, because of a still-remaining sacral tie to kingship, constituted a direct assault on Christianity itself, symbolizing, in Albert Camus’s words, “the secularization of our history and the disincarnation of the Christian God.”[5] Thus, the modern secular West comes into existence mainly in northern Europe, directly from obscure feudal beginnings. How I regret not continuing my formal education beyond college and toward a PhD. I am now at the age when it is common to fantasize about having lived other lives. I would have become, say, a scholar of medieval China, writing about the Central Asian trade routes of the Tang Dynasty; or a scholar of Romanian studies specializing in the imperial conflicts of the Balkans; or a scholar of the Latin Middle Ages like Francis Oakley himself. Instead of poring through grammars and acquiring a familiarity with many languages, many gradually forgotten, I would have perfected one or perhaps two of them.

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Mary McCarthy writes: “those hale old doges…seem to us a strange breed of sea-animal, who left behind them the pink, convoluted shell they grew to protect them, which is Venice.”[32] The supreme calculation encouraged by this ducal system resulted in, as Norwich tells us, only three strategic blows in the course of almost 1,100 years of dogeship: the discovery of the Cape route to the Indies in 1499, which overshadowed Venice’s own trade routes to the Levant and Central Asia; the gradual spread of Ottoman power in the eastern Mediterranean following the fall of Byzantium in 1453; and the onslaught of the League of Cambrai against Venice in the early sixteenth century—none being Venice’s fault. Realism worked wonders and was the one true religion of Venice, a place and a system that worshipped Byzantium, but besieged it when it suited her, and gave the Byzantine emperors only limited help later on, in order not to antagonize the Ottomans who loomed as the successor power in Constantinople.[33] Venetian doges always had one eye cocked over the horizon.

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The Ottoman Empire was still an important source of grain for Venice. For there were long periods of peace between the two empires, when Venice used the Muslim Ottomans as a source of pressure upon rival Catholic city-states in Italy. “Venice,” Malcolm says, “was the only [European] power whose naval policy was primarily concerned with the protection of trade routes; and since the trade in question was with the Ottoman Empire, the usual policy involved cooperation, not conflict.” There is an even larger point here: that geopolitics, because it is somewhat refreshingly amoral, stood above bloody religious clashes with all of their moral absolutes. For example, Catholic Poland could live with the Ottoman-ruled Romanian principalities, “but it could not accept the idea of their becoming clients and creatures of the [fellow Catholic] Habsburgs,” who were too close by for comfort.

The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History
by Kassia St Clair
Published 3 Oct 2018

One strip bore the incredibly helpful inscription: ‘A roll of silk from K’ang-fu in the kingdom of Jen-ch’eng; width two feet and two inches; length forty feet; weight twenty-five ounces; value six hundred and eighteen pieces of money.’ When the Song dynasty collapsed in 1127 a new workshop for making rich damask was founded with the specific aim of making silks that could be traded with Tibetan tribesmen in return for horses. Later, silk lent its name to the network of trade routes that spread across Central Asia: the Silk Roads. While the majority of these exchanges were animated by the spirit of commerce, others were motivated by fear.22 Gifts for Enemies The Xiongnu live in the desert and grow in the land which produces no food. [They] are abandoned by Heaven for being good-for-nothing.

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During the day, his ponies’ feet would sink in the sand – it is a region best traversed by camel – as would those of his dog Dash, dressed in a custom Kashmiri fur coat to save him from freezing, but who eventually submitted to being borne along in a camel basket with a hole in the lid. On 18 December 1900, Stein came upon the remains of Dandan-Uiliq, abandoned in the late eighth century, and marked only by the sun-bleached tops of a few dead fruit trees in what was once an orchard. Seven years later, he saw some even more remarkable traces of the trade route that had once stitched the desert together. This time, however, the triumph of actual discovery belonged to someone else.2 While Stein scoured desert regions for archaeological treasure, Wang Yuanlu, a Taoist monk, was the lone guardian of a series of remarkable shrines. Known as the Mogao Caves or the Temples of the Thousand Buddhas, they were situated near Dunhuang, an oasis in north-west China, on the rim of the Gobi Desert.

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The midrash, the commentary that runs alongside Hebrew Scriptures, contains a parable of sorts that involves the setting aside of some valuable silk by one man after another has promised to buy it. Although the buyer doesn’t come for his purchase for a long time, the seller keeps faith. ‘Thy word,’ he says when his customer does eventually arrive, ‘is stronger in my eyes than money.’17 Buddhism flourished in China in part because of the exchange of ideas facilitated by the trade routes, eventually becoming one of the country’s three major religions. Silk embedded itself deeply within the faith’s religious practices. Silks were used to wrap important relics and scriptures – a practice later borrowed by other beliefs, including Christianity. (Benedict Biscop, the English abbot of Wearmouth and Jarrow, made five trips to Rome in the mid-seventh century and he returned to his Northumbrian monasteries bearing books, relics and rich silks with which to wrap them.)

The Fallen Blade: Act One of the Assassini
by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Published 27 Jan 2011

The emperor of Byzantium to the south. The Pope has declared the Millioni false princes. Making them fair game for any penitent with a sharp dagger and a guilty conscience. The Mamluks covet our trade routes. The King of Hungary wants his Schiavoni colonies in Dalmatia back. Everyone offers to protect us from everyone else. Who do you think the predators are?” “So you marry Giulietta to Janus because it will help protect those trade routes? Poor child…” Finding them watching her, Giulietta turned away. “She makes no pretence to be pleased,” said Sir Richard, then shrugged. “Why would she? Janus is years older. I imagine she dreams of the Florentine.”

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“He’s a monster.” “Giulietta… The Germans want Venice. The Byzantines want it too. The Mamluks want your colonies. Even my people, the Moors, would happily see your navy sunk. King Janus was Black only briefly. Cyprus is an island we can use.” “Use?” she said in scorn. “Venice’s strength rests on its trade routes. It needs Cyprus. Besides, you have to marry someone.” “It might as well be him?” The Moor nodded, and she wondered if he could read the fury in her eyes. Anger kept her fear at bay. Her fear of what being bedded by a Black Crucifer might involve. “My lord,” Josh interrupted. Atilo raised his bow.

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“You know…” “He can’t be let out in public?” “Alonzo…” “It’s the truth. And, speaking of truth, are you behind this?” “Behind what?” “Giulietta’s abduction?” “Why would I do that?” “Answer me.” “If you remember,” Alexa said tightly, “I suggested her marriage to Janus. We need Cyprus to secure our trade routes. In fact, our future wealth depends on it. You seem over-friendly with the sultan’s ambassador. Should I be asking you the same?” “Believe me, that’s changing.” Stamping to the balcony, Alonzo glared through fretted shutters at a crowd on the Molo, the palace’s water terrace. Beyond them, to his left, the Riva degli Schiavoni was equally thronged.

The Emperor's New Road: How China's New Silk Road Is Remaking the World
by Jonathan Hillman
Published 28 Sep 2020

But on China’s border, things were moving slowly, if at all. As minutes stretched into hours, the idea for this book was born. In Washington, DC, and other Western capitals, policy makers heard about the forum in Beijing. They read about dozens of foreign leaders showing up, over sixty countries signing onto China’s effort, ancient trade routes being revived, and other grand claims, often the same ones that Chinese state media tout. They saw maps of new economic corridors running outward from China. All these details add to an image of China as cunning, strategic, and marching in lockstep toward midcentury. They missed the lunch breaks and border delays.

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With first-time arrivals celebrated in France, Latvia, and Finland, among other countries in recent years, it is tempting to believe that trains are replacing camels on the old Silk Road. Even countries that have been reluctant to endorse the BRI have embraced China-Europe railways. When a train from Yiwu, China, arrived in London in January 2017, the Telegraph called it “a new chapter in the history of the centuries-old trading route,” and the Guardian said it “heralds the dawn of a new commercial era.”29 In reality, the route was an adjustment from a similarly hyped journey taken between China and Spain in 2014, and the difference between the two routes exists entirely within the EU. On arriving in Duisburg, Germany, the train continued to London instead of Madrid.

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When the conversation turned to China’s trade with the Middle East, Pakistan’s minister for commerce, who was also the defense adviser, pointed out that the nearest outlet for Chinese trade with the Middle East was Karachi, not the port of Shanghai. The key to increasing China’s trade, he claimed, was to reopen “an ancient trade route . . . lost to modern times, not only for trade but for strategic purposes as well.” Zhou sent for a map, and after a glimpse of the route, he allegedly asked, “When can our engineers meet?”43 What is clear is that from the beginning, the highway’s commercial importance was secondary to strategic concerns.

Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies
by Jared M. Diamond
Published 15 Jul 2005

Evidently, those crops reached southern Nige- ria only after languages began to break up into subgroups, so each sub- group coined or received different names for the new plants, which the modern languages of only that particular subgroup inherited. Last come crop names that aren't consistent within language groups at all, but instead follow trade routes. These prove to be New World crops like corn and peanuts, which we know were introduced into Africa after the beginnings of transatlantic ship traffic (A.D. 1492) and diffused since then along trade routes, often bearing their Portuguese or other foreign names. Thus, even if we possessed no botanical or archaeological evidence whatsoever, we would still be able to deduce from the linguistic evidence alone that native West African crops were domesticated first, that Indone- sian crops arrived next, and that finally the European introductions came in.

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When the Portuguese navi- gator Vasco da Gama became the first European to sail around the south- ern cape of Africa and reached the Kenya coast in 1498, he encountered Swahili trading settlements and picked up a pilot who guided him on that direct route to India. But there was an equally vigorous sea trade from India eastward, between India and Indonesia. Perhaps the Austronesian colonists of Mada- gascar reached India from Indonesia by that eastern trade route and then fell in with the westward trade route to East Africa, where they joined with Africans and discovered Madagascar. That union of Austronesians and East Africans lives on today in Madagascar's basically Austronesian language, which contains loan words from coastal Kenyan Bantu lan- guages. But there are no corresponding Austronesian loan words in Kenyan languages, and other traces of Austronesians are very thin on the ground in East Africa: mainly just Africa's possible legacy of Indonesian musical instruments (xylophones and zithers) and, of course, the Aus- tronesian crops that became so important in African agriculture.

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Like ragweed's, sumpweed's pollen can cause hayfever where the plant occurs in abundant stands. If that doesn't kill your enthusiasm for becoming a sumpweed farmer, be aware that it has a strong odor objectionable to some people and that handling it can cause skin irritation. Mexican crops finally began to reach the eastern United States by trade routes after A.D. 1. Corn arrived around A.D. 200, but its role remained very minor for many centuries. Finally, around A.D. 900 a new variety of corn adapted to North America's short summers appeared, and the arrival of beans around A.D. 1100 completed Mexico's crop trinity of corn, beans, and squash.

Money: Vintage Minis
by Yuval Noah Harari
Published 5 Apr 2018

The idea of progress is built on the notion that if we admit our ignorance and invest resources in research, things can improve. This idea was soon translated into economic terms. Whoever believes in progress believes that geographical discoveries, technological inventions and organisational developments can increase the sum total of human production, trade and wealth. New trade routes in the Atlantic could flourish without ruining old routes in the Indian Ocean. New goods could be produced without reducing the production of old ones. For instance, one could open a new bakery specialising in chocolate cakes and croissants without causing bakeries specialising in bread to go bust.

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The empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires were simply much shrewder in financing their conquests. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest. In 1484 Christopher Columbus approached the king of Portugal with the proposal that he finance a fleet that would sail westward to find a new trade route to East Asia. Such explorations were a very risky and costly business. A lot of money was needed in order to build ships, buy supplies, and pay sailors and soldiers – and there was no guarantee that the investment would yield a return. The king of Portugal declined. Like a present-day start-up entrepreneur, Columbus did not give up.

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Mercenary armies and cannon-brandishing fleets cost a fortune, but the Dutch were able to finance their military expeditions more easily than the mighty Spanish Empire because they secured the trust of the burgeoning European financial system at a time when the Spanish king was carelessly eroding its trust in him. Financiers extended the Dutch enough credit to set up armies and fleets, and these armies and fleets gave the Dutch control of world trade routes, which in turn yielded handsome profits. The profits allowed the Dutch to repay the loans, which strengthened the trust of the financiers. Amsterdam was fast becoming not only one of the most important ports of Europe, but also the continent’s financial Mecca. HOW EXACTLY DID the Dutch win the trust of the financial system?

The Lessons of History
by Will Durant and Ariel Durant
Published 1 Jan 1968

Will it continue across the Pacific, exporting European and American industrial and commercial techniques to China, as formerly to Japan? Will Oriental fertility, working with the latest Occidental technology, bring the decline of the West? The development of the airplane will again alter the map of civilization. Trade routes will follow less and less the rivers and seas; men and goods will be flown more and more directly to their goal. Countries like England and France will lose the commercial advantage of abundant coast lines conveniently indented; countries like Russia, China, and Brazil, which were hampered by the excess of their land mass over their coasts, will cancel part of that handicap by taking to the air.

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Unquestionably the economic interpretation illuminates much history. The money of the Delian Confederacy built the Parthenon; the treasury of Cleopatra’s Egypt revitalized the exhausted Italy of Augustus, gave Virgil an annuity and Horace a farm. The Crusades, like the wars of Rome with Persia, were attempts of the West to capture trade routes to the East; the discovery of America was a result of the failure of the Crusades. The banking house of the Medici financed the Florentine Renaissance; the trade and industry of Nuremberg made Dürer possible. The French Revolution came not because Voltaire wrote brilliant satires and Rousseau sentimental romances, but because the middle classes had risen to economic leadership, needed legislative freedom for their enterprise and trade, and itched for social acceptance and political power.

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558 B.C.), 29, 55–56, 57, 73 Sophists, 41, 49 South America, 30, 53, 84 Spain, 24, 53, 64, 83 Spanish Armada, 16 Sparta, 27, 29 Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903), 93 Spengler, Oswald (1880–1936), 89–90, 91 states, rise of, 90–91 Study of History, A (Toynbee), 69* Sulla, Lucius Cornelius (138–78 B.C.), 39 Sumeria, 13, 59 Sweden, 79 Switzerland, 23, 79 Sylvester I, Pope (r. 314–335), 45 Syracuse, Greek colony at, 29 Syria, 29 Szuma Ch’ien (B.C. 145 B.C.), 61 Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe (1828–93), 72* Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles-Maurice de (1754–1838), 90 Taranto, Greek colony at, 29 Tatars, 83 taxation, 56, 59–63, 66, 92 Ten Commandments, 40, 44 Teutons, 26, 30 Thales of Miletus (fl. 600 B.C.), 29 Thirty Years’ War, 28, 45 Thrasymachus (fl. 5th century B.C.), 39, 93 Thucydides (471?–?400 B.C.), 73, 100 Tiberius, Emperor of Rome (r. 14–37), 84 Tours, battle of (732), 24, 83 Toynbee, Arnold J. (1889– ), 69* trade routes, 15, 16, 53, 92 Trajan, Emperor of Rome (r. 98–117), 69 Treitschke, Heinrich von (1834–96), 26 Trichinopoly, 29 Trotsky, Leon (1877–1940), 66 Umbrians, 27 United States of America, 20, 21, 26, 30, 31, 42, 71, 100 industrial development, 16, 39, 40 agriculture and food supply, 22 morals and religion, 39, 40, 48, 50, 51, 96 concentration of wealth in, 55, 57 democracy in, 68, 76, 79, 91, 94, 96, 99 and Western civilization, 83, 84, 85, 91, 94, 97 Vandals, 27 Varangians, 28 Venice, 16, 92 Vico, Giovanni Battista (1668–1744), 88 Vinci, Leonardo da, see LEONARDO DA VINCI Virgil (70–19 B.C.), 53, 87 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778), 23, 40, 49, 53, 77, 92, 100, 101 Wagner, Richard (1813–83), 26 Wang An-shih (premier 1068–85), 62–63 Wang Mang, Emperor of China (r. 923), 62 war, 18–22 passim, 55, 60, 61, 66, 70, 76, 77, 79, 81–86, 93 air power in, 16 and morals and religion, 23, 24, 39, 40, 42, 44, 47, 49 causes of, 53, 81, 82 and science, 82, 95 Watt, James (1736–1819), 41 wealth, concentration of, 55–58, 70, 72, 77, 92 West, the, 53, 67, 96, 100 decline of, 16 Western Europe, 29, 40, 45, 84 civilization of 28–30, 49, 83, 94, 97 U.

The the Rough Guide to Turkey
by Rough Guides
Published 15 Oct 2023

Despite this nominal annexation, effective independence was ensured in the following centuries by the relative lack of interest of the Roman and Byzantine rulers, whose only real concerns were to control the roads (and thereby keep open eastern trading routes), and to extort tributes. Meanwhile the locals existed in much the same way as they do now, living in rock-hewn dwellings or building houses out of local stone, and relying on agriculture, viniculture and livestock breeding. This neglect, combined with the influence of an important east–west trading route, enabled various faiths, creeds and philosophies to flourish. Christianity was introduced in the first century by St Paul; suffering from increasingly frequent attacks by Arab raiders, the new Christian communities sought refuge in the hills, where they carved out dwelling places, churches and monasteries.

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The Kapalı Çarşı and its assorted shops and galleries (under the World Heritage Site label of ‘Quarter of Hans’) today sells all manner of goods from clothes, towels and bolts of cloth to fresh produce and local confectionary such as candied chestnuts. Emir (Bey) Hanı, at the rear of the Ulu Cami, is the oldest part of the bazaar and one of more than a dozen hans built between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries as inns for caravanning merchants peddling their wares along Asia’s trade routes. As with most traditional Ottoman hans, a main gate leads into a central courtyard containing a fountain or a domed masjid (prayer chapel) and surrounded by double-storey inward-facing rooms for traders, livestock and merchandise. The bedesten, with its fine vaulted ceiling, was built in 1400 by Sultan Bayezid II to store the city’s valuables, and today is given over to the sale and warehousing of jewellery and precious metals.

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This is Laodicea, whose ruins are almost visibly in the process of rising from the ground – just a few years ago, there was little of interest to see, but it’s now a real feast for the eyes, even if some ruins have been somewhat crudely restored. While Pamukkale up the road catered for pleasure, Laodicea was an important trading centre, thanks to its position at the junction of two major trade routes. Originally hosting a large Jewish community, in time it became a highly important Christian base – in fact, it was one of the Seven Churches of Asia mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Most of the sights, including temples, a nymphaeum and an unusually square agora, are arrayed off a colonnaded thoroughfare now known as Syria Street – religious tours make a bee line for a cross near its far end.

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Politics of Place)
by Tim Marshall
Published 10 Oct 2016

Crucially, the invasion of Afghanistan also gave hope to the great Russian dream of its army being able to “wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean,” in the words of the ultra-nationalistic Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and thus achieve what it never had: a warm-water port where the water does not freeze in winter, with free access to the world’s major trading routes. The ports on the Arctic, such as Murmansk, freeze for several months each year: Vladivostok, the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean, is ice-locked for about four months and is enclosed by the Sea of Japan, which is dominated by the Japanese. This does not just halt the flow of trade; it prevents the Russian fleet from operating as a global power.

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However, gun, bomb, and knife attacks in the region against state and/or Han targets over the past few years do look as if they will continue and could escalate into a full-blown uprising. China will not cede this territory and, as in Tibet, the window for independence is closing. Both are buffer zones, one is a major land trade route, and—crucially—both offer markets (albeit with a limited income) for an economy that must keep producing and selling goods if China is to continue to grow and to prevent mass unemployment. Failure to do so would likely lead to widespread civil disorder, threatening the control of the Communist Party and the unity of China.

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In all, the Danube basin affects eighteen countries and forms natural borders along the way, including those of Slovakia and Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, Serbia and Romania, and Romania and Bulgaria. More than two thousand years ago it was one of the borders of the Roman Empire, which in turn helped it to become one of the great trading routes of medieval times and gave rise to the present capital cities of Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Belgrade. It also formed the natural border of two subsequent empires, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman. As each shrank, the nations emerged again, eventually becoming nation states. However, the geography of the Danube region, especially at its southern end, helps explain why there are so many small nations there in comparison to the bigger countries in and around the North European Plain.

Super Continent: The Logic of Eurasian Integration
by Kent E. Calder
Published 28 Apr 2019

In response to China’s BRI, Japan’s Silk Road diplomacy has been growing more active, and more collaborative with Indian and US efforts, although Abe also proved conciliatory to BRI in his late 2018 dialogue with China, demonstrating once again the oscillating character of Japan’s Silk Road diplomacy. Turkey’s Middle Corridor Initiative Central geographical positioning, including control over important trade routes, has long been a concern of the Turks and their ancestors, although specific priorities and strategies have changed over the years. The Ottomans, for example, placed high priority during their early days on achieving exclusive control over land trade routes from Europe across Asia. The current Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan has regarded transcontinental trade routes as a geo-economic tool also. Domestic politics have also driven Turkish continental policies over the centuries.

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The role of spices in Chinese cuisine, introduced from Persia during the Tang dynasty, was one concrete and enduring result of such confluence, as was the role of paper and gunpowder introduced from China into the West. Chinese pottery also graced both the Islamic world and the West. Religious concepts likewise flowed along the trade routes—Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Nestorian Christianity all traveled together with the silk. All this was largely achieved, however, through the power of markets, random military action, and interpersonal trading networks. There was only a limited role for political ­authority—and none at all for strategic decisions by the nation-state.14 For well over a thousand years the classic Silk Road was the principal conduit between East and West, linking the central poles of world civilization across Eurasia, the largest landmass on earth and a potential Super Continent.

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The Caravanserai Project, initiated by Turkey, is working to coordinate customs clearance among the nations of this Middle Corridor, and numerous related infrastructure projects are also underway.63 Erdoǧan summarizes Turkey’s intentions this way: “This initiative, realized in a vast geography, means establishing a brand-new system interconnected in economic, political, social, and cultural areas.”64 In its efforts to reconnect Eurasia, Turkey’s approach is analogous, albeit in a smaller way, to China’s BRI—and also in tension with Russian aspirations to dominate transit routes across the Eurasian continent. China’s Belt and Road Initiative Few Chinese traversed the classic overland Silk Road beyond China’s frontiers, as we have noted. And China never— except under the Mongols— exerted powerful geopolitical sway over the transcontinental trade routes. China’s BRI, however, could be the vehicle for a variety of forms of influence over Eurasia—through “distributive globalism”—that China has never exerted before. No country is more centrally located within the populated core of Eurasia than China, encircled as it is by fourteen neighbors and the major economic centers of the region.

A Pipeline Runs Through It: The Story of Oil From Ancient Times to the First World War
by Keith Fisher
Published 3 Aug 2022

The contract is another factor compelling even in peace times the reinforcement of our naval squadrons in that sea and the strengthening by every available means of our position and influence both in the Near East and the Middle East.’330 However, Churchill expressed confidence that the Royal Navy would reign supreme and that even if the Suez route were to become inaccessible the longer Cape route would be sufficient: Any difficulties we may experience on our trade routes will occur at the very beginning of a war, particularly if it began by surprise. Every day the war continues we shall become stronger on every trade route, and our opponents will become weaker … Along the Cape route we find it would be exceptionally easy to protect trade because of the disposition of our squadrons and bases, and the enemy’s vessels would find it exceptionally difficult to maintain themselves on that route for the purpose of attacking our trade.331 In a subsequent debate the Earl of Ronaldshay agreed that, ‘So long as South Africa remains British, the route round the Cape … would be available’, while another MP added, regarding the Cape route, ‘If we are not in a position to keep that part of the sea open, it is no use talking about oil or the Empire or anything else, because the game is up.’332 Several MPs argued that, overall, the eventual military cost to Britain of defending Anglo-Persian’s operations would quite likely outweigh any savings on the price of fuel oil.

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However, by the end of the twelfth century the Byzantine navy was no longer being equipped with flame-throwers, perhaps because the Romans had by then lost easy access to these sources of petroleum.23 Fragments of pitch found in the excavation of an early medieval ship burial, located in a seventh-century cemetery at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England, were initially thought to have been ‘Stockholm tar’ rather than native pitch or bitumen. On later analysis the fragments turned out, indeed, to be bitumen, but most likely from the Dead Sea region, evidencing the extent of overseas trade routes in Anglo-Saxon times, particularly for rare and valuable items that would be symbols of high status.24 When, in about 760, the Persian Abbasids displaced the Syrian Umayyad Caliphate, the Persians gained control over the oil springs at Baku, a trading port on the western shore of the Caspian Sea in the southern Caucasus, in present-day Azerbaijan.

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However, it seems that these accounts of the fire may have been greatly embellished and its causes misreported.42 The early thirteenth-century Persian writer Ibn al-Balkhi reported the use of high-quality lamp oil in the coastal town of Bandar Deylam near the head of the Persian Gulf, the petroleum most likely being sourced from the surrounding region.43 There was also a naphtha spring that yielded a significant revenue at this time at Khanikin (Khanaqin), on the trade route between Baghdad and Tehran, so the inhabitants of these latter cities may have sourced oil from there.44 Oil continued to be drawn from wells around Baku and traded in significant quantities, as Marco Polo described towards the end of the thirteenth century in his account of his travels: On the confines towards Georgiana there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch that a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time.

The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life
by Robert Wright
Published 1 Jan 1994

But the good guys won in the end, and in the meantime the displays of inchoate capitalism’s might were impressive. Merchants in various German cities formed the Hanseatic League to subdue pirates, build lighthouses, and otherwise lubricate their livelihood. The league wound up defeating the king of Denmark in war and controlling maritime trade routes. In Italy, cities that had fast become city-states—complete with fighting among themselves—felt their freedoms threatened by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. (One early clue: Frederick took an advocate of urban independence, burned him to death, and scattered his ashes in the Tiber River.) The cities put aside their differences, formed the Lombard League, and fought Frederick until he gave in: they would pay lip service to his supremacy but be free to govern themselves.

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The Mongols had pushed their western frontier all the way to the Caspian Sea by the time of Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, and they later extended it into Turkey and eastern Europe. In the process they knocked off the Abbasid caliphate, the second of the great Islamic dynasties. The expansion was epically bloody. But, like the Muslims before them, the Mongols realized that, once the pillaging is over and you’ve got an empire to run, peace is a wonderful thing. They kept trade routes safe, and in return for thus lowering the communication and trust barriers, they exacted what has been compared to the modern value-added tax, at around 5 percent. This was a bargain. Compared to the series of power brokers through which Jewish and Muslim caravans previously passed, the Mongol thoroughfare offered “less risk and lower protective rent,” according to the social scientist Janet Abu-Lughod.

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Compared to the series of power brokers through which Jewish and Muslim caravans previously passed, the Mongol thoroughfare offered “less risk and lower protective rent,” according to the social scientist Janet Abu-Lughod. By the end of the thirteenth century, with the Mongols having brought China into direct contact with Europe, there existed a “world system that . . . had made prosperity pandemic.” The Mongol Empire’s transcontinental highway, paired with seagoing trade routes to the south, thus carried Eurasia’s invisible brain, and its invisible hand, to new evolutionary heights. They were still primitive organs by modern standards; goods and ideas traveled between east and west without east and west having a clear idea of each other. A global village it wasn’t. Still, mutual awareness was now higher than in ancient times, when the Chinese thought cotton coming from the west was fleece from “water sheep,” and Romans thought their imported silk grew on silk trees.

Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
by Robert Wright
Published 28 Dec 2010

But the good guys won in the end, and in the meantime the displays of inchoate capitalism’s might were impressive. Merchants in various German cities formed the Hanseatic League to subdue pirates, build lighthouses, and otherwise lubricate their livelihood. The league wound up defeating the king of Denmark in war and controlling maritime trade routes. In Italy, cities that had fast become city-states—complete with fighting among themselves—felt their freedoms threatened by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I. (One early clue: Frederick took an advocate of urban independence, burned him to death, and scattered his ashes in the Tiber River.) The cities put aside their differences, formed the Lombard League, and fought Frederick until he gave in: they would pay lip service to his supremacy but be free to govern themselves.

…

The Mongols had pushed their western frontier all the way to the Caspian Sea by the time of Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, and they later extended it into Turkey and eastern Europe. In the process they knocked off the Abbasid caliphate, the second of the great Islamic dynasties. The expansion was epically bloody. But, like the Muslims before them, the Mongols realized that, once the pillaging is over and you’ve got an empire to run, peace is a wonderful thing. They kept trade routes safe, and in return for thus lowering the communication and trust barriers, they exacted what has been compared to the modern value-added tax, at around 5 percent. This was a bargain. Compared to the series of power brokers through which Jewish and Muslim caravans previously passed, the Mongol thoroughfare offered “less risk and lower protective rent,” according to the social scientist Janet Abu-Lughod.

…

Compared to the series of power brokers through which Jewish and Muslim caravans previously passed, the Mongol thoroughfare offered “less risk and lower protective rent,” according to the social scientist Janet Abu-Lughod. By the end of the thirteenth century, with the Mongols having brought China into direct contact with Europe, there existed a “world system that . . . had made prosperity pandemic.” The Mongol Empire’s transcontinental highway, paired with seagoing trade routes to the south, thus carried Eurasia’s invisible brain, and its invisible hand, to new evolutionary heights. They were still primitive organs by modern standards; goods and ideas traveled between east and west without east and west having a clear idea of each other. A global village it wasn’t. Still, mutual awareness was now higher than in ancient times, when the Chinese thought cotton coming from the west was fleece from “water sheep,” and Romans thought their imported silk grew on silk trees.

Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance
by Ian Goldin and Chris Kutarna
Published 23 May 2016

Ten years later, his compatriot Vasco da Gama navigated around it, then up Africa’s east coast and across the Indian Ocean to the port of Calicut (or Kozhikode), the “City of Spices.” His voyage proved Ptolemy wrong: the Indian Ocean was not landlocked after all. That news, in turn, threatened the viability of communities all along the Silk Roads between Asia and Europe—vastly lucrative overland trade routes that had been built atop the belief that no sea route existed. Of less significance to contemporaries, but of more importance to world history, in 1492, Christopher Columbus—himself in search of a new sea route to Asia—hit upon the island of Hispaniola (today’s Haiti and Dominican Republic). He had found the New World.** Their successes fueled ever-bolder truth- and treasure-seeking.

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Fully 60 percent of the global exchange in goods was made up of rich countries exporting to one other. Developing countries trading among themselves made up just 6 percent. But now those respective shares are approaching equality. Trade everywhere has grown, but it has grown twice as fast along the new trade routes that have opened between emerging markets. Rankings of the world’s container ports reflect this rebalancing. In 1990, all the world’s top 10 ports by annual volume were in developed economies. By 2014, 14 of the top 25 were in the developing world, and China by itself boasted 7 of the top 10.

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In 1996, however, one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, Maersk of Denmark, decided to challenge that orthodoxy. It took delivery of the 6,400-TEU “post-Panamax” ship Regina. The economic center of gravity, Maersk reasoned, was shifting. The Panama Canal was irrelevant to the fastest-growing trade routes: the Pacific routes connecting the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan) and the west coasts of North and South America; the Atlantic routes connecting Europe to South America; and the Indian Ocean routes connecting Europe to the Middle East and Asia (via the Suez Canal).

Egypt
by Matthew Firestone
Published 13 Oct 2010

* * * Return to beginning of chapter FOREIGN INVADERS The story of ancient Egypt is the story of Egypt’s relationships with its neighbours, for its wealth attracted some and its strategic location on the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and on the trade routes between Africa and Asia, attracted others. When it was strong, it controlled the gold of Nubia and the trade route across the Levant – not for nothing was the image of Ramses II crushing the Hittites at Kadesh splashed across so many temple walls. When it was weak, it caught the attention of the power of the moment. In 663 BC, the Assyrian leader Ashurbanipal sacked Thebes.

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Building stone was hewn by teams of labourers supplemented by prisoners, with granite obtained from Aswan, sandstone from Gebel Silsila, alabaster from Hatnub near Amarna and limestone from Tura near modern Cairo. Gold came from mines in the Eastern Desert and Nubia, and both copper and turquoise were mined in the Sinai. With such precious commodities being transported large distances, trade routes and border areas were patrolled by guards, police (known as medjay) and the army, when not out on campaign. Men also plied their trade as potters, carpenters, builders, metalworkers, jewellers, weavers, fishermen and butchers, with many of these professions handed down from father to son. (This is especially well portrayed in the tomb scenes of Rekhmire, Click here.)

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They ensured peaceful rule in Upper Egypt by erecting temples in honour of the local gods, building in grand Pharaonic style to appease the priesthood and earn the trust of the people. The riverside temples at Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae are as notable for their strategic locations, on ancient trade routes or key commercial centres, as for their artistic or architectural merit. Aswan’s history was always going to be different. However much the rulers in the north, whether Theban or Macedonian, may have wanted to ignore the south, they dared not neglect their southern border. Settlement on Elephantine Island, located in the middle of the Nile at Aswan, dates back to at least 3000 BC.

Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History
by Stephen D. King
Published 22 May 2017

In 1880, the UK had the largest national income among the European Great Powers, enjoyed by far the highest per capita income among those powers, had by some margin the biggest share of world manufacturing output (eclipsing not only the UK’s European rivals, but also the US) and by far the most impressive collection of warships: 650,000 tons, compared with 271,000 for France, 200,000 for Russia, 169,000 for the US, 100,000 for Italy and a measly 88,000 for Germany.15 It was on the verge of creating the biggest empire – in terms of both land mass and population – the world had ever seen. Nor was its empire all ‘hard power’: it created legal systems, opened trading routes, established giant bureaucracies (notably in India), constructed rail networks and brought cricket to the masses. None of this, however, was enough to ensure the British Empire’s survival. As it crumbled, the world succumbed to a prolonged economic and social spasm. We may be on the verge of something similar today. 4 PRIDE AND THE FALL ON THE MARCH When the Berlin Wall came down, it was easy enough to believe that countries previously shackled to Soviet communism would choose the American way.

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THE CHINESE VERSION At the other end of the Eurasian land mass, China’s first serious attempts at globalization came 1,500 years before Columbus discovered the Americas. Faced with constant demands for tribute from Xiongnu warriors to their west, the Han Chinese eventually decided to fight back, in the process discovering an agricultural bounty, a path through the Gansu corridor and, via the Pamir Mountains, the beginnings of a trade route that later became known as the Silk Road. The ebb and flow of both trade and power thereafter meant that the magnetic appeal of the Silk Road – and, later, its maritime equivalents – became a dominant part of the pre-New World global economy. In the thirteenth century, China capitulated to the Mongol hordes, who promptly set up camp in what became known as Beijing.

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THE OTTOMAN VERSION The Roman and Persian Empires were too busy sparring with each other over the relative merits of Christianity and Zoroastrianism to notice the arrival of a new religious, political and military movement in the seventh century. Yet, thanks largely to the rapid unification of often nomadic Arab tribes, and helped along by their deep knowledge of existing trade routes, Islam spread extraordinarily rapidly: under the Umayyad Caliphate, established only three decades after the Prophet Mohammad’s death, Islam reached through North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula and marched through the Middle East into India. For Arabs in particular, the Quran had both spiritual and practical attractions.

Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World
by Ian Bremmer
Published 30 Apr 2012

The American security presence in Europe and Asia has bolstered confidence in both regions that disputes and tensions need not provoke war. Europe can afford to invest in economic and political union rather than military hardware. The presence of U.S. troops in East Asia reassures the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese that Japan does not need an army. The U.S. Navy safeguards important trade routes. Washington can’t single-handedly halt the proliferation of the world’s deadliest weapons; the past two decades have made that clear. But the United States has done more than any other country to ensure that nuclear development in states like North Korea and Iran comes at the highest possible cost and risk to discourage other would-be nuclear weapons states from following their example.

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To create those jobs, the economy must grow, and to achieve that growth China needs access to oil, gas, metals, minerals, and advanced technology from outside the country. A blue-water navy can help safeguard that access and might one day partner with American vessels to do this. Beyond this mission, though, why should China take on the risks and burdens that come with heavier responsibilities abroad? The U.S. Navy patrols major trade routes and has helped in the past to limit the risk of conflict in every region of the world. China has benefited from that commitment. Beijing, of course, could dedicate huge amounts of money toward sharing this responsibility, but what incentive does it have to do so? The problem for China, and for everyone else, is that the United States has increasingly limited means to carry this weight—and Americans are likely to retreat from some of their overseas commitments faster than the Chinese, or anyone else, can afford to fill the vacuum.

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A generation ago, China’s state-owned enterprises and political bureaucrats had little experience with potentially volatile emerging states in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, not to mention moving tankers through troubled waters. America’s willingness to play the global policeman has given China time to open and maintain trade routes and sea lanes, and develop trade and investment relations abroad. The willingness of successive U.S. presidents to pull punches on Beijing’s human rights record in favor of better trade relations created the makings of, if not a beautiful friendship, at least a profitable partnership. Despite the delay imposed by events in Tiananmen Square, the death of European and Soviet communism helped the aging Deng Xiaoping persuade China’s elite that only a rising standard of living would save the country’s one-party system and that a more ambitious experimentation with market-driven capitalism was the only way to get there.

Lonely Planet Panama (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet and Carolyn McCarthy
Published 30 Jun 2013

Although the Spanish settlement quickly became an important center of government and church authority, the city was ransacked and destroyed in 1671 by the English pirate Captian Henry Morgan, leaving only the stone ruins of Panamá Viejo. Three years later, the city was reestablished about 8km to the southwest in the area now known as Casco Viejo. Although the peninsular location was well defended, the Spanish overland trade route faded upon the destruction of the Caribbean port at Portobelo in 1746. Panama gained independence in 1821 and became part of Gran Colombia; a decade later the regional confederation dissolved and Panama belonged to Colombia. Panama City subsequently declined in importance, though it would return to prominence in the 1850s when the Panama Railroad was completed, and gold seekers on their way to California flooded across the isthmus by train.

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The rails fell into disrepair during the Noriega regime, but in 1998 the Panama government partnered with Kansas City Southern, an American-based railway holding company, to create the Panama Canal Railway Company (PCRC). The joint venture sought to re-establish the Atlantic–Pacific rail link and create a profitable alternative to the Panama Canal trade route. In 2001 PCRC also introduced a passenger service with a fully operational vintage train. If you’re looking to relive the golden age of railway travel, the vintage train features exotic wood paneling and blinds, carpeted interiors, glass-domed cars and open-air viewing decks. The hour-long ride parallels the canal, sometimes traversing thick rainforest.

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The secondary forests of the protected area are rich in bird life and there’s no shortage of mountainous trails and waterfall-fed ponds to discover. History Following the destruction of Nombre de Dios by Sir Francis Drake in 1573, the Spanish moved to fortify the Caribbean coast. Of principal concern was the Río Chagres, which flowed inland to the town of Venta de Cruces (near the modern town of Gamboa), and then linked up with the trade route leading to the city of Panamá. In 1595, by order of Phillip II of Spain, Fuerte San Lorenzo was built into the side of a steep cliff near the river mouth. Fuerte San Lorenzo, Portobelo and Panamá, the ‘three keys’ of the Americas, became known as the strategic hearts of the Spanish trade empire.

New World, Inc.
by John Butman
Published 20 Mar 2018

It remained the richest country on earth, however, with an extraordinary gravitational pull on the global economy. By 1500, China accounted for 25 percent of the world’s output of goods and services. England, by contrast, accounted for just 1.1 percent.10 Through the fifteenth century, a tangled web of trade routes connected Cathay to Europe, stretching five thousand miles across oceans, mountains, steppes, and deserts. Along these routes—which the German explorer Baron von Richtofen labeled the “Silk Road” in the 1870s—all manner of luxury goods were carried by ship, camel, and horse.11 By the time they reached Europe, their price could have risen by as much as 1000 percent, having been handled by many middlemen—factors, traders, government officials—who charged fees, exacted their portion, skimmed a percentage, imposed taxes and duties, and demanded bribes.12 For centuries, it was the Venetians who were the primary importers of Chinese, Indian, and other Asian goods into Europe, collecting them from Arab merchants who had overseen their transportation to the key markets of the eastern Mediterranean—Alexandria in Egypt and Aleppo in what is now Syria.

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Along these routes—which the German explorer Baron von Richtofen labeled the “Silk Road” in the 1870s—all manner of luxury goods were carried by ship, camel, and horse.11 By the time they reached Europe, their price could have risen by as much as 1000 percent, having been handled by many middlemen—factors, traders, government officials—who charged fees, exacted their portion, skimmed a percentage, imposed taxes and duties, and demanded bribes.12 For centuries, it was the Venetians who were the primary importers of Chinese, Indian, and other Asian goods into Europe, collecting them from Arab merchants who had overseen their transportation to the key markets of the eastern Mediterranean—Alexandria in Egypt and Aleppo in what is now Syria. It was a highly profitable business, not least because the Venetians held an effective monopoly. And it was partly to break this Venetian stranglehold on the spice trade that the Portuguese launched a succession of voyages in search of a faster, cheaper trade route to the East. In 1498, after nearly a century of exploration, the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the southern tip of Africa—the Cape of Good Hope—sailed into the Indian Ocean, and reached Calicut, on India’s Malabar coast. This port was the great trading center of the East, a fabulous emporium, every bit the equal of Venice and Antwerp, where Indian, Arab, and Chinese merchants came to trade.

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Not since the days of King Harold II—who was vanquished by William, Duke of Normandy, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066—had there been official contact between England and Russia. Back then, Harold’s daughter had been married off to the Grand Prince of Kiev.23 But Chancellor had arrived in Muscovy at an opportune moment of change. The Russians were expanding their empire by opening the trade route along the Volga River—which flowed from Moscow to the Caspian Sea—and tapping into the riches of Persia and the Silk Road to China. It had been thirty years since an ambassador from western Europe, representing the Habsburgs, had been seen at the Russian court. Now Ivan was looking for new trading partners.

Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World
by Michael Schuman
Published 8 Jun 2020

There was already demand for Chinese products outside of China, and the Chinese didn’t even know it. When Zhang returned to the Han capital, he convinced the court of Emperor Wu to send him off on another mission, this one to locate that mysterious trade route to India. He never found it. Blocked by tangled jungle and hostile tribes in the wilds of what is today Yunnan province, Zhang and his party were forced to turn back. But his exploits did help create an even more important trade route: the Silk Road. When Emperor Wu sent his armies west in the wake of Zhang’s discoveries, he kicked down the remaining barriers to trade between China and Central Asia. And from there, to the Roman Empire.

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A luminary of the Chinese Communist Party, he led the economic reform movement in the 1980s that rebuilt Chinese global power, but he also ordered the infamous crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Faxian, Buddhist Monk. His travels between China and India around the turn of the fifth century AD left us an early account of pan-Asian trading routes. Gaozong, Emperor of the Song Dynasty. He rallied Song Dynasty loyalists after its defeat by the Jurchens and became the first emperor of the Southern Song in 1127 AD. Guangxu, Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. Briefly allied with radical reformers in the late nineteenth century to resurrect the sagging fortunes of the Qing in its conflicts with the West.

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Since steppe tribesmen and their descendants controlled the reins of power in north China for almost three hundred years, it was logical for the Chinese to start learning their tongues and customs to curry favor and appointments with the new rulers. The most important of all foreign influences in China during this period was Buddhism. The teachings of the Buddha had traveled over the Central Asian trade routes from its Indian homeland into China probably in the later years of the Han Dynasty, and spread rapidly during the Period of Disunion. The import would become so influential in China that at times in the mid-first millennium it challenged homegrown Confucianism for primacy within royal courts. To some Chinese, the appeal of a foreign religion cast doubt on the assumed superiority of their own civilization.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
by Jack Weatherford
Published 21 Mar 2005

For centuries before the birth of Genghis Khan, Chinese, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian civilizations filtered into the Mongol homeland; little of their culture proved adaptable, however, to the harsh environment of the high steppes. The nomadic tribes had distant but complex commercial, religious, and military relations with the constantly changing configuration of states in China and central Asia. Living so far to the north, the Mongols were essentially out of range of the trade routes that later became known as the Silk Route, which ran south of the Gobi, tenuously and sporadically connecting Chinese and Muslim societies. Yet enough trade goods filtered north to make the Mongols aware of the treasures that lay in the south. For the nomads, trading with their neighbors and fighting with them constituted an interrelated part of the yearly rhythm of life, as customary and predictable as tending the newborn animals in the spring, searching for pastures in the summer, or drying meat and dairy products in the fall.

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The Mongols continued, by a different means, to pursue their compulsive goal of uniting all people under the Eternal Blue Sky. The commercial influence of the Mongols spread much farther than their army, and the transition from the Mongol Empire to the Mongol Corporation occurred during the reign of Khubilai Khan. Throughout the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the Mongols maintained trade routes across the empire and stocked shelters with provisions interspersed every twenty to thirty miles. The stations provided transport animals as well as guides to lead the merchants through difficult terrain. Marco Polo, who was at the Mongol court at the same time that Bar Sawma was on his mission to Europe, frequently used the Mongol relay stations in his travels.

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Depending on which metal was used and the symbols such as tigers or gyrfalcons, illiterate people could ascertain the importance of the traveler and thereby render the appropriate level of service. The paiza allowed the holder to travel throughout the empire and be assured of protection, accommodations, transportation, and exemption from local taxes or duties. The expansion and maintenance of the trading routes did not derive from an ideological commitment of the Mongols to commerce and communication in general. Rather, it stemmed from the deeply rooted system of shares, or khubi, in the Mongol tribal organization that had been formalized by Genghis Khan. Just as each orphan and widow, as well as each soldier, was entitled to an appropriate measure of all the goods seized in war, each member of the Golden Family was entitled to a share of the wealth of each part of the empire.

Destined for War: America, China, and Thucydides's Trap
by Graham Allison
Published 29 May 2017

Through the “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st-Century Maritime Silk Road”—collectively known as One Belt, One Road (OBOR)—China is constructing a network of highways, fast railroads, airports, ports, pipelines, power transmission lines, and fiber-optic cables across Eurasia. These modern physical links along what were once ancient Chinese trade routes will foster new diplomatic, trade, and financial ties. At this point, OBOR includes 900 projects at a cost exceeding $1.4 trillion. Even after adjusting for inflation, this amounts to 12 Marshall Plans, according to the investor and former IMF economist Stephen Jen.74 Largesse, economic imperialism—call it what you will.

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In a crisis involving its historical rival Beijing, any steps Tokyo takes would certainly be shaped by these memories, and by the Japanese government’s shifting attitude toward military force. A likely flashpoint is the Senkaku Islands (known in China as the Diaoyu Islands), located near valuable fishing grounds, trade routes, and potential oil reserves in the East China Sea. The United States temporarily controlled the islands after World War II, but in the early 1970s returned them to Japan, which had claimed them since the nineteenth century. But in the 1970s, China also claimed sovereignty over the islands. Chinese ships regularly pass through these waters, raising tensions between Beijing and Tokyo and risking a collision that could set off a chain reaction.

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The two most instructive cases of these good-news stories come from the twentieth century: the first when the United States deposed the United Kingdom as the leading global power; the second when an ascending Soviet Union threatened America’s position as the unipolar power. Together, they offer a rich set of clues for leaders seeking to make the rise of China a fifth case of no war. SPAIN VS. PORTUGAL Late fifteenth century For most of the fifteenth century, Portugal’s fleet ruled ocean trade routes, overshadowing its Iberian rival and neighbor, the Spanish kingdom of Castile. Portugal’s success reflected its historical development. In 1249, its people became the first Europeans to escape Muslim rule, creating a nation largely along Portugal’s modern-day borders. Then, in 1348, the Black Death killed one-third of the country’s population, leaving too few able-bodied workers to farm the rocky soil.1 Enterprising Portuguese turned to the Atlantic and in time became Europe’s most skilled and successful fishermen.

The Rough Guide to Poland
by Rough Guides
Published 18 Sep 2018

Sandomierz and around Eighty kilometres south from Kazimierz Dolny along the River Vistula, SANDOMIERZ is a fascinating old town with a well-preserved hilltop centre and a wealth of worthy monuments. Like other places in the southeast, Sandomierz rose to prominence through its position on the medieval trade route running from central Asia to central Europe. Following repeated sackings by Tatars and Lithuanians, the town was completely rebuilt by Kazimierz the Great in the mid-fourteenth century, gaining defensive walls and a cathedral which survive today. Sandomierz subsequently flourished by shipping local timber and corn down the River Vistula to Gdańsk, but suffered badly at the hands of the Swedes, who blew up the castle in 1656 – after which Sandomierz went into a long period of decline.

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Morando’s plans produced a beautifully Italianate town complete with arcaded piazza and a state-of-the-art system of defensive bastions; Zamość was one of the few places to withstand the seventeenth-century “Swedish Deluge” that flattened so many other Polish towns. Strategically located on major trade routes, the town attracted an international array of merchants, notably the Armenians, who sold eastern fabrics to Polish aristocrats hungry for oriental style. The Partition era brought economic decline: early in the nineteenth century Zamość had sunk so far that even the Zamoyskis themselves had moved on.

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It also has a good restaurant serving everything from fried fish to shashlik-style skewer-kebabs. 140zł Jarosław Fifty kilometres east of Rzeszów on the main road and rail line to the Ukrainian border, JAROSŁAW is one of the oldest towns in the country. Yaroslav the Wise, prince of Kiev, established a stronghold here some time in the eleventh century, and the town’s position on major east–west trade routes led to its rapid development. Such was the importance of Jarosław’s Jewish population that the Council of the Four Lands (Polish Jewry’s main consultative body) met regularly here during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. What remains of Jarosław’s historic centre makes a half-day trip from Rzeszów or Przemyśl more than worthwhile.

Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up
by Philip N. Howard
Published 27 Apr 2015

Military leaders have an easier time defending the empire, and political leaders have more information about public needs. The Romans had such an empire, because they built the roads and aqueducts that provided their empire structure and stability. The British also had such an empire, because they had a network of fortifications and a superior navy to manage their global trade routes. In this chapter I map out the expanding infrastructure of networked devices. I explore this domain with some hard data—a kind of census—on the size of the empire of connected things. Then I discuss some of the ways these networks of connected devices get used in political ways. When governments fail to protect us, and are unable to even warn the public of danger, we use digital media to build new systems of early warning.

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Still, in exposing these dark secrets, Amanda revealed a lot about what our internet is becoming. What’s in a Pax? The Pax Britannica was a period of history, between Napoleon’s defeat and World War I, during which the British Empire managed global affairs. London was the center of power, the British navy controlled the most important sea-trading routes, and relatively efficient bureaucracies put the world’s resources and people into the Empire’s service. Several aspects of the Pax Britannica may actually describe our future as much as that moment of our past. The British were strong because their network infrastructure gave them unparalleled levels of political, economic, and cultural control.

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We need to map the new world order of the pax technica. 3 NEW MAPS FOR THE NEW WORLD Maps are expressions of political power, both perceived and claimed. When the Romans set out to organize their expanding empire, they mapped the great lengths of roads and aqueducts that structured their social world. British cartographers provided merchants with maps of the best trading routes and equipped military officers with maps that identified the best places for fortifications. In recent years, we’ve started producing new kinds of digital maps that reveal new kinds of power. What new maps do we need to understand the new world order? The usual map of the world reveals a patchwork of countries.

The Ages of Globalization
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Published 2 Jun 2020

The control of fire enabled early humans to move to colder biomes; the multisite invention of agriculture enabled dense human settlements in alluvial plains; the domesticated horse expanded the zones of agriculture; Columbus’s voyages of discovery ultimately led to massive European migrations to the Americas; the Suez and Panama canals deeply altered the costs and patterns of global trade and, with global warming, new trade routes in the Arctic Sea may do the same; the British mass production of quinine to control malaria enabled the European conquest of tropical Africa; the railroad opened up the interiors of continents for food production and trade. The economic importance of geography is therefore constantly reshaped by changing knowledge and technologies.

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Most dryland agriculture other than in the river valleys is based on animal herding in the wetter part of the drylands, called steppes or grasslands. The Eurasian steppes were home to the wild horse and were the original sites of horse domestication. Before the Industrial Age, the steppes were for millennia the vast east-west “highway” for horse-based transport and communication, known today as the Silk Road (a name given to these ancient trade routes in the nineteenth century). The cold zones have growing seasons that are too short and too cold to support high-yield crop production, other than some wheat-growing areas in the more hospitable parts of the cold zones, such as in Canada and Russia. As with the dry climates, population densities tend to be low.

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The cannon artillery enabled by gunpowder helped to account for the spectacular successes of the Ottoman, Mongol, and Timurid empires. When the Atlantic powers, including the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English, successfully added cannon power to their ocean vessels, they were able to dominate the Indian Ocean trade routes. Britain’s early industrialization tremendously spurred its military power, through a steam-powered navy, mass-produced firearms and heavy artillery, machine guns, logistics and transport supported by rail and telegraph, and in the early twentieth century, armored personnel carriers and tanks.

Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen
by James Suzman
Published 10 Jul 2017

They accused the Harvard Kalahari Research Group and other anthropologists of having failed to properly examine the Bushmen’s historical relationships with other peoples over time—most notably the many pastoralist peoples that had colonized parts of southern Africa during the first and second millennia. They cited archaeological and historical evidence that pointed to the possible long-term presence of livestock herders in some parts of the Kalahari as well as the existence of nineteenth-century trade routes through areas that had been assumed to be completely isolated until the mid-twentieth century. These criticisms cooled enthusiasm for the romantic version of primitive affluence that blossomed in popular culture. But like the popularizers, the critics of primitive affluence radically overstated their case in what soon became referred to as the “Great Kalahari Debate.”

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So while there is no record of Cão’s crew seeing any indigenous people, it is possible that Cão and his crew were seen by them. It was Cão’s friend and rival Bartolomeu Dias who would make the first documented contact between Europeans and southern Africa’s indigenous people. Charged by King João II of Portugal to follow in Cão’s wake, find a sea trade route to India, and establish the truth of the legend of Prester John, Dias embarked for the southern Atlantic in August 1487. He made good progress and after several months pushed farther south than Cão’s padrão at Cape Cross. Dias’s fleet rounded the Cape of Good Hope in January 1488. But he was too far out to sea to spot the natural harbor that lay under the majestic slopes of Table Mountain.

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During this period of upheaval, Tswana-speaking herders from the east pushed deeper into the Kalahari, as did Herero and Mbanderu from the west. At around the same time, the first white hunters and explorers arrived in the Kalahari hoping to make their fortunes from ivory and ostrich feathers. They followed a series of narrow trade routes along which their booty flowed west from the Kalahari to the coast and European goods like muskets, ironware, and textiles flowed from the coast into the interior. But their activities were contained by the Ju/’hoansi. James Chapman, a white hunter and explorer whose legacy still looms large over the Kalahari, remarked in 1851 that “the inhabitants of these parts are a much finer race of Bushmen” than others his men had encountered.

Africa: A Biography of the Continent
by John Reader
Published 5 Nov 1998

Contact with the highlands of the central Sahara and across the desert survived the climatic perturbations through a string of settlements, where pastoralist Berbers exploited the resources of isolated natural wells and oases.21 These connections, along which goods already passed sporadically from group to group across the desert, were the ready-made foundation of trade routes that flourished when the Phoenicians arrived in Carthage. Herodotus writes of the Berbers' Saharan trade, and their routes across the desert are recorded in paintings of loaded mules and horse-drawn carts the camel was not introduced to the Sahara until the second century AD) discovered at rock-shelter sites along the way.22 One route passed via Ghat in the Fezzan region of the northern Sahara, through the Hoggar mountains and down to the Niger River near Gao; another took a westerly route, skirting south of the Atlas mountains, through Morocco and Mauritania and on to the Niger River again.

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For more than 1,000 years the Egyptians had maintained a colonial presence in Nubia, at first as a means of exploiting the resources of the region itself – principally gold, ivory, timber, animal products, and slaves – and subsequently to facilitate the transit of these goods from points further south when Nubian sources of supply were exhausted. But increasingly, as the Egyptian lines of communication lengthened and their authority abroad was weakened by political difficulties at home, Nubians took over sections of the trade. Eventually they controlled the entire trade route from Aswan to Khartoum and the lands beyond. With only modest resources of their own, Nubians had become rich and powerful from handling the resources of others. Predisposed towards the Egyptian model of centralized authority and power, the local Nubian rulers had created a powerful independent state by 1000 BC, known to the Egyptians as Kush.

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An authoritative review of the evidence concerning the ‘corridor through which men, things and ideas were said to have passed from the civilized world to Africa’, 14 concludes: ‘… any residual feeling that Egypt or Nubia must have been responsible for developments in sub-Saharan Africa will have to be abandoned and Bantu-speaking people accepted as innovators in their own right.’15 CHAPTER 21 The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea A mariners' handbook from the first century AD indicates that although trading vessels from Roman Egypt sailed to sub-Saharan Africa, the region offered meagre profits and attracted little interest. Two thousand years ago the patterns of civilization founded in Athens and Rome radiated across Europe to the Rhine and Britain in the north, and to the Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula in the west. Trade routes carried their influence across Asia to link up with patterns of civilization developing independently in China and India. The Mediterranean world was of course entirely under the sway of Rome – including North Africa and the resources of the Nile. At that time Rome had a population of close to 1 million people (no other city was as large until 1800, when a census recorded 959,310 people living in London) and the complexities of everyday life in Rome would not have been unfamiliar to residents of the modern urban world.

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories
by Simon Winchester
Published 27 Oct 2009

The tiny craft promptly sank and everyone had to be rescued by a ship from the Royal Oman Navy. 5. SAILINGS The Phoenicians were the first to build proper ships and to brave the rough waters of the Atlantic. To be sure, the Minoans before them traded with great vigor and defended their Mediterranean trade routes with swift and vicious naval force. Their ships—built with tools of sharp-edged bronze—were elegant and strong: they were made of cypress trees, sawn in half and lapped together, with white-painted and sized linen stretched across the planks, and with a sail suspended from a mast of oak, and oars to supplement their speed.

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All told, the Norsemen’s brief stay in America seems to have been motivated by curiosity, marked by maritime courage, and sustained with a degree of apparent civility. The much better-known voyage of Columbus, by contrast, was motivated by a combination of commercial ambition, a growing Spanish exasperation at the blockage of land trade routes to the east by the Ottoman Turks (and the thought that this East could be reached instead by heading west and sailing halfway around the world), and the evangelical yearnings of the Church. It turned out to be a voyage carried out in comparative nautical comfort, and it never actually reached the North American mainland, with Columbus to his death believing he had reached the East—the Indies—and in all probability, Japan.

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Those who believe it was a need of more agricultural land to feed a growing population are countered by those who wonder why they didn’t just push backward into their northern forests and make agriculture there. Others suggest it was a decline in the trade to which the Vikings had long been accustomed—with the expansion of Islam in the Mediterranean having an unanticipated impact on the old trade routes and prompting the Vikings to try to open new ones. Some say climate may have also played a role: the period between 800 and 1300 A.D. coincided with a period of warming in the Northern Hemisphere, which increased sea temperatures by a degree or more and would have caused the ice in many of the fjords used by the Vikings to melt, furthering their ability to sail away more frequently.

Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War
by P. W. Singer and August Cole
Published 28 Jun 2015

Wang pulled an imaginary trigger with his right pointer finger, and the smart-ring on it transmitted a wireless signal that initiated the presentation visuals his aide had sent ahead. Behind him, a 3-D hologram map of the Pacific appeared. Glowing red lines moved across the map, marking the history of China’s trade routes and military reach through the millennia. The lines moved out and then back in. Toward the end, a blue arc appeared, showing the spread of U.S. trade routes and military bases over the past two centuries. Eventually the blue lines reached across the globe. Then, as the decades closed in on the present, the red lines pushed back out, crossing with the blue. Wang didn’t need to explain this graphic; everyone knew its import.

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They took a regime mired in corruption and on the brink of civil war and forged a locked-down country marching in the same direction, the nation’s business leaders and the military joined at the hip. “But net assessment, as they teach you back in the schoolhouse, isn’t only about looking outward; it’s also about knowing yourself and your own place in history.” A visual of two maps of the globe appeared, the first of British trading routes and colonies circa 1914, the second a current disposition of U.S. forces and bases, some eight hundred dots spread across the world. “Some say we’re fighting, or rather not fighting, a cold war with the Directorate, just like we did with the Soviet Union more than half a century ago. But that may not be the right case to learn from.

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She was likely researching a retort. He realized that he had to move the discussion beyond the level of trading quotations. Wang turned to the wider group. “Of course, we are all aware of the reasons given for why it will never be our time. Our population demographics are not optimal, they say. Our trade routes are too vulnerable, they say. Our need for outside energy is too great, they say. These statements are all true. And they will always be true if we turn our backs on our duty to make our destiny manifest. The worst thing we can do is fear our own potential.” His finger clicked one last time, and around them played the famous scene of the tank in People’s Square crushing the old Communist Party’s riot-control truck, the crowd of protesters’ initial looks of surprise and then their celebration as they realized that the military was on their side.

Aerotropolis
by John D. Kasarda and Greg Lindsay
Published 2 Jan 2009

To the jaundiced American eye, New Songdo and its clones might appear to be fantasies left over from the Bubble. But dismissing them as the product of Asia’s infatuation with all things mega misses the carefully calibrated machinery underneath. It’s a machine the rest of us ignore at our peril as we enter the next phase of globalization—one marked by the shift from West to East and the trade routes up for grabs in between. It even has a name, which Stan Gale pronounced for me with a flourish: “It’s an aerotropolis.” It isn’t his word. The man who taught it to him is John Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina who has made a name for himself with his radical (and some might say bone-chilling) vision of the future: rather than banish airports to the edge of town and then do our best to avoid them, we will build this century’s cities around them.

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Taken on its face, it’s a reduction-ist worldview, but his underlying point is that our slightest whims, multiplied several billion times and duly noted by the marketplace, have already had the effect of conjuring aerotropoli where you’d least expect them, transforming everything and everyone they touch. It’s no wonder, then, that developing nations such as China and India have been the aerotropolis’s most eager adopters. They see it as an indispensable weapon for hijacking the world’s trade routes. China’s grand plans are perhaps more ambitious than anyone realizes—it intends to keep adding factories, corner the market on green energy technologies, double down on its export-driven growth strategy, and chart a New Silk Road to markets in Africa and the Middle East. The goal is to keep a lid on dissent by lifting another six hundred million citizens out of absolute poverty.

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Frictionlessness is the product of a whole host of attributes, many of which are invisible: tariff-free trade zones, faster customs clearance, fewer and faster permits, and a right-to-work workforce that knows what it’s doing. “It’s the way you reduce time, the way you reduce costs, the way you reduce space,” Kasarda says. “The aerotropolis is where the elastic mile, the friction of space, community without propinquity, and trade routes all come together.” They combine to cut costs and red tape for corporations, often at the expense of their employees and the taxpayers, in exchange (theoretically) for greater gains for all down the road. Companies wanted governments that would respond to their needs unflinchingly, and so he would give them one that was.

Travels in West Africa
by Mary Henrietta Kingsley
Published 1 Jan 1897

This nyeno he utilises in buying trade stuff from villages not on the trade route. Among the Fans the men who have got the goods stand by with these to trade for rubber with the general public and bachelors of the village, in a way I will presently explain. In tribes like Ajumbas, Adooma, etc., the men having the goods travel off, as traders, among their various bush tribes, similarly paying their nyeno, and so by the time the goods reach the final producing men, only a small portion of them is left, but their price has necessarily risen. Still it is quite absurd for a casual white traveller, who may have dropped in on the terminus of a trade route, to cry out regarding the small value the collector (who is often erroneously described as the producer) gets for his stuff, compared to the price it fetches in Europe.

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The result of my investigations, and the answers I have received from the men themselves, show that there is a reason why the natives do not succumb every time to the temptation to kill the trader, and take his goods, and this is twofold: firstly, all trade in West Africa follows definite routes, even in the wildest parts of it; and so a village far away in the forest, but on the trade route, knows that as a general rule twice a year, a trader will appear to purchase its rubber and ivory. If he does not appear somewhere about the expected time, that village gets uneasy. The ladies are impatient for their new clothes; the gentlemen half wild for want of tobacco; and things coming to a crisis, they make inquiries for the trader down the road, one village to another, and then, if it is found that a village has killed the trader, and stolen all his goods, there is naturally a big palaver, and things are made extremely hot, even for equatorial Africa, for that village by the tobaccoless husbands of the clothesless wives.

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In those districts on the southern banks of the Ogowe the main features of the trade, and the trader’s life are the same, but the details are more intricate, for the Igalwa trader from Lembarene, Fernan Vaz, or Njole, deals with another set of trading tribes, not first hand with the collectors. The Fan villages on the trade routes may, however, be regarded as trade depots, for to them filters the trade stuff of the more remote villages, so the difference is really merely technical, and in all villages alike the same sort of thing occurs. The Igalwa or M’pongwe trader arrives with the goods he has received from the white trader, and there are great rejoicing and much uproar as his chests and bundles and demijohns are brought up from the canoe.

The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times
by Giovanni Arrighi
Published 15 Mar 2010

These networks encircled the world and could not easily be bypassed or superseded. In fact, the wealth and power of the Dutch capitalist oligarchy rested more on its control over world financial networks than on commercial networks. This meant that it was less vulnerable than the Venetian capitalist oligarchy to the establishment of competing trade routes or to increased competition on a given route. As competition in long-distance trade intensified, the Dutch oligarchs could recoup their losses and find a new field of profitable investment in financial speculation. The Dutch capitalist oligarchy therefore had the power to rise above the competition and turn it to its own advantage.

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The most important of these systemic circumstances was no doubt the disintegration of the Eurasian trading system within which Genoa’s commercial fortunes of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries had been made. These fortunes were built primarily on the competitiveness of the Central Asian trade route to China and on the success with which Genoese enterprise managed to establish a quasi-monopolistic control over the Black Sea “terminal” of this route. As long as the Mongol empire ensured access to and security of the Central Asian route, and Genoa retained its military superiority in the Black Sea region, Genoese trade prospered and Genoese enterprises grew in scale, scope, and number.

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The reason why we are speaking of a Genoese cycle, however, is not that at a critical juncture the Catalans were “embattled on so many fronts,” since the Genoese were embattled on even more fronts. In part, to paraphrase Abu-Lughod’s dictum concerning Venice, the reason is that the Genoese “gamble” on Castilian trade proved a fortunate one. Even more than in the case of the Venetian “gamble” on the southern Asian trade route, chance was none the less only a minor part of the Genoese story. The most important part was that the Genoese placed their “bets” very carefully and, more important, backed them up with a repertoire of monetary and organizational means that few, if any, of their actual or potential competitors could match.

The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order
by Bruno Macaes
Published 25 Jan 2018

In 2011 Putin told participants at a conference in the White Sea port city of Arkhangelsk that Russia would be investing massively in the Arctic region in a bold bid to challenge traditional trade lanes. Perhaps different countries and cities will soon begin to compete to attract investment and people to the new trade route. Will there be a capital of the Arctic? In his Connectography, Parag Khanna suggests that Kirkenes in Norway may be the best candidate for the role, but Murmansk in Russia, just 200 kilometres to the south-east and founded in 1916, starts with considerable advantages. It is by far the largest settlement within the Arctic Circle and in 2016 its port handled more than 30 million tonnes of goods, a 50 per cent increase from 2015.

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There are two old Portuguese forts, a reminder of the time when Portugal ruled the waves. The embroidered caps of the men bear influences from Zanzibar and Baluchistan. Chinese porcelain is ubiquitous and the bakers are Yemeni and Iranian. On the beach women dressed in burqas fly their kites just like in Afghanistan. As Kaplan puts it, ‘the ocean constituted a web of trade routes. It vaguely resembled what our world of today increasingly looks like with its commercial and cultural interlinkages.’11 The best image of this connected Indian Ocean world must have been that of one of its ports at the time of the Mongols, where dhows with lateen sails from the Red Sea, prahus from Malaysia and Indonesia and enormous Chinese junks would be tied next to each other.

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Were we to head south, we would disembark on the modern beach towns on the Iranian shore and a short drive would take us to Tehran and on to Isfahan and the Indian Ocean. The Caspian is like a compass where the four cardinal points guide you to the four corners of the Old World. The ancient geographer and astronomer Ptolemy speaks in his discussion of the longitudinal dimension of the world of a middle point on the trade route between Europe and China which he calls the Stone Tower. He mentions that a certain Greek merchant, an adventurous soul, travelled all the way to the Stone Tower, where he either met merchants coming from China or sent his own agents to the Chinese capital, ‘the metropolis of the Seres’.5 From his account it is clear that no one would make the whole journey, but it was still possible to collate different distances and calculate something like the total extension of the known world from the Atlantic to China.

The Map of Knowledge: How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found: A History in Seven Cities
by Violet Moller
Published 21 Feb 2019

As al-Mansur explained to his generals, ‘Here is the Tigris, with nothing between us and China, for all that is from the sea can come to us on the river, as can the provisions of the Jazira, Armenia and the surrounding areas. And there is the Euphrates, on which everything from Syria, Raqqa and the surrounding areas may come.’5 Baghdad was ideally situated, with direct access, via the al-Sarat and Nahr’Isa canals, to the major trade routes: north-west, up the Euphrates to Syria and beyond; north-east, on the Tigris, via Mosul; and south, to the Persian Gulf, gateway to India, China and the Far East. Baghdad also lay at the centre of a vast network of land routes. Travellers and merchants from the East would have descended along the Silk Roads with their winding caravans, down through the mountains of Iran, on their way to North Africa, Arabia, Syria, the Mediterranean coast and on to Europe.

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Even though it was underground at first, Mu’tazilism helped to bring classical learning to al-Ándalus, coming into its own during the following century, under the enlightened rule of Rahman III and al- Hakam II – just as it had in al-Ma’mun’s Baghdad. Rahman II, who ruled from 822 to 852, opened up trade routes in the Mediterranean by making alliances with the Byzantines in Constantinople. This increased opportunities for the trade of Andalusian produce, minerals and textiles, created huge wealth and connected the peninsula with the wider world. Rahman was also a generous patron of scholarship and did all he could to stimulate intellectual activity in Córdoba.

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In the ensuing tumult, there was neither the time nor the money to fund ambitious programmes of mathematical exploration, astronomical observation or medical research. The two great discoveries of the fifteenth century, the New World and the printing press, were disastrous for Islamic fortunes. European voyages of discovery opened up new trade routes by sea that bypassed the Middle East, depriving it of commercial opportunity. The ancient Silk Roads, which had conveyed such great riches over the centuries, grew quiet and desolate. As printing presses opened in towns across Germany, France, Italy and England, in the Muslim world people remained suspicious of this new technology and struggled to design moveable type for Arabic, with its whirling diacritics and myriad variations.

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
by Wade Davis
Published 27 Sep 2011

In 1890 Britain moved to annex Sikkim, and by the terms of the Anglo-Chinese Treaty, which fixed the boundaries, and the subsequent trade regulations, negotiated in 1893, it was granted the right to establish a trade mart and install a permanent agent at Yatung, in the Chumbi Valley, a verdant sliver of Tibetan territory that runs between Sikkim and Bhutan and had long been the traditional trade route between India and Tibet. Lhasa was party to neither agreement and actively intervened to impede commerce, imposing custom duties on the Chinese at Phari, at the head of the valley, and physically barricading the valley beyond Yatung to keep out the British. Curzon inherited the standoff when he became viceroy in 1899 and was not about to accept such an affront to British prestige.

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In support were no fewer than 10,000 porters and 20,000 yaks, which each day would carry some 40,000 pounds of food, ammunition, and equipment over a tenuous supply line eventually reaching from Lhasa to Darjeeling. In weather so cold that white rainbows spread across the sky, the army headed not north to the Serpo La and Kampa Dzong, but east to the Jelep La, the 14,390-foot pass that led to the Chumbi Valley and the main trading route from Sikkim to Tibet. This was the direct approach to Gyantse, the immediate goal, and Lhasa, the ultimate quest. Younghusband himself went through the Jelep La on December 13, a Sunday. In terrible winds, with thermometers recording thirty degrees of frost, he surely must have reflected on the audacity of marching an army across the Himalaya in the heart of winter along narrow tracks that had never seen the passage of a European.

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In four days they reached Lhatse, a fort and monastery perched on a rocky outcrop dominating a wide plain and guarding the approaches to the heart of central Tibet from the west. There the expedition divided. Bailey and another officer, Captain Wood of the Royal Engineers, taking all the heavy baggage and most of the transport animals, followed the traditional trade route, which ran overland, parallel to the river but well north of it for some 160 miles. Rawling and Ryder, lightly equipped, elected to continue west along the right bank of the Tsangpo, a perilous track perched at times 200 feet above the water on rock ledges too narrow to permit the movement of a loaded pony.

Why the West Rules--For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future
by Ian Morris
Published 11 Oct 2010

When agricultural villages began turning into cities (soon after 4000 BCE in the West and 2000 BCE in the East), for instance, access to the particular soils and climates that had favored the initial emergence of agriculture began to matter less than access to great rivers that could be tapped to irrigate fields or used as trade routes. And as states kept expanding, access to great rivers started mattering less than access to metals, or to longer trade routes, or to sources of manpower. As social development changes, the resources it demands change too, and regions that once counted for little may discover advantages in their backwardness. It is always hard to say in advance how the advantages of backwardness will play out: not all backwardness is equal.

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Each built up Arab client kingdoms, Persia absorbed southern Arabia into its empire, and Byzantium’s Ethiopian allies invaded Yemen to balance this. Arabia was being drawn into the core, and Arabs were creating their own kingdoms in the desert, building oasis towns along trade routes, and converting to Christianity. The great Persian-Byzantine wars convulsed this Arab periphery, and when the empires fell apart, Arab strongmen battled over the ruins. In western Arabia, Mecca and Medina (Figure 7.6) fought through the 620s over trade routes, their war bands fanning out across the desert to find allies and ambush each other’s caravans. Old imperial frontiers meant little in this game, and by the time Medina’s leader took over Mecca in 630, his raiders were already fighting in Palestine.

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In the East it migrated northward from the area between the Yellow and Yangzi rivers to the Yellow River basin itself, then westward to the Wei River and the region of Qin. A second consequence was that the West’s lead in social development fluctuated, partly because these vital resources—wild plants and animals, rivers, trade routes, manpower—were distributed in different ways across each core and partly because in both cores the processes of expansion and incorporation of new resources were violent and unstable, pushing the paradox of development into overdrive. The growth of Western states in the second millennium BCE, for example, made the Mediterranean Sea not only a highway for commerce but also a highway for forces of disruption.

Arabs: A 3,000 Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires
by Tim Mackintosh-Smith
Published 2 Mar 2019

All this busy trade is eloquent evidence of how an Arabian ‘nation far off’, as the Book of Joel calls the Sabaeans, were tied multiply into distant economies. Then it was perfumes and gums, now it is petroleum and gas. Another people connected by trade with wider economies were the Nabataeans, whose domain straddled the trade routes where they were funnelled out of the north-west of the peninsula. Unlike the Sabaeans and their South Arabian neighbours, the Nabataeans almost certainly spoke a form of Arabic; like the Sabaeans, however, they almost certainly did not consider themselves ’arab. Not only were they a settled people, but living as they did in the Levant, in the lap of the Mediterranean rather than out on some Arabian limb, their cultural contacts had made them true cosmopolites.

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Although there is nothing obviously like poetry in all those thousands of Safaitic inscriptions on rocks in the wilderness, many of poetry’s later themes – love, lust, loss, raiding, longing – appear in them. And while the oldest complete odes that we have are by Kindah poets of the sixth century, it seems impossible that they could have hatched, ab ovo, not only fully fledged but flying high. Poetry must have been developing in those early centuries AD, going on its oral travels up and down the trade routes, picking up its material and forming its character along the way. Indeed, much of the oldest verse is about departures, journeys, mounts. ‘Go!’ urged al-Shanfara, early in the sixth century, You have all you need: the moon is out, The mounts are girthed to go, the saddles too. . . . Yes, by your life!

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The late pre-Islamic poet al-A’sha was himself so celebrated for his descriptions of female beauty that he was in demand as a ‘marriage bureau’, producing airbrushed poetic advertisements for plainer girls. As the sixth century progressed, poets themselves gained in celebrity: when, towards the end of the century, Muhammad’s tribe of Quraysh founded the pan-Arabian fair of Ukaz on the main trade-route leading into Meccan territory from the south, poetic competitions were the biggest attraction. Contestants arrived on the most expensive mounts and, wearing their flashiest clothes, duelled in verse. Poets were the pop-stars of the time. And the importance of places like Ukaz was more than literary: they were places of truce, where warring tribes could meet without the ever-present pressure to pursue feuds and extract vengeance.

Lonely Planet Central Asia (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet , Stephen Lioy , Anna Kaminski , Bradley Mayhew and Jenny Walker
Published 1 Jun 2018

Silk Road Reading Silk Road: Monks, Warriors & Merchants by Luce Boulnois (2012) The Ancient Silk Road Map by Jonathan Tucker & Antonia Tozer (2011) The Silk Road in World History by Xinru Liu (2010) The Cultural Legacy The Silk Road gave rise to unprecedented trade, but its true legacy was the intellectual interchange and refining of ideas, technologies and faiths that the trade routes facilitated. It's interesting to note that while the bulk of trade headed west, religious ideas primarily travelled east. Buddhism spread along the trade routes to wend its way from India to Central Asia, China and back again. It's hard to imagine that Buddhist monasteries once dotted Central Asia. Today only the faintest archaeological evidence remains: at Adjina-Tepe in Tajikistan, Kuva in the Fergana Valley, and Fayoz-Tepe and the Zurmala Stupa around Termiz in Uzbekistan.

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Nomadic Life Community-based homestays and yurts offer the keys to unlock rural Kyrgyzstan. Use them as a base to learn how to make a shyrdak (felt carpet), hear a performance of the epic Manas, take in some traditional horse games or watch an eagle hunter in action. Silk Routes Ancient trading routes criss-cross Kyrgyzstan. From the 2000-year-old bazaar town of Osh take the high roads to the pitch-perfect caravanserai of Tash Rabat, before crossing the high passes to Kashgar. Tajikistan Mountain Drives Central Asia's most spectacular drive is from Khorog to Osh along the Pamir Hwy, but the taxi rides from Penjikent to Dushanbe and around Khorog are also stunning.

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The chronic lack of trust means that regional issues such as the Aral Sea, the drug trade from neighbouring Afghanistan and economic cooperation rarely get the international attention they so desperately require. The Future As Central Asia's new economic and cultural ties strengthen, as oil and gas reserves are discovered and as Chinese-funded transcontinental trade routes are rebuilt, this little-understood corner will undoubtedly become increasingly important to the security, economy and politics of Russia, China and the world beyond. The challenge for the future governments of Central Asia is to meet the religious, secular and economic desires of its people, while treading the tightrope between authoritarianism and Islamisation.

Israel & the Palestinian Territories Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

Megiddo remained a prosperous Egyptian stronghold for at least 100 years and later on held out against the Israelites (Judges 1:27), probably only falling to David. Under his son Solomon, Megiddo was transformed into one of the jewels of the Israelite kingdom and became known as the Chariot City – excavations have revealed traces of stables extensive enough to have held thousands of horses. For a while Megiddo was a strategic stronghold on the important trade route between Egypt and Assyria, but by the 4th century BCE the town had inexplicably become uninhabited. However, its strategic importance remained, and among the armies that fought here were the British in WWI. On being awarded his peerage, General Edmund Allenby took the title Lord Allenby of Megiddo.

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During the late 15th and 16th centuries, Tsfat’s Jewish community increased in size and importance thanks to an influx of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. Among the new arrivals were some of the Jewish world’s pre-eminent Kabbalists. During this period, Tsfat was an important stop on the trade route from Akko to Damascus and was known for its production of textiles. A Hebrew printing press – the first such device anywhere in the Middle East – was set up in Tsfat in 1577. In the late 1700s, Tsfat welcomed an influx of Hasidim from Russia. Tsfat was decimated by the plague in 1742, 1812 and 1847, and devastated by earthquakes in 1759 and 1837.

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Hiring a local guide can help explain the situation in the city, but be aware that Palestinian guides probably won’t be allowed in settler areas. If you arrive independently, expect local kids to offer you a tour, but agree on the price before you set off. Despite its woes, Hebron continues to flourish as a business leader among Palestinian communities. Situated on a former trade route to the Arabian Peninsula, the city is celebrated for its grapes, its skilled traders and its artisans’ production of blown glass, leather and hand-painted pottery, just as it has been since antiquity. History According to the Hebrew Bible, Hebron was founded around 1730 BCE, its biblical name, Kiryat Arba (the Village of Four), perhaps referring to its position on four hills on which four Canaanite tribes settled.

The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps
by Edward Brooke-Hitching
Published 3 Nov 2016

STRAIT OF ANIAN 48°29'N, 124°50'W Also known as Strete of Anian Willem Barentsz’s landmark 1598 map of the Arctic region, drawn from his observations made during his 1596 voyage. It is decorated with sea monsters, ships, whales and the mythical ‘Estrecho de Anian’ in the top right corner. One of the greatest obsessions in the history of European exploration was the search for the Northwest Passage. Uncovering a trade route through the crushing pack ice of the Arctic to reach Asia and her endless riches – as an alternative to the gruelling and dangerous route around South America – would bring incalculable wealth to the nation that found the way. For centuries such a way was purely theoretical, willed into mythical existence through sheer mercenary desire.

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This offered a chance to pursue non-martial preoccupations. Reports were coming in from whalers that the ice packs to the east of Greenland were breaking up at an unprecedented rate, and so, under Sir John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiralty, efforts were renewed to hunt for a long-sought trade route through the Arctic to Asia. The command of the first expedition was handed to 41-year-old John Ross, a capable Scot who had joined the British Navy aged nine as an apprentice, and spent the following thirty-two years developing an illustrious naval career, including a captaincy in the Swedish Navy.

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Hugely influential, this trusted information was employed by cartographers who explained the twenty-day voyage with the logical speculation of a large western inlet. Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes, a map by Buache and de l’Isle from 1750, showing La Mer de l’Ouest, a vast inland sea in North America. As European settlement of North America expanded, the English and French grew more desperate for a thoroughfare trade route to compete with the Spaniards’ lucrative East Indies trafficking. Those who mounted expeditions through the American interior relied on information from native guides, and, as we have seen from Baron de Lahontan’s error-ridden journey tracing his Great River of the West (see relevant entry here), these explorers were not provided with the most reliable of intelligence.

The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism
by Joyce Appleby
Published 22 Dec 2009

Just as the capitalist system has global reach today, so its beginnings, if not its causes, can be traced to the joining of the two halves of the globe. Europe, Africa, and Asia had been cut off from the Americas until the closing years of the fifteenth century. Even contact between Europe and Asia was confined to a few overland trade routes used to transport lightweight commodities like pepper and cinnamon. Then European curiosity about the rest of the world infected a few audacious souls, among them Prince Henry the Navigator. Prince Henry never left Portugal, but he funded a succession of trips down the west coast of Africa. Merchants, enticed by a trade in gold and slaves along the western Africa coast, increased the number of voyages.

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Going by sea made it much easier to carry heavy cargo than overland. Since the time of the Roman Empire, Europeans had had some contact overland with the Orient, but famines and epidemics could wipe out commercial connections for decades. Arab traders were often successful in rupturing the European trade routes as well. It took experienced merchants like the Venetian family of Marco Polo to carry on this hazardous trade. The lateen-rigged ships and recently discovered sea routes gave Europeans a cheaper, safer way of establishing what turned out to be permanent contact by sea. Four years after Dias made his way to the Orient, Columbus’s pioneering route to the New World triggered another round of explorations.

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The earth-spanning commercial networks that Europeans began laying down in the sixteenth century vastly increased the places where capitalists could send their goods. When capitalism acquired its momentum, investors didn’t stay put in Europe. They followed the trajectory of Europe’s trading empires. The significance of expanded trade routes and partners could not possibly be overstated, but the key point to make about trade in a history of capitalism is that it had existed for centuries before capitalism and would have continued to flourish without it. Because we can see the obvious connections between the sixteenth-century voyages to the Orient and the New World, we’re tempted to connect it seamlessly to the eighteenth-century invention of the steam engine and the emergence of full-blown capitalism as though the one followed the other inexorably, but there is no inevitability in life.

Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media
by Peter Warren Singer and Emerson T. Brooking
Published 15 Mar 2018

Wang pulled an imaginary trigger with his right pointer finger, and the smart-ring on it transmitted a wireless signal that initiated the presentation visuals his aide had sent ahead. Behind him, a 3-D hologram map of the Pacific appeared. Glowing red lines moved across the map, marking the history of China’s trade routes and military reach through the millennia. The lines moved out and then back in. Toward the end, a blue arc appeared, showing the spread of U.S. trade routes and military bases over the past two centuries. Eventually the blue lines reached across the globe. Then, as the decades closed in on the present, the red lines pushed back out, crossing with the blue. Wang didn’t need to explain this graphic; everyone knew its import.

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They took a regime mired in corruption and on the brink of civil war and forged a locked-down country marching in the same direction, the nation’s business leaders and the military joined at the hip. “But net assessment, as they teach you back in the schoolhouse, isn’t only about looking outward; it’s also about knowing yourself and your own place in history.” A visual of two maps of the globe appeared, the first of British trading routes and colonies circa 1914,27 the second a current disposition of U.S. forces and bases, some eight hundred dots spread across the world. “Some say we’re fighting,28 or rather not fighting, a cold war with the Directorate, just like we did with the Soviet Union more than half a century ago. But that may not be the right case to learn from.

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She was likely researching a retort. He realized that he had to move the discussion beyond the level of trading quotations. Wang turned to the wider group. “Of course, we are all aware of the reasons given for why it will never be our time. Our population demographics are not optimal,48 they say. Our trade routes are too vulnerable,49 they say. Our need for outside energy is too great,50 they say. These statements are all true. And they will always be true if we turn our backs on our duty to make our destiny manifest. The worst thing we can do is fear our own potential.” His smart-ring finger clicked one last time, and around them played the famous scene of the tank in People’s Square crushing the old Communist Party’s riot-control truck, the crowd of protesters’ initial looks of surprise and then their celebration as they realized that the military was on their side.

How We Got Here: A Slightly Irreverent History of Technology and Markets
by Andy Kessler
Published 13 Jun 2005

The bill passed and Boulton and Watt had the patent on Atmospheric Steam Engines (with cool condensers) until 1800, even though it still didn’t work that well. *** The Brits were at war on and off with the French for centuries, but never more so than in the 18th century over territories in the New CANNONS TO STEAM 25 World, especially in Canada over fur, in the West Indies over sugar, cotton and rum, and over trade routes to central Asia. Add to that those rebellious, thankless colonists from Massachusetts to Georgia. King George needed cannons for his troops in the American Colonies as well as for his warships to keep the French on their side of the English Channel. Back to John Wilkinson, the Iron Master of Shropshire, who had a precision cannon-boring tool, which was in essence a big monster lathe.

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Turbines, driven by steam engines or flowing water, would be the perfect solution for generating cheap electricity in the 20th century. What a long way the steam engine had come. Watt improved the Newcomen design and improved its power from 3-5 horsepower to maybe 25 horsepower. By the end of the 19th Century, steam power had increased by a factor of 1000, on a warship to protect trade routes, trade enabled by those very same steam engines. *** I think the lesson here is not any specific piece part for computing, but instead the parallels of the industrial revolution and the digital revolution. Elasticity and scale, or the ability to constantly lower the price of goods and services, drove the industrial era.

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On Dec 31, 1600, when everyone else was singing Auld Lang Syne, 218 knights and merchants in the City of London created the East Indies Company, and were given exclusive rights by the crown to all trade in the East Indies. At the time, this was no lay-up as the Dutch and those nasty Portuguese controlled the trade routes. But the EIC, with a trading business and its own private military to protect it, became the largest Non Government Organization. Think Exxon with weapons. The creation of the East Indies Company was the first of many government-anointed trading companies that formed the backbone of mercantilism.

Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe
by Noam Chomsky and Laray Polk
Published 29 Apr 2013

Is this move related to the South China Sea? Yes, in particular that, but it’s more general. It has to do with the “classic security dilemma” that I mentioned before, referring to the strategic analysis literature. China’s efforts to gain some measure of control over nearby seas and its major trade routes are inconsistent with what the US calls “freedom of the seas”—a term that doesn’t extend to Chinese military maneuvers in the Caribbean or even most of the world’s oceans, but does include the US right to carry out military maneuvers and establish naval bases everywhere. For different reasons, China’s neighbors are none too happy about its actions, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, which have competing claims to these waters, but others as well.61 The focus of US policy is slowly shifting from the Middle East—though that remains—to the Pacific, as openly announced.

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There are underseas fossil-fuel resources, and a good deal of contention among regional states about rights to them. But it’s more than that. The new US base on Jeju Island in South Korea, bitterly protested by islanders, is not primarily concerned with energy resources. Other issues have to do with the Malacca Straits, China’s main trade route, which does involve oil and gas but also much else.63 In the background is the more general concern over parts of the world escaping from US control and influence, the contemporary variant of Grand Area policies. Much of this extends the practice of earlier hegemonic powers, though the scale of US post–World War II planning and implementation has been in a class by itself because of its unique wealth and power.

Bosnia & Herzegovina--Culture Smart
by Elizabeth Hammond
Published 11 Jan 2011

Bosnia’s history did not determine the recent war, but it does help to explain some of the political tactics used by the main participants. The story of Bosnia is complex and utterly riveting. Its history is full of kings, brave heroes, tragic losses, and brilliant victories. The rich resources of the area, combined with its position between the Austro–Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, always made Bosnia a desirable prize. Trade routes through the region have existed for as long as records show. An original “melting pot” of Europe, Bosnia reflects the convergence of many peoples and ideologies. People have inhabited the region since prehistoric times, and there is evidence of a Neanderthal presence dating to the mid-Paleolithic age.

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An Independent Bosnia From the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the Bosnians lived largely without foreign control, although they were experiencing heavy pressure from their Hungarian neighbors. One of the heroes of Bosnian history during this time is Ban Kulin, whose reign from 1180 to 1204 was marked by peace and expanding economic stability. He opened trade routes to the Dalmatian coast and took advantage of the rich mineral resources of central Bosnia. He managed the threats from Rome and Hungary with astute diplomacy, and ballads about the legendary Ban Kulin are still sung today. Ban Kulin’s efforts were not enough to staunch the flow of Hungarian troops into Bosnia, however.

The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy
by Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley
Published 10 Jun 2013

The scale and speed of urban and metropolitan growth across the world is the defining and unifying thread of the twenty-first century. Rising metros are fueling the rise of nations. Throughout 144 07-2151-2 ch7.indd 144 5/20/13 6:55 PM A GLOBAL NETWORK OF TRADING CITIES 145 history, cities have been the heart of global commerce, forming trade routes, crossroads, switching points, and meeting places. Metropolitan areas are now the origins of global trade, concentrating idea generators, innovation zones, and production hubs. They have become the focus of global investment, responding to the insatiable hunger for the transport, energy, and social infrastructure necessary to grow and develop.

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Hamburg, located on the River Elbe, which flows into the North Sea, had close access to salt mines, the key ingredient in preserving fish.93 The marriage between these two river cities and their merchants (the Hansa) altered the economic geography and evolution of northern Europe. The proximity of the rivers (the Trave runs inland, ending thirty-two miles from the Elbe) allowed an alternative trade route between the Baltic and North Seas.94 Merchants were able to circumvent the dangerous passage around Denmark and provide more security for the shipment of goods. 07-2151-2 ch7.indd 166 5/20/13 6:55 PM A GLOBAL NETWORK OF TRADING CITIES 167 The growth of trade spurred demand for more infrastructure (for example, the opening of the Stecknitz canal between the Elbe and Trave rivers in 1398),95 other products (such as barrels for shipping the salted fish), and supportive services (taverns, shoes, clothing).

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As trade grew and became more secure, a new type of ship, the Hanseatic cog, was invented, “which was larger, could better protect the cargo and was also more navigable than local vessels.”97 As Lübeck and Hamburg extended trade with other cities, the alliance’s membership and structure became larger and more formal. Cologne, with its close trading links to London, became a key member. In 1280 Lübeck allied with Visby to ensure safe passage of goods along trade routes to Gotland, Sweden, and Novgorod, Russia. Shortly thereafter Riga and Tallinn, two Baltic trading cities, joined as well. Thus was opened a gateway for Russian goods, crops, and materials needed for ship building.98 Scholars give different dates for the formalization of this network of trading cities into the Hanseatic League, but by the fourteenth century, a “powerful compact of cities” had emerged, “with far reaching trade agreements and almost total control of North European trade.”99 As Jennifer Mills recounts, “Since there were no navies to protect their cargoes, no international bodies to regulate tariffs and trade and few ports had regulatory authorities to manage their use, the merchants banded together to establish tariff agreements, provide for common defense and to make sure ports were safely maintained.”100 A semiformal governance structure, the Hanseatic Diet, was established, which met every twenty-five to thirty years to discuss league policy.101 With economic power came political influence.

The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations
by Jacob Soll
Published 28 Apr 2014

He dealt in art and was painted numerous times in his red robes, most notably as one of the “honorable men” in Fra Filippo Lippi’s masterpiece, the Madonna del Ceppo, which is still housed in Prato’s Civic Museum. When he died in 1410, he left a fortune of about 100,000 florins, a king’s ransom.2 In 1383, as today, it took particular skills to get rich. Less than forty years after the Black Death that carried off half the population of Europe (and both of Datini’s parents), and with trade routes plagued by brigands and pirates, there was nonetheless an economic boom, much of it centered in Northern Italy. By the 1340s, the Italians had invented double-entry bookkeeping, the bill of exchange, and marine insurance, and they had perfected payments by book transfer, note, and oral agreement.

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The odors of styrax flowers, spicewood, frankincense, and myrrh wafted across what was, to visiting foreigners, an overwhelming display of commercial marvels.7 Along with products, other things flowed in from around the world, including reports, accounts, logbooks, and works of science and natural history, assessing political climates, trading routes, and fluctuations in commodities prices. Dutch consuls sent reports from Dutch whale oil factories in the Arctic, plantations in the West Indies, and trading posts in Europe, Brazil, Surinam, Manhattan, and Aden. Dutch trading posts could be found anywhere in the streets of the world, even in their own backyard, in cities of their hated neighbors the French, such as Nantes and La Rochelle.8 Accounting became a central element of Dutch education.

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After the death of the Stadtholder William II of Orange in 1650, Johan de Witt had led the Netherlands for more than twenty years. Yet as Holland’s wealth grew, so did the envy of its powerful neighbors, France and England. In the 1650s and 1660s, the English and Dutch fought numerous battles over the English Channel, trade routes, and even colonies. The English captured the Dutch colony of New Netherland and its capital Manhattan in 1664. In 1672, Louis XIV’s troops raided and plundered Holland. De la Court and de Witt could calculate, account, and call for republican government, but even with all their wealth, 1 million Dutchmen could not resist 23 million Frenchmen with a hostile, absolute Sun King and his giant army bent on bringing the arrogant, lowborn merchants to their knees to beg for mercy from Catholic France.

The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History
by Greg Woolf
Published 14 May 2020

Its boulevards were lined with thousands of buildings, and ceremonial routes connected great plazas to its enormous temples. Those temples bore great monumental sculptures and reliefs of marble and granite decorated with gold and jade and bright painted murals. At the height of its power Teotichuacan probably had over 100,000 inhabitants. Trade routes and imperialism connected it to every part of Central America. After its fall in the middle of the sixth century c.e. it was mythologized, imitated, and even excavated for treasure by later pre-Columbian civilizations. Among them were the Aztecs whose own capital city, Tenochtitlán, the city built over a lake that lies under modern Mexico City, was already nearly two hundred years old when it was sacked by the Spanish in 1521 (see Figure 3).

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The most famous novel of the Italian writer Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, imagines Marco Polo describing his travels to the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan by evoking more and more fabulous cities he has seen (or never seen). Early modern travellers like Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta were not hacking their way through dense jungles looking for lost civilizations like the heroes of Victorian romances. They travelled along well-established trade routes that had connected the urban centres of the Old World, routes that went back to the Middle Ages and sometimes even earlier. Alexandrine merchants had traded with southern India in the time of Christ, riding the monsoon from the mouth of the Red Sea to Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. What we now call the Silk Road was really a complex of these routes, stretching some north, others south of the Himalayas linking the urban civilizations of China and her neighbours to central Asia, Iran, India, and ultimately the Mediterranean world.

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What we now call the Silk Road was really a complex of these routes, stretching some north, others south of the Himalayas linking the urban civilizations of China and her neighbours to central Asia, Iran, India, and ultimately the Mediterranean world. The Indian Ocean was connected by maritime trade routes first in the Roman period and then intensively in the Islamic Middle Ages.6 This reconnection was not a product of the European Age of Discovery. Vikings encountered indigenous peoples in Newfoundland and Greenland. The peoples of northern Australia were never completely cut off from South Asia: one set of connections is attested by the arrival of the dingo in probably two waves, both within the last 10,000 years.

Lonely Planet Turkey (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet , James Bainbridge , Brett Atkinson , Steve Fallon , Jessica Lee , Virginia Maxwell , Hugh McNaughtan and John Noble
Published 31 Jan 2017

Generally, agencies will not undertake the journey for less than about ₺200 total; between May and October, there are normally enough travellers to guarantee departures. Most operators leave around 9.30am and return by 4pm, giving you 2½ hours on-site. WORTH A TRIP LAODICEA Laodicea was once a prosperous commercial city straddling two major trade routes, famed for its black wool, banking and medicines. Cicero lived here for a time before Mark Antony had him liquidated, and large Jewish and Orthodox Christian populations coexisted here. Today, the columns standing in the long grass have good views of the travertines at Pamukkale. Laodicea is 8km from Pamukkale.

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Tetrapylon (monumental gateway), Afrodisias | CAROL POLICH PHOTO WORKSHOPS / GETTY IMAGES © Sagalassos The Roman ruins of Sagalassos, which was also a major Pisidian city, are scattered in an unbeatably poetic location at an altitude of 1500m in the Taurus Mountains. Antonine Nymphaeum, Sagalassos | IZZET KERIBAR / GETTY IMAGES © Laodicea Entered along a colonnaded street, Laodicea was a prosperous city on two trade routes and home to one of the Seven Churches of Asia (mentioned in the Book of Revelation). Laodicea | AYHAN ALTUN / GETTY IMAGES © İznik İznik’s Roman walls and Byzantine churches recall its heyday when the first Ecumenical Council, which shaped Christianity, met here. Antalya & the Turquoise Coast Dalyan Dalaman Göcek Fethiye Kayaköy Ölüdeniz Butterfly Valley & Faralya Kabak Tlos Saklıkent Gorge Pınara Xanthos Letoön Patara Kalkan İslamlar Bezirgan Kaş Üçağız & Kekova Kaleköy Demre Olympos & Çıralı Antalya Around Antalya Selge & Köprülü Kanyon Side Antalya & the Turquoise Coast Why Go?

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And while the vibrant street life is enough of a reason to visit, Ankara also boasts two extraordinary monuments central to the Turkish story – the beautifully conceived Museum of Anatolian Civilisations and the Anıt Kabir, a colossal tribute to Atatürk, modern Turkey's founder. History Although Hittite remains dating back to before 1200 BC have been found in Ankara, the town really prospered as a Phrygian settlement on the north–south and east–west trade routes. Later it was taken by Alexander the Great, claimed by the Seleucids and finally occupied by the Galatians around 250 BC. Augustus Caesar annexed it to Rome as Ankyra. The Byzantines held the town for centuries, with intermittent raids by the Persians and Arabs. When the Seljuk Turks came to Anatolia, they grabbed the city, but held it with difficulty.

Frommer's Israel
by Robert Ullian
Published 31 Mar 1998

C A P E R N A U M ( K E FA R N A H U M ) This site marks the site of Kfar Nahum (the village of Nahum), a lakeside town where Jesus preached and his disciples, Peter and Andrew, made their homes. During the lifetime of Jesus, in the 1st century A.D., Kfar Nahum was a prosperous fishing community, port, and way station on the main trade route from Israel’s Mediterranean coast to Damascus. It even had its own Customs House and was probably the most cosmopolitan of the lakeside towns until the building of the Roman resort of Tiberias, in the mid–1st century. The town was abandoned around A.D. 700 and never reconstituted. Today, you’ll find a modern Franciscan monastery, which was built on the abandoned site in 1894, as well as ancient excavations spanning 6 centuries.

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When Israel’s War of Independence ended, the fragile scrolls were unraveled, in some cases using surgical instruments. Only then was it learned that the only scrolls of the Bible to survive from the time when The Temple stood in Jerusalem had been restored both to the Jewish people and to the world. than the communal settlement of a religious sect. Qumran lies at a strategic point in an ancient trade route: Goods from Arabia and Africa were shipped up the Red Sea to Eilat, and then overland through the Arava Valley to the southern tip of The Dead Sea, where they were floated across to Qumran. At Qumran, cargo was unloaded and sent along the ancient Salt Road to Jerusalem. According to this theory, the otherworldly Essenes would not have settled at the crux of a major commercial route, but in a more remote location such as the caves in the mountains “above Ein Gedi.”

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A.D.), when Byzantine wealth and caravan trade were at their height. In addition to commercial wealth, Shivta’s ingenious citizens built an elaborate irrigation and water-collection system that allowed them to farm the barren soil. Israelis are studying Nabatean irrigation techniques to this day. Eventually trade routes slowly changed, and though Shivta survived as an Arab outpost for many centuries, by the 1100s it was a ghost town. The ruins of Shivta remained in fairly good condition throughout the centuries because they were too far away from newer building sites to make pillage economical. As a result, the city, which dates from the 500s, is still somewhat intact.

The Origins of the British
by Stephen Oppenheimer
Published 1 Jul 2007

Cunliffe neatly resolves some of the reasons for Strabo’s disbelief at Pytheas’ travel times by using his own text to suggest that Pytheas, as a Greek pioneer, actually took this trade route across Keltiké. By his discoveries further north, Pytheas could have opened up an opportunity for the rest of the Mediterranean to bypass the Punic/Phoenician Atlantic coastal monopoly in their search for tin (Figure 1.2).36 However, if Cunliffe is correct, then Pytheas, with such satisfactory travel arrangements, is unlikely to have been travelling alone, without a courier, or as a novice tourist. In other words, he would have been taking advantage of a pre-existing river– land–river–sea trade route worked out by the established local inhabitants of Keltiké.

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The tip of the Breton Peninsula is nearer to that of Cornwall (Land’s End) than it is to any other part of France outside Brittany. The lack of any reference by Avenius to the English Channel highlights this key geographical feature, which through the ages determined and directed the Atlantic coastal trade route from Spain and southern France and then along the western fringes of the British Isles (Figure 1.2).30 Cornwall would make sense as one of the Oestrimnides, because Avenius goes on to say that it is two days’ sailing from there to the Sacred Isle (Ireland), inhabited by the race of Hiberni, with the island of the Albions (Britain) nearby.

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Ptolemy mentions in his Geography three tribal locations with this name, one in northern England, another in south-east Ireland and Brigantinus Portus of the northern Gallaeci tribe. Also known as Brigantium Hispaniae, this was the ancient seaport of La Coruña in northwest Spain and the western terminus of a major trade route in tin, gold, lead and silver.25 There was also a clutch of similar place/tribal names connected with Lake Constance on today’s Swiss/Austrian border. The people of Central Raetia were called the Brigantii. Their tribal capital was Brigantium Raetiae (now Bregenz), and Lake Constance itself was then called Brigantinus Lacus.26 John Collis has an interesting map on which he shows the relevance of such Brigant-name links between the Continent and various parts of the British Isles.

Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order
by Parag Khanna
Published 4 Mar 2008

Though it depends on European investment to develop non-oil sectors such as wine, citrus, and cotton, thousands of European energy-sector employees—from oil-platform riggers to executives—also depend on high-paying jobs in Baku, from which pipelines extend around the Caspian Sea’s southern rim, superimposed on ancient trade routes. The Caucasus may be the most distant and troublesome corner of the West’s East, but it is also the corner on which Europe’s future as a self-sufficient superpower most depends. CONCLUSION: STRETCHING EUROPE THE “COMMON EUROPEAN House” is growing far larger than historian A.J.P. Taylor ever could have expected, turning into a multitiered commonwealth of members, partners, and associates with varying degrees of privileges, commitments, and subsidies.

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Its “new security concept” then sought to bind countries close to China by initiating confidence-building measures among the original “Shanghai Five” (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) to confront their common “three evils”: separatism, terrorism, and extremism.4 Like NATO in the Caucasus, the SCO sets the common rules and procedures for customs and border checkpoints, upgrades highways along ancient trade routes, and coordinates joint counternarcotics activities. What began as a forum for anti-American rhetoric is now considered by some to be either the “NATO of the East” or an energy club of oil-rich despots. “The SCO isn’t waiting for NATO to get things done,” warned an Uzbek official intimately involved with the SCO process.

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Barbarians retreating across the steppe once watched their larger enemies weaken with distance from their core, but today China’s growing reach along its infrastructural axes is steadily and confidently compressing the Central Asian space. CHAPTER 10 KAZAKHSTAN: “HAPPINESS IS MULTIPLE PIPELINES” NO ONE COMES to Kazakhstan for the weather. But much like dominating trade routes ensured geopolitical advantage centuries ago, today controlling the flow of oil and gas pipelines brings profits and political ties. The combined oil reserves of the Caspian Sea are estimated at over two hundred billion barrels (as compared with the Persian Gulf’s proven reserves of over six hundred billion barrels), making the region indispensable as an alternative source of oil for both the West and the East.

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
by Parag Khanna
Published 18 Apr 2016

Beyond the tedious border crossing into Bangladesh lie the final five hundred kilometers of swerving traffic and broken-down trucks to the port of Chittagong. Over the years that I’ve driven the Grand Trunk Road’s various national segments from the Hindu Kush Mountains to the Bay of Bengal, I’ve been on the lookout for archaeological and architectural reminders that this trade route predates the nations it crosses by more than two thousand years. From the ancient Mauryan Empire to the colonial British, the Grand Trunk Road has been upgraded and renamed every few centuries. Whatever name it goes by, across all of South Asia everyone knows it simply as the GT Road. Kipling had a more elegant term for this great artery: “a river of life.”

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Unlike the caliphate eras, however, the future Pax Arabia should have multiple capitals such as Cairo, Dubai, and Baghdad—a borderless archipelago of connected urban nodes. If one rule of counterinsurgency is to find, protect, and build stable enclaves, that is also the right bottom-up approach to replacing Arab colonial cartography with a more legitimate order of urban hubs and their trade routes. The Ottoman era Hejaz Railway, which stretched from Istanbul to Mecca, with branches to Cairo and even Haifa in present-day Israel, is precisely the intercity model that should guide our thinking. Arabs reject a restoration of Turkish or Persian hegemony, but if they ever want to recover the vast geographic strength they enjoyed a millennium ago, it will have to be through connective cartography.

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CHAPTER 8 INFRASTRUCTURE ALLIANCES GETTING GRAND STRATEGY RIGHT Geopolitics has for centuries been synonymous with the conquest of territory, the domination of one’s neighbors and rivals. Today the principle could simply be called competitive connectivity: The most connected power wins. States must protect their borders, but what matters are which lines they control: trade routes and cross-border infrastructures. All great strategists know the importance of the saying “Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics.” Empires have always focused on infrastructure as a tool of extending influence. The Romans and the Ottomans built sturdy roads stretching far from their capitals and placed these on maps used by armies and traders.

The Rough Guide to Finland
by Rough Guides
Published 31 May 2010

Hvitträsk Eliel Saarinen and his architect buddies built this beautiful rural retreat to find inspiration among nature and bask in some peace and quiet away from the hustle of downtown; don’t miss the opportunity to do the same. < Back to Helsinki and around Some history The dream of Helsinki was born in 1550, when the Swedish King Gustav Vasa was inspired to found a city on the Gulf of Finland’s northern coast in order to catch up with Russia’s expansion of its Baltic trade routes. Vasa’s initial valiant attempts ultimately failed, however, and it would take another century before the city was settled with any success. The choice of sites was moved from the initial location on the Vantaa River a few kilometres south to Vironniemi (its current position of Kruununhaka), but in its early years Helsinki languished, growing erratically on account of the craggy ground of its position and harsh coastal climate.

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They also do year-round rafting tours along the Kymijoki starting at €420; rafts take up to nine people. Hamina Twenty-six kilometres east of Kotka is HAMINA, the easternmost port in the mainland EU and a compelling place to visit thanks to its Renaissance fortress bastions. Originally founded by Per Brahe in 1653 as Vekhalahti, the town has been a busy node of overland and waterway trade routes since the Middle Ages but is today best known for its magnificently bizarre town plan: eight intersecting streets that radiate outwards towards the town ramparts, forming a perfect octagon encircling the central Raatihuoneentori, or town hall square. The centre of Hamina was constructed this way to allow the incumbent Swedish forces to withstand attack – the town being the site of many Swedish–Russian battles.

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Kastelholm and museums Sund’s main attraction – indeed possibly Åland’s most popular, other than Mother Nature herself – is the fourteenth-century Kastelholm Castle (Kastelholm slot; May to mid-Sept daily 10am–5pm, July until 6pm; €5), built on a tiny island in grounds formerly used for royal elk hunts. Intended to consolidate Swedish domination and monitor trade routes on the Baltic, the castle was occupied by numerous Swedish monarchs, including Duke Johan, son to Gustav Vasa, who imprisoned his brother King Erik XIV and his wife in the tower in 1571, and King Charles IX, whose armies severely damaged the castle while conquering it in the 1599 civil war. Once surrounded by a large moat, Kastelholm was mostly destroyed by fire in the mid-eighteenth century and an extensive renovation process has often kept entire wings closed to visitors; the five-story central tower and a newer outer ward are the areas you’re most likely to visit on the English-language guided tours (mid-June to Aug Sat & Sun 2pm), which cover in much more intricate detail the history of the place, and provide background on the castle’s role in Åland’s history.

An Island to Oneself: The Story of Six Years on a Desert Island
by Tom Neale and Noel Barber
Published 31 Aug 1990

Within twenty minutes he was climbing aboard with the agility of a boy of twenty. "Not bad for fifty-eight," he grinned; and this was my introduction to a man who had done what millions of us dream of doing, but never seem to do. For Tom Neale, a New Zealander, had left the world behind for life alone on a coral island so remote from the trade routes that he was fortunate if one ship a year called by chance to disturb his solitude. What had made him do it? Was he intelligent — or was he slightly mad? He didn't look a crank, as he sat there on the deck, the Manua Tele rolling gently in the swell. Tall and spare, his skin was stained dark brown; he wore tennis shoes, a pair of ragged shorts, ("Usually I wear a strip of pareu, but I thought there might be women aboard!")

…

We liked each other on sight, which surprised me, for I do not make friends easily; and it was after lunch — washed down with a bottle of Andy's excellent rum — that Frisbie first mentioned Suvarov. Of course, I had heard of this great lagoon, with its coral reef stretching nearly fifty miles in circumference, but I had never been there, for it was off the trade routes, and shipping rarely passed that way. Because its reef is submerged at high tide — leaving only a line of writhing white foam to warn the navigator of its perils — Suvarov, however, is clearly marked on all maps. Yet Suvarov is not the name of an island, but of an atoll, and the small islets inside the lagoon each have their own names.

…

Looking back, although I had to be very careful about moving around and was always conscious of my back, these were the happiest weeks of my life. 12. Farewell to the Island LONG BEFORE I could set eyes on her, I knew it must be the Manihiki schooner. That smudge dusting the horizon where the sea met the sky could only mark her arrival, for no other schooner would be so far off the trade routes. And though I had been anxiously scanning the horizon for days, worried about my back, a sudden thought now hit me like a blow between the eyes, a truth I had stubbornly refused to admit until now. Within a few hours I was going to be aboard that schooner. And once there I might never see Suvarov again.

Age of the City: Why Our Future Will Be Won or Lost Together
by Ian Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin
Published 21 Jun 2023

When the first Han emperor established his capital at Chang’an around 200 bce, it rapidly grew into the principal city in China, its focal point of power and learning, with a large population of scholar gentry managing the imperial bureaucracy, and an even larger underclass supporting them. As China opened up trade with civilizations to its west, across what would later come to be known as the Silk Roads, the Han capital took on even greater economic importance as a major destination along the trade route, with an extraordinary range of goods flowing in and out of its marketplaces. With the collapse of the Han dynasty, Chang’an went into a phase of decline, but it would return to prominence as the capital of the Tang dynasty in the eighth century, at which point it would become the largest city in the world, with a population similar to Rome’s at its zenith.31 Specialization In 2015, YouTube star Andy George set out to make a sandwich entirely from scratch.

…

The domestication of the horse and the invention of the wheel made it possible to travel large distances over land, while advances in shipbuilding opened up the possibilities for trade along the Mediterranean. As a result, a long-distance network of trade emerged, connecting cities from the Indus Valley westward to Egypt and up into Greece.35 Since then, cities have formed the backbone of a number of other important historical trade routes. The Silk Roads, which stretched from China in the East through India and Persia all the way to the Roman Empire, were linked by an extensive chain of cities. China sold its silk, tea and porcelain; India offered its spices and textiles; Persia contributed gold, silver, copper and iron; and Rome traded with glass, wine and jewels.36 By the first century ce, Chinese silk was so widespread in Rome that the philosopher Seneca was complaining that the thin, figure-hugging material had become a threat to marital relations.37 As trade between civilizations along the Silk Roads grew, so did the importance of the cities that facilitated them.

…

Index abortion here abstract mathematics here Achaemenid Empire here Adani, Gautam here agglomeration effects here agriculture here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and carbon emissions here and disease here, here productivity here, here vertical farming here Ahmedabad here air-conditioning here, here airports here, here, here, here Albuquerque here Alexandria here Allen, Paul here Allen, Thomas here Altrincham here Amazon here, here, here Amazon rainforest here Amsterdam here Anatolia here Anderson, Benedict here Anheuser-Busch here antibiotics here, here, here Antonine Plague here Anyang here apartment conversions here, here Apple here, here, here Aristotle here Arizona State University here Arlington here Assyrian merchants here Athens, Ancient here, here, here, here, here, here Atlanta here, here Austin here, here, here automation here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here axial precession here Baghdad, House of Wisdom here Baltimore here, here Bangalore here, here Bangkok here Bangladesh here, here, here, here Barlow, John Perry here Bauhaus here Beijing here, here Belmar redevelopment here Berkes, Enrico here Berlin here, here, here Berlin Wall, fall of here Bezos, Jeff here biological weapons here ‘biophilia’ here biospheres here bird flu here Birmingham here, here Black Death here, here, here Blake, William here Bloom, Nick here BMW here ‘bobo’ (bourgeois bohemian) here, here, here Boccaccio, Giovanni here Boeing here, here, here Bogota here Bologna here Bonfire of the Vanities here Borneo here Boston here, here, here Boston University here, here Brand, Stewart here Brazil here, here Brexit here, here, here Bristol here Britain broadcasting here deindustrialization here education here enclosure movement here foreign aid here high-speed rail here, here house prices here immigration here industrialization here, here infant mortality here ‘levelling up’ here life expectancy here mayoralties here per capita emissions here per capita 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Household Responsibility System here hukou system here One Child Policy here Open Coastal Cities here per capita emissions here rapid ageing here Special Economic Zones here technology here urbanization here China Towns here Chinese Communist Party here cholera here, here, here, here Chongqing here cities, definition of here Citigroup here city networks here civil wars here Cleveland here, here, here, here climate change here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here coastal cities here, here, here, here commuting here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Concentric Zone Model here Confucius here conspiracy theories here Constantinople here, here containerization here, here Copenhagen here, here Corinth here Cornwall here corruption here Coventry here, here covid-19 see pandemics crime rates here ‘cyberbalkanization’ here cycling here, here, here, here Damascus here Dark Ages here, here data science here de Soto, Hernando here deforestation here, here, here, here Delhi here Dell here Delphic oracle here democracy here, here, here Democratic Republic of Congo here, here, here, here, here, here Deng Xiaoping here dengue fever here Denmark here, here Detroit here, here, here, here, here, here, here Dhaka here, here, here, here, here Dharavi here Diana, Princess of Wales here diasporas here, here Dickens, Charles here district heating systems here Dresden here drought here, here, here, here, here, here, here Drucker, Peter here dual-income households here, here Dubai here, here, here Dunbar, Kevin here Düsseldorf here East Antarctic ice sheet here East China Sea here, here Easterly, William here Eastern Mediterranean here, here, here Ebola here Edinburgh here education here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here higher education here, here, here, here; see also universities Japanese school system here Egypt here, here Ancient here, here, here, here Ehrenhalt, Alan here electric vehicles (EVs) here Engels, Friedrich here Enlightenment here Epic of Gilgamesh here Erfurt here Ethiopia here, here Euripides here European Enlightenment here exchange rates here Facebook here, here, here fake news here famine here, here fertility rates here, here, here ‘15-minute city’ principle here Fischer, Claude here Fleming, Alexander here flooding here, here, here, here, here, here, here Florida, Richard here, here food shortages here Ford, Henry here, here foreign aid here fossil fuels here, here France here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Frankfurt here Franklin, Benjamin here Friedman, Thomas here, here Fryer, Roland here Fukuoka here, here Gaetani, Ruben here Galileo Galilei here Ganges River here Garden Cities here Garden of Eden here Gates, Bill here, here gay community here General Electric here General Motors here genetic engineering here gentrification here, here, here, here, here George, Andy here Germany here, here, here, here, here, here Gingrich, Newt here glaciers here Glasgow here Glass, Ruth here global financial crisis here, here, here global population, size of here globalization here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Goldstein, Amy here Google here, here, here Goos, Maarten here Grant, Adam here Great Depression here, here Greece, Ancient here, here, here, here, here Griffith Observatory here Gropius, Walter here Gruen, Victor here Gulf Stream here Haiti here Hamburg here Hanseatic League here, here Harappa here, here Harry, Prince here Harvard University here hate speech here Haussmann, Baron here, here Hawaii here Hazlitt, William here healthcare here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here heatwaves here, here Hebei here Heckscher, Eli here Herodotus here Himalayas here Hippocrates here Hippodamus here Hittite Empire here HIV here, here Ho Chi Minh City here Holocene here, here, here homophily here Hong Kong here house prices here, here, here, here, here, here, here Houston here, here, here Howard, Ebenezer here Hudson River here Hugo, Victor here Hume, David here Hurricane Katrina here hybrid working, see remote and hybrid working ice melting here, here import substitution industrialization here InBev here India here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here fertility rates here Indonesia here, here Indus River here Indus Valley here, here, here inequality here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here infant and child mortality here, here, here, here influenza here, here, here ‘information cocoons’ here Instagram here internet here, here, here, here, here, here invention here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here irrigation here, here, here, here Italy here Jacobs, Jane here, here, here Jakarta here, here James, Sheila here Japan here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here post-war development here schooling system here Jenner, Edward here Jesus Christ here Jobs, Steve here jobs apprenticeships here ‘lousy’ and ‘lovely’ here tradeable and non-tradeable here Justinian Plague here Kashmir here Kenya here Kinshasa here, here Kish here knowledge workers here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Koch, Robert here Kolkata here Korean War here Krugman, Paul here Kushim Tablet here Lagash here Lagos here, here, here, here, here, here, here Lahore here land titling programmes here Las Vegas here Latin language here Lee Kuan Yew here, here Leeds here, here Leicester here Leipzig here, here, here, here Letchworth here life expectancy here, here, here, here, here, here Liverpool here, here Ljubljana here London here, here, here, here, here, here, here bike lanes here Canary Wharf here, here Chelsea here, here, here China Town here cholera outbreaks here City of London here, here coffeehouses here and Covid-19 pandemic here financial services here gentrification here, here, here Great Stink here, here heatwaves here, here house prices here, here hybrid working here, here immigration here, here incomes here, here mayoralty here migration into inner London here population growth here, here, here poverty here, here public transport here, here, here slum housing here social housing here suburbanization here Los Angeles here, here, here, here Louisville here Luoyang here Luther, Martin here Luton Airport here Luxembourg here, here Lyon here McDonald’s here McDonnell Douglas here McLuhan, Marshall here Madagascar here malaria here, here, here, here Malaysia here Mali here malls, reinvention of here Manchester here, here, here, here, here, here, here Manila here Manning, Alan here Markle, Meghan here marriage here Marshall, Alfred here Marshall, Tim here Marx, Karl here Maya here, here measles here, here, here Meetup here mega regions here Mekong River here Memphis, Egypt here, here Mesoamerica here, here Mesopotamia here, here, here metallurgy here metaverse here methane here, here Mexico here Miami here, here, here microbiology here Microsoft here, here, here middle class, rise of here migration policy here millennial generation here Milwaukee here, here Minoan civilization here Mistry, Rohinton here MIT here MMR vaccine here ‘modernization’ theory here Mohenjo-Daro here, here Moretti, Enrico here, here mortality rates here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here motor car, invention of here Moynihan, Daniel here Mumbai here, here Mumford, Lewis here, here, here, here Munich here, here Mycenaean civilization here Nagoya here, here Nairobi here Nashville here National Landing, Arlington here Natural History Museum here natural resource exports here Nestlé here Netherlands here network effects here New Economics Foundation here New Orleans here, here New York here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here carbon emissions here and Covid-19 pandemic here gentrification here, here housing here, here, here incomes here, here Manhattan here, here, here, here, here population growth here, here and rising sea levels here slum housing here suburbanization here, here subway here waste and recycling here New York Central Railroad here New York World Fair here Newcastle here Nextdoor here Niger here Nigeria here, here, here, here Nilles, Jack here, here Nipah virus here Norway here, here Nottingham here Novgorod here ocean and air circulation here office rental and sales prices here Ohlin, Bertil here Oldenburg, Ray here online deliveries here OpenTable here Osaka here, here Oslo here Ottoman Empire here Oxford, population of here Oxford University here Pacific Belt Zone here Padua here Pakistan here, here, here pandemics here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and zoonotic diseases here paramyxovirus here Paris here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Paris Conference (2015) here Park Chung-hee, General here parks here Pasteur, Louis here Pearl River Delta here, here Peñalosa, Enrique here per capita income here Philadelphia here Philippines here, here Phoenix here, here Pixar here plague here, here, here, here Plato here plough, invention of here pollution here, here, here, here air pollution here, here, here, here population growth here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here PORTL here potter’s wheel, invention of here printing press here, here productivity here, here, here, here, here agricultural here, here Protestantism, rise of here public transport here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Putnam, Robert here, here quarantine here railways here, here, here, here, here high-speed rail here, here, here Ralston Purina here Reagan, Ronald here recycling here, here religion here remote and hybrid working here, here, here, here Renaissance Florence here, here, here renewable energy here, here Republic of Letters here République des Hyper Voisins here ‘resource curse’ here Rheingold, Howard here Ricardo, David here Rio de Janeiro here Riverside, San Francisco here robotics here Rockefeller, John D. here Roman Empire here, here, here Rome, Ancient here, here, here, here, here, here Romer, Paul here Rotterdam here Rousseau, Jean-Jacques here, here Sahel here, here sailboat, invention of here St Augustine here St Louis here, here, here Salesforce here San Diego here San Francisco here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here gentrification here, here hybrid working here, here San Francisco Bay Area here, here, here Santa Fe here São Paulo here Savonarola, Girolamo here Scientific American here Scott, Emmett J. here sea levels, rising here, here, here Seattle here, here, here, here, here, here Second Opium War here Seneca here Seoul here Shanghai here, here, here, here, here Shantou here Sheffield here, here, here Shen Nung here Shenzhen here, here Siemens here Silk Roads here, here Sinclair, Upton here Singapore here, here, here, here Slater, Samuel here smallpox here, here Smith, Adam here, here Snow, John here social capital here social housing here, here social media here, here, here, here, here Socrates here solar panels here South Africa here South Korea here, here, here, here, here, here Southdale Center here specialization here, here, here, here, here, here Spengler, Oswald here Starbucks here Stephenson, Neal here Stewart, General William here Stuttgart here Sub-Saharan Africa here subsidiarity principle here suburbanization here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here Sunstein, Cass here Sweden here, here Sydney here, here, here, here, here, here Syrian refugees here, here Taiwan here Tanzania here telegraph here Tempest, Kae here Thailand here Thames River here, here Thatcher, Margaret here, here, here ‘third places’ here Tianjin here Tocqueville, Alexis de here Toffler, Alvin here Tokyo here, here, here, here trade liberalization here trade routes here Trump, Donald here, here tuberculosis here, here, here Twain, Mark here Twitter here, here typhoid here, here typhus here, here Uber here Uganda here Ukraine here, here Umayyad Caliphate here unemployment here, here United Nations here, here United States anti-global populism here anti-trust regulation and industrial consolidation here anxiety and depression here broadcasting here car registrations here cost of education here decline in trust here deindustrialization here Gilded Age here Great Migration here house prices here, here immigration here industrialization here inequality here labour mobility here ‘magnet schools’ here parking spaces here patent filings here per capita emissions here, here per capita incomes here remote working here, here, here return on equity here Rust Belt here schools funding here slavery here socioeconomic mobility here suburbanization here tax revenues here US Federal Housing Authority here US General Social Survey here US Trade Adjustment Assistance Program here universities here, here, here University College London here University of Texas here university-educated professionals here Ur here urban heat island effect here urbanism, subcultural theory of here Uruk here, here, here, here, here vaccines here, here Van Alstyne, Marshall here Vancouver here Venice here, here Vienna here, here Vietnam here voluntary associations here, here Wakefield, Andrew here walking here, here, here Wall Street here Warwick University here Washington University here WELL, The here Welwyn Garden City here wheel, invention of here wildfires here, here William the Conqueror here Wilson, Edward Osborne here, here Wilson, William here World Bank here, here World Health organization here World Trade Organization here World Wide Web here writing, invention of here Wuhan here, here Xiamen here Yangtze River here, here Yangtze River Delta here yellow fever here Yellow River here, here Yersinia pestis here Yokohama here YouTube here, here Yu the Great here Zhuhai here Zoom here Zoroastrianism here BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc This electronic edition first published in Great Britain 2023 Copyright © Ian Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin 2023 Ian Goldin and Tom Lee-Devlin have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work All rights reserved.

The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel
by Nicholas Ostler
Published 23 Nov 2010

But such large-scale languages were known in the West too: in London, in AD 1600, the foremost English intellectual of his age, Francis Bacon, was claiming that if his writings had any hope of a future, it lay in their translation into Latin, a language of southern Europe then over two millennia old. World languages are not just a modern phenomenon: they are at least as old as world empires, global trade routes, and proselytizing religions. Many, many more can be found in the world’s history. But they are strangely fleeting: Greek is now restricted to the small country of its origin; Arabic (outside the mosque) is not current north of Morocco or west of Iraq; and neither Sanskrit nor Latin are in active use outside small priestly enclaves.

…

Kyrgyzstan, southern Kazakhstan) all the way along the Silk Road through Khotan and Gansu to the Chinese capital Chang’an, with outlying colonies northward in the Ordos loop of the Yellow River (in Inner Mongolia), and near Lake Baikal in Siberia.17 Inscriptions in Sogdian, which often show a link to the Samarkand area, have been found near the newly built highway across the Himalayas between China and modern Pakistan, demonstrating that, in the fourth to sixth centuries AD, Sogdian speakers were, at the very least, responsible for most of the graffiti on this trade route to India and hence were quite likely present in major northern cities of that country.18 The Sogdian monk known as Kang Senghui, whose surname Kang shows that his family came from Samarkand, and who became a famous translator of Buddhist literature in the Chinese metropolis of Luoyang ca AD 250, had been born in Hanoi, of a family that had been resident (for trade) in India.

…

All human life seems to be here. Given the Sog-dians’ mercantile reputation, it is surprising not to see more words for more serious, gainful activities, but there is only alfagdan ‘earn’, from ax . Having fifteen hundred years of their own civilization to look back on when they supplanted the Sogdians on their principal trade routes, perhaps the Persians had little to learn in arts of expression from their northeastern neighbors.38 But de la Vaissière has noted among them a cluster of words for sensory indulgence (r ‘desire’ and also ru de ‘greedy’ are identical in the two languages; rab xe ‘lust’ is from Sogdian arp x; bal d ‘depraved’ from pa t ; fude ‘frivolous’ from ‘adulterous’).

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
by George Friedman
Published 30 Jul 2008

-JIHADIST WAR CHAPTER 3 POPULATION, COMPUTERS, AND CULTURE WARS CHAPTER 4 THE NEW FAULT LINES CHAPTER 5 CHINA 2020: PAPER TIGER CHAPTER 6 RUSSIA 2020: REMATCH CHAPTER 7 AMERICAN POWER AND THE CRISIS OF 2030 CHAPTER 8 A NEW WORLD EMERGES CHAPTER 9 THE 2040S: PRELUDE TO WAR CHAPTER 10 PREPARING FOR WAR CHAPTER 11 WORLD WAR: A SCENARIO CHAPTER 12 THE 2060S: A GOLDEN DECADE CHAPTER 13 2080: THE UNITED STATES, MEXICO, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE GLOBAL HEARTLAND EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ——————————— Atlantic Europe The Soviet Empire Yugoslavia and the Balkans Earthquake Zone Islamic World—Modern U.S. River System South America: Impassable Terrain Pacific Trade Routes Successor States to the Soviet Union Ukraine's Strategic Significance Four Europes Turkey in 2008 Ottoman Empire Mexico Prior to Texas Rebellion China: Impassable Terrain China's Population Density Silk Road The Caucasus Central Asia Poacher's Paradise Japan Middle East Sea Lanes Poland 1660 The Skagerrak Straits Turkish Sphere of Influence 2050 U.S.

…

With the advent of globalization in the fifteenth century, this truth became as near to absolute as one can get in geopolitics. U.S. control of the sea meant that the United States was able not only to engage in but to define global maritime trade. It could make the rules, or at least block anyone else's rules, by denying other nations entry to the world's trade routes. In general, the United States shaped the international trading system more subtly, by using access to the vast American market as a lever to shape the behavior of other nations. It was not surprising, then, that in addition to its natural endowments, the United States became enormously prosperous from its sea power and that the Soviet Union couldn't possibly compete, being landlocked.

…

China has also emerged as a major industrial power in the last generation, with growth surpassing that of any other major economy in the world, although its economy is still far smaller than that of Japan or the United States. Nevertheless, China is now a key player in the Pacific Basin. Previously, it was much more self-sufficient than Japan in terms of primary commodities. But as China has grown, it has outstripped its own resources and become a net importer of raw materials. Pacific Trade Routes The Pacific now has two major Asian powers that are heavily dependent on imports to fuel their economy and on exports to grow their economy. Japan and China, along with South Korea and Taiwan, all depend on access to the Pacific in order to transport their goods and commodities. Since the U.S.

P53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer Code
by Sue Armstrong
Published 20 Nov 2014

It was an idea that begged to be explored because, like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples from a founder mutation can spread far and wide. How far had 337 mutant p53 spread in Brazil? It has turned out to be remarkably widespread. When Prolla and Hainaut did some research in Porto Alegre – also on the trade route of the tropeiros and their mules – to investigate the prevalence of the mutation in the general population, they came up with startling results. Prolla’s particular interest is breast cancer, and she was involved in a study of prevention strategies that recruited several thousand healthy volunteers from poor suburbs of Porto Alegre to test mammography.

…

He has another hypothesis about the origins of the founder mutation that he feels is equally plausible and as a result has spent nearly two years investigating alternative possibilities, often accompanied by Achatz, as time permitted. The mutation is known to be concentrated in southern regions of Brazil, and the trail has taken the two to towns and settlements along the old trading routes between São Paulo city and Porto Alegre, 860km (530 miles) away in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Codon 337 is a vulnerable site on the gene for mutations, explained Hainaut, and to investigate possible carcinogens he and Achatz travelled to a grim industrial town where the population is exposed to pollution from heavy metals, sulphur and other chemicals seeping from dirty mine dumps.

…

These very particular historical and demographic circumstances could explain how the mutation got so firmly established despite having a negative effect.’ By the middle of the 18th century the road stretched in a continuous track from Sorocaba, inland from São Paolo, to Porto Alegre, and soon became a busy trading route. Trade consisted largely of cattle being taken to market in Sorocaba from the south, and goods of all sorts being brought down by mule on the return journey. It was a round trip of some six months for the tropeiros, who would have had many stops, and likely liaisons, along the way – perfect conditions for spreading a genetic mutation.

Fodor's Venice and Northern Italy
by Fodor's
Published 22 Mar 2011

Venice reached its height of power in the 15th and 16th centuries, during which time its domain included all of the Veneto region and part of Lombardy. But beginning in the 16th century, the tide turned. The Ottoman Empire blocked Venice’s Mediterranean trade routes, and newly emerging sea powers such as Britain and the Netherlands ended Venice’s monopoly by opening oceanic trading routes. The Republic underwent a slow decline. When Napoléon arrived in 1797, he took the city without a fight, eventually delivering it to the Austrians, who ruled until 1848. In that tumultuous year throughout Europe, the Venetians rebelled, an act that would ultimately lead to their joining the Italian Republic in 1866.

…

The competition to design a stone bridge across the Grand Canal (replacing earlier wooden versions) attracted the late-16th-century’s best architects, including Michelangelo, Palladio, and Sansovino, but the job went to the less famous but appropriately named Antonio da Ponte (1512–95). His pragmatic design featured shop space and was high enough for galleys to pass beneath; it kept decoration and cost to a minimum at a time when the Republic’s coffers were low due to continual wars against the Turks and the opening of oceanic trade routes. Along the railing you’ll enjoy one of the city’s most famous views: the Grand Canal vibrant with boat traffic. | Rialto. Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. This immense Gothic church of russet-color brick, completed in the 1400s after more than a century of work, is deliberately austere, befitting the Franciscan brothers’ insistence on spirituality and poverty.

…

Train service to Asti, on the other hand, is frequent and fast. Visitor Information Asti tourism office (Corso Alfieri 357 | 14100 | 0141/530357 | www.astiturismo.it). Exploring Asti Asti is best known outside Italy for its wines—excellent reds as well as the famous sparkling white spumante—but its strategic position on trade routes at Turin, Milan, and Genoa has given it a broad economic base. In the 12th century Asti began to develop as a republic, at a time when other Italian cities were also flexing their economic and military muscles. It flourished in the following century, when the inhabitants began erecting lofty towers (West end of Corso Vittorio Alfieri) for its defense, giving rise to the medieval nickname “city of 100 towers.”

The Discovery of France
by Graham Robb
Published 1 Jan 2007

A bicycle unrolls a 360-degree panorama of the land, allows the rider to register its gradual changes in gear ratios and muscle tension, and makes it hard to miss a single inch of it, from the tyre-lacerating suburbs of Paris to the Mistral-blasted plains of Provence. The itinerary of a cyclist recreates, as if by chance, much older journeys: transhumance trails, Gallo-Roman trade routes, pilgrim paths, river confluences that have disappeared in industrial wasteland, valleys and ridge roads that used to be busy with pedlars and migrants. Cycling also makes conversation easy and inevitable – with children, nomads, people who are lost, local amateur historians and, of course, dogs, whose behaviour collectively characterizes the outlook of certain regions as clearly as human behaviour once did.

…

Until permanent migration became the norm in the late nineteenth century, Paris was not the all-consuming gravitational centre of France. The capital was well served by the major rivers of north-eastern France – Yonne, Seine, Marne, Aisne and Oise – but not by the rivers that rise in the Massif Central. The best roads out of the Auvergne all led south. A trade route to Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier or Marseille, busy with mule trains and pilgrims, was preferable to an obscure track that led north into lands where people spoke a different language. Even in the early twentieth century, many villages in the southern Auvergne and Périgord had closer ties with Spain than with the northern half of France.

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As the Marquis de Mirabeau observed in 1756, Roman roads had been ‘built for eternity’, while a typical French road could be wrecked within a year by ‘a moderate-sized colony of moles’. The very large number of places called ‘Le Grand Chemin’ or ‘La Chaussée’ shows that the Roman contribution to the development of modern France was not confined to the trade routes through Provence and the Rhône valley. There were long stretches of Roman surface or base layer on the roads from Arles to Aix, Clermont-Ferrand to Limoges, Arcachon to Bordeaux, the old salt route from Saintes to Poitiers, the left bank of the Lot between Aiguillon and Lafitte, and the road that wound up from the Alsace plain to Mont Sainte-Odile with an impressive top layer of nicely squared stones.

The Survival of the City: Human Flourishing in an Age of Isolation
by Edward Glaeser and David Cutler
Published 14 Sep 2021

America’s own Ellis Island was used to quarantine immigrants until 1954. The fictional Vito Corleone spends a lonely forty days on the island after immigration officials diagnose him with smallpox in The Godfather Part II. Quarantine provided a middle way between complete openness and shutting down trade routes entirely. Before 1377, Ragusa had turned travelers away, but that meant an end to all commerce. Quarantine permitted some trade, while still reducing the flow of disease. Inbound ships and their trading partners will always want to speed things up. The collective interest lies in isolation—the individual advantage comes from connection.

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Thucydides credits the Athenian plague to Ethiopia. Yersinia pestis likely came from central Asia, though some suggest an ancient European origin. That perspective reflects the biased focus of European historians on events in Europe. If sixth-century Europeans spread plague to central Africa through some long-forgotten trade route, Europeans never wrote about it. But thanks to a Franciscan missionary, we have a written record of how the Spanish unleashed a terrible pandemic upon the Aztecs: “when the smallpox began to attack the Indians it became so great a pestilence among them throughout the land that in most provinces more than half the population died.”

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The story of yellow fever in Philadelphia cautions us against too much reliance on travel bans, and reminds us that other investments, like the city’s public water system, can help populations survive when a disease makes it through the cordon sanitaire. As sailing ships connected continents, more diseases wandered the globe. The Europeans who crossed the Atlantic brought American diseases back to Europe. Syphilis seems to have been a prime example. Since Africa became part of the triangular trading routes, African diseases, like yellow fever, got thrown into the mix. Yellow fever is an arbovirus, transmitted by infected mosquitoes, not by airborne droplets. Both the virus and the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry it are thought to originate in Africa, where the disease still kills tens of thousands of people annually, despite the existence of a functional vaccine since 1937.

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2011
by Steve Coll
Published 23 Feb 2004

Bhutto wanted, as she said later, to “market Pakistan internationally as . . . the crossroads to the old silk roads of trade between Europe and Asia.” Like every young student on the subcontinent, she had grown up with history texts that chronicled invasions across the Khyber Pass. These ancient conquests had been inspired by lucrative trade routes that ran from Central Asia to Delhi. “So I thought, ‘Okay, control of the trade routes is a way to get my country power and prestige.’ ” She imagined Pakistani exporters trucking televisions and washing machines to the newly independent Muslim republics of former Soviet Central Asia. She imagined cotton and oil flowing to Pakistan from Central Asia and Iran.23 But when she and her advisers looked at the map in 1994, they saw Afghanistan in the way, an impassable cauldron of warlords, a country engulfed by a civil war fueled by Pakistan’s own intelligence service.

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It was only the Arab volunteers—from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and other countries, who had been raised in an entirely different culture, spoke their own language, and preached their own interpretations of Islam while fighting far from their homes and families—who later advocated suicide attacks. Afghan jihadists, tightly woven into family, clan, and regional social networks, never embraced suicide tactics in significant numbers.18 Afghan fighters also often refused to attack bridges or trade routes if they were important to civilian traders or farmers. The Afghan tolerance of civilian commerce in the midst of dire conflict frustrated visiting Americans. A congressman on tour would fly over Afghanistan, see a bridge standing unmolested, and complain loudly on his return to Washington that it ought to be blown up.

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They seized tanks and armored personnel carriers.29 They announced that all highway roadblocks would be dismantled, all non-Taliban militia disarmed, and all criminals subject to swift Islamic punishments. They lynched a few resisters to make their point. Benazir Bhutto was suddenly the matron of a new Afghan faction. The Taliban might provide a battering ram to open trade routes to Central Asia, as she hoped, yet they also presented complications. Pakistani intelligence already had one Pashtun client, Hekmatyar. The ISI Afghan bureau was in turmoil. The Rawalpindi army command had recently appointed a secular-minded, British-influenced general, Javed Ashraf Qazi, to take charge of ISI.

Bosnia and Herzegovina
by Tim. Clancy
Published 15 Mar 2022

The central belt of Bosnia is characterised by both mountains and green, rolling hills covered by lush conifer forests, and is lined with countless freshwater streams and rivers abundant in trout. It is estimated that over 42% of BiH is forested. These areas have always been rich in minerals and since Roman times have been mined for gold, silver, salt and copper, to name but a few. The Lašva Valley tucked deep below Vlašić, Komar and Kruščica mountains has long been a main trading route and served as a political and economic centre since the medieval Bosnia State. The region known as the Krajina in the northwest of the country is a fascinating example of karst topography. Deep limestone caves, some of the largest in Europe, line Livanjsko, Glamočko and Kupreško fields. To the north the watershed of the Una River begins.

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Nevertheless, the Pope attempted to use purported Bogomil duality, a belief that the divine was of another world and that life on earth was unholy, as justification for an invasion and cleansing of what were viewed by the Catholic Church as heretics. Medieval Bosnia is marked by three powerful rulers of Bosnian aristocracy. In the early Middle Ages Bosnia was first ruled by Ban Kulin, who reigned from 1180 to 1204 and was largely responsible for opening important trade routes to Ragusa (present-day Dubrovnik). He also encouraged Dalmatian merchants to exploit the rich Bosnian mines, especially in the area around Fojnica in central Bosnia. This was a major factor in the political and territorial stabilisation of Bosnia. Ban Kulin is fondly remembered in history books for securing a golden era for Bosnia during his 24 years in power.

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Copper and silver were mined at Kreševo and Fojnica in central Bosnia; lead was mined in Olovo to the northeast of Sarajevo; and gold, silver and lead were mined in Zvornik on the River Drina. The most significant and productive area in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the silver mine at Srebrenica. During the Middle Ages Bosnia became a very important trading route. Merchants from both East and West moved and traded their goods through or in Bosnian territory. Trading towns and routes sprung up in Visoko, Jajce, Travnik, Goražde and Livno. Many locals became involved in trade, particularly with Ragusa (Dubrovnik). Bosnia and Dubrovnik today still share close cultural ties.

A History of Future Cities
by Daniel Brook
Published 18 Feb 2013

Befitting its status as a trading port, but hardly a boomtown, Dubai was of minor interest to Great Britain in its age of empire. Seeing the centrality of the Gulf for its lucrative trade routes to India, the British East India Company sought to safeguard the region from anti-Western, Islamic fundamentalist pirates in the early nineteenth century. With the help of their intimidating royal navy, the British struck a series of agreements with the local sheikhs beginning in 1820 to keep the region peaceful and the trade routes open. When the Maktoum, a branch of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, a small trading port seventy-five miles down the coast, took over Dubai in 1833, they duly kept the peace on behalf of the British.

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He resolved to slam it shut. 2 SHANGHAI RACE CLUB Shanghai, 1842–1911 The Bund, mid-1860s A thirteenth-century Mongol emperor is credited with naming the city of Shanghai, which means “above the sea” in Chinese. The emperor was describing the city physically—it sits on bluffs above the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze, just a few miles from where it empties into the ocean—but the name also embodies a deeper, albeit less literal, truth. Presiding over the innumerable trade routes of the world’s largest ocean, the city of Shanghai reigns over the Pacific. If geography is destiny, the city where the Yangtze meets the Pacific—the gateway to the world for one-tenth of humanity—is, by rights, the leading city on the planet. When Hugh Lindsay of the British East India Company first laid eyes on Shanghai, he understood its importance immediately.

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In the International Settlement, the British shipped in Sikhs from India—whom they prized for their martial traditions, not to mention their regal height, turbans, and mustaches—to serve as policemen. Among other duties, they patrolled the public garden to keep out the Chinese. A small Parsi community, a diaspora group of Persian Zoroastrians who had settled in India in the Middle Ages, also made their way to Shanghai following British trade routes. As “foreigners” in Shanghai, Parsis had full use of the public garden and other spaces from which the Chinese were banned. Still, given the city’s racial hierarchies, passing not just for foreign but for white was of great importance. Shanghai’s Jewish community, with roots in Baghdad, was careful to identify themselves as Sephardim, a Hebrew term literally meaning “Spaniards,” denoting the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

Worn: A People's History of Clothing
by Sofi Thanhauser
Published 25 Jan 2022

Humans carefully clothe their hierarchies, and political power is not just advertised by forms of clothing; it is sometimes achieved through skillful use and manipulation of both personal dress and the national textile trade. This section interrogates clothing’s deep interpenetration with power and hierarchy, from ancient China to Louis XIV, to the modern mega brand. Fourth is the story of synthetics. From the ancient silk route, we move to more contemporary trade routes and regimes, by tracing the rise of synthetic fabric in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Between 2000 and 2008, petroleum-based fabrics supplanted cotton as the most commonly worn fabric on the planet. In the previous century, clothing manufacture briefly moved out of the sweatshop, and then back into it while governments aided and abetted this backslide in basic workers’ rights.

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Just as had occurred in Europe, the development of a money economy, which initially drew women into the cottage-based textile industry, in the longer term promoted the marginalization of their labor and reduced their place in production. * * * — During the Ming, the center of the luxury trade was Suzhou, a 2,500-year-old city in the Yangtze Delta that first gained wealth when the Grand Canal was completed during the Sui Dynasty (581–618). The canal connected Beijing with Hangzhou and placed Suzhou on a major trade route. Suzhou was studded with the exquisite garden residences of the wealthy, some now UNESCO heritage sites, the warehouses of major merchants, and the workshops of craftsmen in the luxury trade. Canal bridges served as pickup spots for specialized day laborers. Spinners hoping to be hired for a day’s work once gathered before dawn at the bridge by Guanghua monastery.

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This clothing was produced in only one size, to be modified by a sailor heading out to sea as best he could. Mass-manufactured garments for enslaved peoples developed as an industry in 1840–60. By buying cheap, mass-produced clothes, planters discovered, they could avoid using valuable slave labor in stitching. Trade routes between New York and other eastern cities and the port of New Orleans were established to ship ready-made clothing of cheap, coarse fabric to large plantations. The New Orleans dealer Folger and Blake Company claimed in one advertisement that planters would “find it greatly to their advantage to purchase their clothing ready-made” for slaves, while numerous New York firms specialized in what was known as “Negro clothing.”

The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources
by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy
Published 25 Feb 2021

Where living conditions in the mid-1940s had been marked by price controls and rationing, by the 1960s a growing number of households in the US, Europe and Japan could afford televisions, refrigerators and cars. Between 1950 and 1955, more than half of the households in America bought a television. 4 Everywhere new trade routes were opening, as nationalism and protectionism gave way to free trade and global markets. The world economy was growing at the fastest rate on record, driving ever greater consumption of natural resources. The period became known as the Golden Age of Capitalism. 5 Weisser had understood that this new world held unprecedented opportunities for a company whose entire business was international trading – never before had a commodity trader been able to paint on such a global canvas.

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Port workers went on strike and refused to load ships taking grain to the Soviet Union, and unions urged their members to boycott Cargill and the other commodity traders. Some lawmakers even tried to block the sales, without success. The furore was one of the first demonstrations of the political nature of the commodity trade, and the power that the traders were accumulating as pioneers of international commerce. In the course of establishing new trade routes between east and west, Cargill and the other pioneers were driving a commercial rapprochement between the US and the Soviet Union that politicians weren’t prepared for. Within a few years, however, the deals with Moscow in 1963–64 would seem like a practice run for a much larger – and much more politically explosive – series of deals.

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To kick-start his new project, he bought a dormant company called Marquard & Bahls for 70,000 Reichsmark (the equivalent of about $100,000 in today’s money), largely for its import–export licence, a thing of value in a country that was still formally under foreign occupation. By the 1950s, when Weisser travelled to Moscow, the company was already well known throughout the primitive market for refined products by its telegraphic address: Mabanaft, a contraction of its trading name, Marquard & Bahls Naftaproducts. But Weisser did more than just pioneer a new trade route – he helped to create a new industry where previously there had been none. When Weisser set off for Moscow in 1954, there was no real international oil trade – just a handful of huge companies with near-unlimited market power. Oil trading had briefly flourished in the nineteenth century after the first discovery of oil in America at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859.

Imagine a City: A Pilot's Journey Across the Urban World
by Mark Vanhoenacker
Published 14 Aug 2022

It’s a story that foretokens the description of the Janus-like city of Despina, in Calvino’s Invisible Cities, as reachable by only these two means of transport; it also illustrates how inexorably, in the age before oil brought Kuwait unimaginable wealth, this entrepôt would arise at the junction of desert and maritime trading routes, and grow to become for a time the Gulf’s largest port town. Its souk, or market, was known across northern Arabia, while “the lustre of its pearls,” Villiers records, “is famous in Paris and New York; its merchants are respected from Syria to Singapore, from Cairo to Calicut.” For me, Kuwait’s air, and all that it has shaped and carried, is the most arresting characteristic of the city.

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And I love the museum’s guest book, in which some visitors have felt moved enough to not only sign their names but to make little drawings of boats. “Good & surprised to watch many ships!!” writes Peter, a traveler from South Korea. “You don’t make a great future without a great past,” adds a visitor named Aya. Kuwaitis—beyond the trading routes their country sat astride, and the pearls beneath its sea—had a better reason than most to set sail. There are no rivers or natural streams here. No lakes. From vessels out on the Gulf, the city’s famed pearl divers might swim down to fill leather skins from undersea freshwater springs that issued directly into the saline depths, but nowhere in the city itself did a spring reach the earth’s surface.

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Makhubu also draws my attention to the blue mountains and skies of the world beyond this room, and to how—in contrast with the open perspectives and often unpeopled landscapes in the European-style tradition of painting in South Africa—their beauty can only be glimpsed through the small window and the door the police have left open. Here in Cape Town’s castle I wander away from the halls of paintings and come to an exhibit that focuses on the ceramics that arrived on the same trade routes that the city was founded to further and to guard. Much of what’s on display follows the traditional blue-on-white arrangement that we associate with earthenware from the Dutch city of Delft (which shares its name with a township that lies directly east of Cape Town’s airport). Most bewildering, perhaps, to a pilot already confounded by place lag, are the Chinese export works from the first half of the eighteenth century.

Persians: The Age of the Great Kings
by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Published 15 Mar 2022

Later, he recalled that ‘all the kings, who sit on thrones, from all parts of the world, from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea, who dwell in distant regions, all the kings of Amurru, who dwell in tents, brought their heavy tribute to me and kissed my feet in Babylon’. He must have been delighted, in particular, to have received the submission of ambassadors from the wealthy city states of Phoenicia – Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos – with their merchant fleets ready to set sail and open up new trade routes. Their shipbuilders were capable of making Persia a great sea power too. It was during this great meeting of the luminaries of the Near East that Nabonidus, who had been captured at Borsippa, was executed. Later stories (like those told of Croesus) suggested that a magnanimous Cyrus allowed him to live and that he was permitted to enjoy a comfortable retirement in Persia.

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I give you all countries of the plain and all countries of the mountains, united under your sandals’ (DSac). The most obvious evidence for Persia’s hold over Egypt, however, was manifest in the Egyptian landscape itself. Around 500 bce Darius sliced through the earth and dug a canal to connect the Nile to the Red Sea. He thereby opened lucrative shipping and trade routes around the Arabian Gulf and on to India. To commemorate this mammoth undertaking, he erected four monumental stele on the banks of the canal, each inscribed in hieroglyphs and cuneiform, and each incorporating a mixture of Persian and Egyptian artistic motifs. The inscriptions gave no doubt as to Darius’ supremacy over the world: King Darius proclaims: I am a Persian; from Persia, I seized Egypt.

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After sixty years of independence, Egypt was back in the Persian empire, and the year 342 bce therefore marks the ‘Second Persian Period’ in Egypt and the founding of the Thirty-First Dynasty. The submission of renegade Egypt was Artaxerxes’ greatest achievement, for the rich resources of the land of the Nile were once again in Persian possession and the trade routes of the Red Sea could function again. Before he left Egypt, Artaxerxes III saw the old statue of Udjahorresnet, the Egyptian official who had served Cambyses and Darius I so loyally. It was somewhat dusty and battered, and Artaxerxes ordered its restoration. He left an inscription on the statue, proclaiming that ‘All you dignitaries, all you scholars, I have caused the name of the chief physician Udjahorresnet to live, who has completed 177 years after his time, because I found his statue while it was in a state of decay.’

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
by David S. Landes
Published 14 Sep 1999

The clerics did leave their parishioners some newly composed prayers for protection by the Almighty, but the altar was not a good refuge, for the Vikings knew where the plunder lay and headed straight for churches and castles. Also coming from the sea, across the Mediterranean, were Saracens (Moors), who set up mountain bases in the Alps and on the Côte d’Azur, and went out from these to raid the trade routes between northern and southern Europe. These fastnesses, hard of access and yet linked to Muslim lands by the sea, were inexpugnable, and folk legend has it that to this day some villagers in the high Alps carry the color and appearance of their Maghrebin origins. Finally, from the east overland, but highly mobile for all that, rode the Magyars or Hungarians, one more wave of invaders from Asia, pagans speaking a Ural-Altaic language (a distant cousin of Turkish), sweeping in year after year, choosing their targets by news of European dissensions and dynastic troubles, swift enough to move in a single campaign from their Danubian bases into eastern France or the foot of Italy.

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Portugal’s day had come and gone, but pride thrives on reverses, and they clung to what they could. Thus they held Goa until 1961 (long after it had lost wealth and commercial importance), when a far stronger Indian government marched in and took it over, without provocation or pretext. No self-respecting independent country could live with such a colonial boil on its flank. TRADE ROUTES IN THE EASTERN SEAS This regional (country) trade flourished well before the Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century. Portugal’s primary commercial objective in the East was to obtain pepper and other spices and ship these directly to Europe, bypassing the intermediaries that encumbered the traditional traffic across Asia and into the Mediterranean.* This the Portuguese did by purchase or seizure, compensating by force for the obstacles that Muslim merchants put in their way.

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.* This the Portuguese did by purchase or seizure, compensating by force for the obstacles that Muslim merchants put in their way. In the early decades, these measures garnered a large share of the trade. At the peak, some 40 percent of the pepper imported into Europe was going around the Cape of Good Hope, and the Venetians were hurting. But with time, the older trade routes reasserted themselves. The direct Portuguese share fell back to about 20 percent, still important but no longer dominant. In 1570, the Portuguese crown gave up its monopoly of the trade between Lisbon and the east (Goa). The king ceased to be a merchant and instead sold concessions, frequently to foreign traders.

Lonely Planet Morocco (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet , Paul Clammer and Paula Hardy
Published 1 Jul 2014

Almohad Yacoub el-Mansour remodelled Marrakesh with a fortified kasbah, glorious gardens, qissariat (covered markets), a rebuilt Koutoubia and a triumphal gate (Bab Agnaou). But the Almohads soon lost their showpiece to the Merenids, who turned royal attention to Meknès and Fez. Life improved again in the 16th century, when the Saadians made Marrakesh the crux of lucrative sugar-trade routes, established a trading centre for Christians and a protected mellah (Jewish quarter) in 1558. Ahmed al-Mansour ed-Dahbi (the Victorious and Golden) paved the Badi Palace with gold and took opulence to the grave in the gilded Saadian Tombs. Alawite leader Moulay Ismail preferred Meknès to Marrakesh, and moved his headquarters there – though not before looting the Badi Palace.

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In the early 15th century, the port became a safe haven for pirates and racketeers. Anfa pirates became such a serious threat later in the century that the Portuguese sent 50 ships and 10,000 men to subdue them. They left Anfa in a state of ruins. The local tribes, however, continued to terrorise the trade routes, provoking a second attack by the Portuguese in 1515. Sixty years later the Portuguese arrived to stay, erecting fortifications and renaming the port Casa Branca (White House). The Portuguese abandoned the colony in 1755 after a devastating earthquake destroyed Lisbon and severely damaged the walls of Casa Branca.

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The focus is on the history of the area from prehistoric times to the 19th century. Placards are in French and Arabic. Some highlights are pre-Roman tools; a sculpture with scenes of a bacchanalian feast; some 16th-century jewellery; an extraordinary floor mosaic from Volubilis; and a fascinating wall map of trade routes past and present. Before you leave, don’t miss the exotic Sultan’s Garden off the main courtyard, opposite the entrance. The museum is outside the medina – follow the perimeter all the way to the western end, to the highest part of the city, enter the Porte de la Kasbah, and follow the road to the museum.

No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends
by Richard Dobbs and James Manyika
Published 12 May 2015

It has broadened and branched out, like a river moving through its delta. In 1990, more than half of all goods flows were between developed countries. The typical transaction might have been a Toyota Celica shipped from Japan to the United States. But in 2012, such transactions accounted for only 28 percent of all goods flows.10 Since 1990, trade routes have evolved from hubs in the United States and Western Europe into a global web of trade, with Asia as the largest trading region. Emerging economies now account for 40 percent of all goods flows, and 60 percent of those go to other emerging economies—known as south-south trade. In 1990, this trade accounted for 6 percent of global goods flows; it rose to nearly 24 percent by 2012.11 It might, for example, involve a barrel of oil going from Congo to China, or soybeans farmed deep in Brazil shipped to Malaysia, or an Indian pharmaceutical shipped to Algeria.

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Between 1980 and 2007, annual cross-border capital flows increased from $0.5 trillion to a peak of $12 trillion, a twenty-three-fold increase that was in large measure driven by Europe’s monetary and trade integration.15 Such flows fell sharply in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and then bounced back. In 2012, estimated financial flows stood at $4.6 trillion, nearly five times the level in 1990.16 Trade routes have expanded and trade patterns have become increasingly more complex 1 Includes only merchandise. 2 This value does not include the trade flows between countries in a region. If intraregional trade flows are included, the total trade for 2009 is $18.3 trillion. Overall value estimate for 2013, breakdowns calculated on data until August 2010.

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Some do so for philanthropic purposes. Coca-Cola used its market distribution expertise in sub-Saharan Africa to manage the storage and delivery of AIDS drugs in countries such as Tanzania. “We’re not lending our trucks or our fleet, or our motorcycles,” as Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent put it. “We’re lending our expertise.”48 Trade routes have expanded and trade patterns have become increasingly more complex 1 Migrants data from 2010 used for people flows; 2013 cross-border Internet traffic used for data and communication flows. For data on complete country set, download the full report, Global flows in a digital age: How trade, finance, people, and data connect the world economy. 2 Calculations exclude data and communication flows, for which data are not available for 1995.

Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization
by Paul Kindstedt
Published 31 Mar 2012

The development of rennet technology and storable cheeses, in turn, was probably directly responsible for the growing maritime trade in cheese that began around this time, as evidenced from commercial records recovered from the Hittite vassal city of Ugarit on the Syrian coast. Ugarit was a strategic trading center at the crossroads of major land-based trade routes that extended south to the southern Levant, east to Mesopotamia, and north to Anatolia. It was also a strategic maritime trade center with extensive connections to the southern Levant and Egypt, the Aegean islands and Greece, and Anatolia (Sherratt and Sherratt 1991). During the period when the Hittites controlled Ugarit toward the end of the second millennium BC Hittite administrators maintained extensive cuneiform records of land-based and maritime trade passing through the city.

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The complex social arrangements, cultural attitudes, and sophisticated cheese-making practices and equipment that underpinned communal transhumance and alpine cheese making likely took centuries to evolve, stretching back to pre-Roman times. Although Saint Gall was founded on the fringes of rugged wilderness, the town of Arbon on the shores of Lake Constance was only 8 miles (13 km) away. Arbon was an ancient Celtic Helvetic settlement that the Romans had transformed into a wealthy regional center, situated on a major Roman trade route. Celtic agriculture had been well established in this region for many centuries, and pastoral transhumance and mountain cheese making had almost certainly been practiced in the region since before the Roman occupation. Thus, the monks at Saint Gall probably acquired their cheese-making knowledge from the wealth of experience residing in the peasant tenant farmers, or serfs, who populated the monastic manors under their control.

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First Civilizations: Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. 2nd ed. Equinox Publishing, London. Chaniotis, A. 1999. Milking in the Mountains: Economic Activities on the Cretan Uplands in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods. In From Minoan Farmers to Roman Traders, A. Chaniotis, ed. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart. Charlesworth, M. P. 1970. Trade-Routes and Commerce of the Roman Empire. 2nd ed. Cooper Square Publishers, New York. Chavalas, M. 2005. The Age of Empires, 3100–900 bce. In A Companion to the Ancient Near East, D. C. Snell, ed. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK. pp. 34–47. Cheke, V. 1959. The Story of Cheese-Making in Britain.

The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey Into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future
by Geoffrey Cain
Published 28 Jun 2021

It’s a region littered with crisscrossing ethnic and religious loyalties that both precede and supersede modern governments. Most violent conflicts in the world today are happening in Eurasia. It’s also rich in oil, rare earths, and mineral wealth—and rife with dictatorships, inequality, and religious fundamentalism. I became fascinated with the history of the Silk Road, the thread of trading routes winding from Europe to Asia, over which gold and precious metals flowed east to China and silk flowed west to Europe. It was first made famous to us in the West by the travels of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. I read the accounts of European explorers who traveled through the harsh and unforgiving Taklamakan Desert, one of the world’s largest, just beyond Kashgar, the city that is the heartland of the Uyghurs.

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[ ] In the years after 9/11, I watched as China, whose culture had long fascinated me, began to reach westward through the region called Xinjiang. Since 2013, China had been building a $1 trillion network of roads, ports, oil pipelines, and railroads. It’s called the “One Belt, One Road” initiative.9 China wants to move away from its overexploited coast, trying to establish global trading routes that could become an alternative to crossing the Pacific Ocean. It wants to convince companies—like Foxconn, the manufacturer of Apple’s iPhone that makes devices on the southeast coast in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong—to move their manufacturing inland. The companies would then use land routes, which are becoming cheaper, to reach export markets in the European Union and Middle East.

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The United States had done something similar with its destruction of Native American lands and rights in its relentless march to the Pacific Coast; and with its double-dealing to achieve the construction of the Panama Canal, which allowed it to move ships quickly between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, giving it enormous geopolitical power. The British did the same with the Suez Canal in the Middle East, speeding the trade route between London and its most valuable colony, India.31 “Eurasia is by far the world’s largest and most central supercontinent, with well over a third of the Earth’s entire land area,” noted the political scientist Kent E. Alder. “Beneath its soil lies nearly two-thirds of the world’s oil and over 80 percent of conventional gas reserves… Eurasia’s constituent nations hold almost 85 percent of world foreign exchange reserves, while generating close to 70 percent of global GDP in PPP [purchasing power parity] terms, not to mention nearly half of the world’s manufactured goods.”32 A supercontinent connected through trade networks and roads was exactly what China needed and wanted.

A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore
Published 16 Oct 2017

Cotton workers, who demanded too many concessions, were systematically displaced on both sides of the Atlantic by technologies that reduced the need for their labor (some industrial cotton-worker militants were themselves displaced handloom weavers).55 Workers in one part of the world were pitted against those in another, with new trade routes opening up cheaper sources of cotton (saving time, money, and land for other more profitable uses).56 Resources were spent developing alternative fibers (just as cotton replaced wool, so new textiles have threatened the negotiating power of cotton workers). And union power was smashed directly, by strike-breaking private police and through legislation aimed at keeping restive workers in their place.

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Cameron, and L.M. Cook. 1994. “Fossil Evidence of Recent Human Impact on the Land Snail Fauna of Madeira.” Journal of Biogeography 21, no. 3: 309–20. Gotzek, D., H.J. Axen, A.V. Suarez, S. Helms Cahan, and D. Shoemaker. 2015. “Global Invasion History of the Tropical Fire Ant: A Stowaway on the First Global Trade Routes.” Molecular Ecology 24, no. 2: 374–88. Gouge, William. 1622. Of Domesticall Duties, Eight Treatises, Etc. London: John Haviland, for William Bladen. Graetz, Heinrich. (1894) 1967. History of the Jews. Edited and in part translated by Bella Löwy. Vol. 3. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

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Spinden, Herbert J. 1920. “Central American Calendars and the Gregorian Day.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 6, no. 2: 56–59. Spínola, H., A. Brehm, F. Williams, J. Jesus, and D. Middleton. 2002. “Distribution of HLA Alleles in Portugal and Cabo Verde: Relationships with the Slave Trade Route.” Annals of Human Genetics 66, no. 4: 285–96. Srnicek, Nick. 2017. Platform Capitalism. Malden, MA: Polity. Srnicek, Nick, and Alex Williams. 2015. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World without Work. Brooklyn: Verso. Standing, Guy. 2016. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Rev. ed.

Escape From Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
by Walter Scheidel
Published 14 Oct 2019

Nicola di Cosmo distinguishes between tribute empires that depended on payments from China and subordinates, from the Xiongnu at the end of the third century BCE to the Rouran up to the mid-sixth century CE; trade-tribute empires—exemplified by the Turks and Khazars during the following 350 years—that added control over long-distance trade routes to tribute-taking; dual-administration empires such as those of the Liao and Jurchen from the tenth through the mid-thirteenth centuries that increasingly relied on taxation; and the direct-taxation empires of the Mongols and Manchu that were made possible by the wholesale conquest of China.63 Throughout this period, as steppe powers shored up their capabilities, the interstitial phases between monopolistic (or duopolistic) empire in China itself kept contracting.

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In the latter region, prebendal assets were never similarly well privatized or protected, and the advent of Turkic and Mamluk conquest regimes increased the odds of arbitrary confiscation.47 The impact of political fragmentation on trade varied. Even though one might reasonably suspect more intense polycentrism to have raised transaction costs, the opposite could also be the case. The presence of multiple autonomous polities along the same trade route did in fact harm exchange by prompting serial predation. At the same time, interroute fragmentation that enabled traders to choose among “multiple politically independent routes” lowered tariffs. In the end, whatever the costs of fragmentation in terms of lives and treasure, it reliably opened up room for choice and bargaining.48 Medieval Foundations of Modern Development By 1000, Latin Europe had, in Michael Mann’s words, turned into “a multiple acephalous federation” that lacked a dominant center and was composed of complex interaction networks.

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Karayalcin 2008: 977–85 for a model, and 985–91 for supporting evidence; likewise Chu 2010, esp. 182. 46. E. Jones 2003: 233. 47. J. Hall 1985: 126–28; van Bavel, Buringh, and Dijkman 2018: 47. 48. Cox 2017: 726–29, who shows that tolls on fixed Ottoman caravan routes were much higher than on flexible English trade routes. 49. Mann 1986: 376–77 (quote: 376). 50. This last feature prompts Baechler 1975: 77 to observe that “the expansion of capitalism owes its origins and its raison d’être to political anarchy” (quote italicized in original). 51. Van Zanden 2009a: 48–49. My specifications in italics add much-needed precision to his own underlying trifecta (49).

Lonely Planet Poland
by Lonely Planet

Biecz POP 4697 One of the oldest settlements in Poland, Biecz (pronounced bee-ech) was a busy commercial centre with recognised civic rights by the 13th century. It benefited from the wine-trading route heading south over the Carpathians to Hungary, and some 30 crafts developed here. One ‘craft’ in particular is noteworthy: with the right to pass and carry out capital sentences, Biecz became a centre of public executions. In the 17th century the town’s fortunes plunged, when the plague wiped out nearly all its inhabitants and new trade routes bypassed it. The sleepy atmosphere seems to have remained to this day, though some important historic monuments and a good museum make Biecz a highlight of the region. 1Sights Start your exploration at the spacious Rynek, which covers no less than an eighth of Biecz’s entire area (making it Poland’s largest market square relative to the size of the town).

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The Polish part of the waterway was designed by an army engineer, General Ignacy Prądzyński, and built in just seven years (1824–30), though final works continued until 1839. The Russians were meant to build their part from the town of Kaunas up to Ventspils around the same time, but the work was never completed. The Augustów Canal ended up as a regional waterway, and though it contributed to local development, it never became an international trade route. Its route includes 28km of lakes, 34km of canalised rivers and 40km of canal proper. There are 18 locks along the way (14 in Poland), whose purpose is to bridge the 55m change in water level. The lock in Augustów itself has an extra twist to its history: badly damaged in WWII, it was rebuilt in 1947 in a different place.

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The name ‘Jasna Góra’ means Bright Hill, and the fact that the monastery was one of the few places in the country to survive Swedish aggression in the 17th century sealed it as a holy spot in the minds of many. The town’s foundational charter was granted in the 14th century under German law by King Kazimierz III Wielki, placing Częstochowa on an important trade route from Russia. Agricultural and industrial development, aided by the Warsaw to Vienna railway line, saw Częstochowa evolve into an established industrial centre by the end of the 19th century. By the outbreak of WWII, the city had some 140,000 inhabitants. As with many Polish cities of its size, Częstochowa had a sizeable Jewish community until the German occupation during WWII.

The Rough Guide to Egypt (Rough Guide to...)
by Dan Richardson and Daniel Jacobs
Published 1 Feb 2013

Asmant el-Khorab is now the field HQ of the Dakhla Oasis Project (DOP), a multi-disciplinary effort to understand the interaction of oasis cultures and their environment, from the Stone Age through until the twenty-first century. Half-a-dozen foreign missions are seeking the holy grail of Egyptology: evidence of links between the Old Kingdom and desert trade routes going back to Neolithic times, which may answer the question: did Ancient Egyptian civilization emerge from the Western Desert? * * * Qila ed-Dabba and Ain Asil 2–3km from Balat via a track 200m east of the village teahouse; also accessible on foot from Bashendi (2km) • Daily 8am–5pm • £E25 Although the oldest houses in Balat village date only from Mamluke times, this locality was a pharaonic seat of government as long ago as 2500 BC, when the oasis prospered through trade with Kush (ancient Nubia).

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Submerged by the sea aeons ago, leaving fossils on the high plateau, the Kharga depression is hemmed in by 300-metre-high cliffs, with belts of dunes advancing across the oasis. It’s thought that there were no dunes here in Roman times; myth has it that they erected a brass cow on the escarpment, which swallowed up the sand. Many desert trade routes converged on the oasis, notably the Forty Days Road. Both Roman legionaries and Mamluke troops were stationed here, and deserted Roman forts and villages that claim descent from Mamluke soldiers attest to centuries of firm control by Egypt’s rulers, who have used Kharga as a place of exile since antiquity.

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Protecting this vast area is another matter, especially since the revolutions in Egypt and Libya have weakened authority at every level. Please abide by park regulations (don’t disturb or remove anything), and report safari outfits engaged in trafficking artefacts to the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency ( eeaa.gov.eg). * * * THE FORTY DAYS ROAD Of all the trade routes between North Africa and the tropical south, the Forty Days Road (Darb al-Arba’in) was the one most involved in slavery – the only business profitable enough to justify the risks and rigours of the thousand-mile journey. The slaves, purchased at the Dongola slave market or kidnapped by the fierce desert tribes, were assembled at Kobbé, a town (no longer existing) 60km northwest of El-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s Darfur Province, once an independent kingdom.

Lonely Planet Turkey
by Lonely Planet

The Turkish fare – köfte (meatballs), grilled meat plates and plenty of vegetable meze dishes – is nothing to write home about, but snagging a terrace table and watching sunset over the travertines with a beer can’t be beaten. LAODICEA Laodicea (Laodikya; Pamukkale–Denizli Yolu; ₺15; h8am-7pm) was once a commercial city straddling two major trade routes, famed for its black wool, banking and medicines. Cicero lived here for a time and it was also home to a large Jewish population. Enter the site up colonnaded Syria St from where you reach a 2nd-century temple with a glass-floor showing toppled pillars beneath. Nearby is Laodicea’s basilica church, one of the ‘seven churches of Asia’ mentioned in the Book of Revelation, which holds beautifully restored mosaic flooring.

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Sculpture detail, Afrodisias | IREMTASTAN/GETTY IMAGES © Sagalassos The Roman ruins of Sagalassos, which was also a major Pisidian city, are scattered in an unbeatably poetic location at an altitude of 1500m in the Taurus Mountains. Sagalassos | KENANOLGUN/GETTY IMAGES © Laodicea Entered along a colonnaded street, Laodicea was a prosperous city on two trade routes and home to one of the Seven Churches of Asia (mentioned in the Book of Revelation). Laodicea | NEJDET DUZEN/SHUTTERSTOCK © İznik İznik’s Roman walls and Byzantine churches recall its heyday when the first Ecumenical Council, which shaped Christianity, met here. Antalya & the Turquoise Coast Dalyan Fethiye Kayaköy Ölüdeniz Xanthos Patara Kalkan Kaş Olympos Çıralı Antalya Side Antalya & the Turquoise Coast Why Go?

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And while the vibrant street life is enough of a reason to visit, Ankara also boasts two extraordinary monuments central to the Turkish story – the beautifully conceived Museum of Anatolian Civilisations and the Anıt Kabir, a colossal tribute to Atatürk, modern Turkey’s founder. History Although Hittite remains dating back to before 1200 BC have been found in Ankara, the town really prospered as a Phrygian settlement on the north–south and east–west trade routes. Later it was taken by Alexander the Great, claimed by the Seleucids and finally occupied by the Galatians around 250 BC. Augustus Caesar annexed it to Rome as Ankyra. The Byzantines held the town for centuries, with intermittent raids by the Persians and Arabs. When the Seljuk Turks came to Anatolia, they grabbed the city, but held it with difficulty.

The Price of Everything: And the Hidden Logic of Value
by Eduardo Porter
Published 4 Jan 2011

The very concept of a financial bubble is three hundred years old, added to the vernacular of finance in 1720 when French, Dutch, and British investors succumbed to euphoria over the potential of new trade routes across the Atlantic—pushing up stock prices before they ended in a precipitous crash. The British South Seas Company was established to buy the debt of the crown. To make money, it was given a royal charter to exploit trade routes between Africa, Europe, and Spain’s colonies in America. Spain and Britain being at war, the routes were of dubious value. But that didn’t stop investors from jumping on the vaunted opportunity.

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Investment decisions, he thought, are the result of “animal spirits—of a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.” Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, has proposed a model based on Keynes’s insight. In it, rationality takes a hike: a plausible new economic opportunity—say the Internet or new trade routes across the Atlantic—leads early investors to make a lot of money. This generates enthusiasm. The prices of the hot new asset—dot-com stocks, shares in shipping companies, whatever—are bid up as investors rush to partake of the profits. This leads to euphoria. Eventually the investments overrun the underlying logic.

Earth Wars: The Battle for Global Resources
by Geoff Hiscock
Published 23 Apr 2012

Contents Maps Introduction Chapter 1: The Four Essentials Clean Energy Technologies Lithium Triangle of the Andes Bolivia’s Ambitious Pitch Multitude of Factors New Products for Old Trading Routes The World in 2050 Chapter 2: Geographical Flashpoints Long Trading History The Opium Wars China’s Northern Borders Caspian’s Strategic Significance Arctic Ocean Disputes Chapter 3: The Key Players Commodity Trading Skills Russia’s Billionaire Oligarchs The AAR Connection Money in Metals World’s Most Valuable Companies Chinese Miners on the Prowl Rapid Emergence on the Global Stage Chapter 4: Food and Water Challenge for India, Pakistan Taming the Yangzi Aral Sea’s Damage Waters of the Nile High Food Prices Frozen Fresh Water Pressure on Prices Chapter 5: “Going Out” for Energy U.S.

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According to the EIA, these “pre-salt” oil deposits, found in rocks beneath the salt layer at combined water, salt, and rock depths of up to 6,700 metres (22,000 feet), have the potential to transform Brazil into one of the largest oil producers in the world.13 Venezuela, a founder member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has bigger reserves and is the world’s seventh largest oil producer, but since President Hugo Chavez’s nationalization of the oil industry in 2007, output has declined. Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador all produce oil and are the subject of interest from national and global oil companies. Colombia is growing its role as a coal exporter, too, with more supply earmarked for China and India. New Products for Old Trading Routes In a sense, this scramble for resources is simply a continuation of history—only the players and the products have changed. The Romans had been trading with India since before the first century, either via the overland caravan route through Persia, or by boat through the Red Sea. Indian trade extended east to China and Southeast Asia, as well as west to Africa and beyond.

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, November 2011 National leaders may make soothing noises about peaceful cooperation, but given the level of mistrust between China and India, China and Japan, and China and the United States, it’s far from inconceivable to see future clashes in the East and South China Seas or the Indian Ocean trade routes as China seeks to safeguard the resources it believes belong to it, and to manage its sea lanes of communication. That rationale applies to scores of other hotspots around the globe—Cuba looking for oil 100 km (60 miles) off the coast of Florida irritates the United States, as does Venezuela’s own version of resources diplomacy.

Sextant: A Young Man's Daring Sea Voyage and the Men Who ...
by David Barrie
Published 12 May 2014

Now they could determine their latitude at noon as the sun crossed their meridian, as well as after dark (from the height of Polaris), subject to the limitations of the instruments then at their disposal. Moreover, they could continue to find their latitude when south of the equator—when Polaris had disappeared below the northern horizon. This breakthrough helped the Portuguese to open up an enormously valuable trade route into the Indian Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope. Early in the sixteenth century the Portuguese also devised a rule for determining latitude by reference to the stars of the Southern Cross—which lie some distance from the south celestial pole.2 While latitude could be determined quite easily, the earth’s motions meant that the measurement of longitude was a much more difficult challenge.

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Beyond doubt was the fact that the vast Pacific Ocean had only so far been explored in a haphazard, piecemeal fashion and that the available Pacific charts were full of gaps and baffling inconsistencies. It was therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the “southern continent,” if it existed, might lie hidden in its unexplored reaches, and that the Pacific coast of North America might reveal a new and commercially valuable trade route between Europe and the Far East. It was against this background that, in 1768, the British Admiralty decided to send an expedition to the South Seas, under the command of an obscure warrant officer in the Royal Navy who was soon to become a celebrity throughout Europe. Envisaged initially as a contribution to the international scientific effort to observe the second Transit of Venus of the eighteenth century (the first having taken place in 1761), the expedition had the additional task of exploring the southern Pacific in search of the fabled continent.

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Michel, 3, 15n and natural navigation methods, 314n27 Pacific Northwest, 143, 147–48, 149, 151–53 and pack ice, 242 and position errors, 267–68, 275 and satellite navigation, 282 Straits of Magellan, 203, 206, 229 and Thetis wreck, 214 Torres Strait, 158 and voyage of the Beagle, 212 Tierra del Fuego and Anson’s explorations, 53 and Bougainville’s explorations, 115 and Cook’s explorations, 92 discovery of, 194–95 and voyage of the Beagle, 201, 203–8, 204–5 Timor, 39, 42–43, 175 tin clock, 228, 236 Tinian, 55 Titanic, 45 Tofoa (Tofua), 38, 41 Tom Thumb, 160 Tonga Islands, 37, 91, 133 Torres Strait and Bligh’s explorations, 41, 158 and Bougainville’s explorations, 120 and Cook’s explorations, 103 and Flinders’s explorations, 173–74, 175, 178, 182 and Slocum’s circumnavigation, 238 tourism, 95 trade routes, 139, 168 Trafalgar, Battle of, 147n transatlantic cruises, 7 Transit of Venus, 75, 88, 268 TRANSIT satellite system, 281 “Traverses” of St. Lawrence River, 10 treasure ships, 55–56 Treatise on Maritim Surveying (Mackenzie), 61 triangulation, 4–5, 61–62, 169, 239 trigonometry, 197 Trim (Flinders’s cat), 190–92 Tristram Shandy (Sterne), 191 Tropic of Capricorn, 23, 29 true north, 4, 27, 27n Tukopia, 134 Tupia, 264 Turrell, James, 283–84 Tuskar Rock lighthouse, 220 Tutuila, 129 Two-Handed Transatlantic Race, 271 typhus, 52 urbanization, 285 Urville, Jules Dumont d’, 136 U.S.

Why the Dutch Are Different: A Journey Into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands: From Amsterdam to Zwarte Piet, the Acclaimed Guide to Travel in Holland
by Ben Coates
Published 23 Sep 2015

The Low Countries were the birthplace of the atlas, the globe and the principles of triangulation, and many Dutch nautical terms found their way into the English language – yacht, schooner, jib, skipper, bow, boom, sloop, cruise, deck, wreck, blunderbuss. Located between the powerhouse economies of Britain and Germany, with a long seaboard at the crossroads of major trade routes, Dutch merchants made handsome profits ferrying goods like wine north from the Mediterranean and grain south from the Baltic. Waterborne traffic went not only past the Netherlands but through it, Dutch rivers and canals providing a convenient means of avoiding the stormy North Sea. However, Dutch trading prowess was largely confined to Europe, and the country had effectively been a bystander of the great period of colonial expansion, preoccupied with the fight for its independence during the years when the Spanish, Portuguese and English laid claim to much of the world.

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Eventually running to five bulky volumes, including beautiful illustrations, this was one of the world’s first great travel books. More importantly, the work was also a treasure trove of practical advice for those seeking to expand trade in Asia. It amounted to an encyclopaedia of Portuguese empire trade routes, including detailed nautical maps, information about the weather and tides, descriptions of the languages spoken by merchants in different ports, and the types of goods available for trade. The book identified quicker sailing routes from southern Africa to the East Indies, and explained the secret to breaking the Portuguese hold on the narrow straits between present-day Malaysia and Indonesia: by approaching from the south, Dutch ships could sneak through unnoticed by their rivals.

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Neat colonial bungalows were held in the gentle embrace of wide curving rivers; a ruined cathedral crumbled amid exotic wildlife, including an armadillo, an anteater and a monkey dozing in the sunshine. These South American scenes demonstrated how, as trade in the East flourished, the Dutch turned their attention westward. Some traders had grown frustrated with the monopoly exercised by the VOC and now sought to circumvent it, by creating new trade routes offering access to Asia from the opposite direction. Other motivations also came into play: the Spanish empire had been busily getting fat on South American silver and gold, and the Dutch were keen to seize a piece of the action. A European fashion for furs and an increasing demand for salt to cure fish also offered lucrative opportunities for imports from North America.

Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible
by William N. Goetzmann
Published 11 Apr 2016

FINANCE AND KNOWLEDGE Finance also played a role in another key aspect of civilization: the development of knowledge. One important way that humankind learned about the boundaries of the world was through merchant voyages requiring money and time—underwritten by investors hopeful of a future profit. In this way, finance has been a cofactor in civilization’s expansion and outreach. Trade routes linked societies from distant parts of the world. These distant connections were not only spatial, they were also temporal. From the outset, long-distance trade created long gaps of time: intervals between investment and return separated by the veil of uncertainty. Columbus had to wait patiently for the funding of his first transatlantic voyage, and then he had to promise the future unknown profits to his benefactors.

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Assur merchants struck deals with local rulers and kingdoms along these caravan routes; paying duty on their goods, and exacting exclusive rights and shutting out other Assyrian competitors. They even pursued gray market exporters from their own city. When the traders returned—minus most of their donkeys—they brought silver, the economic lifeblood of Mesopotamia. A major stop along the Assure trade route was a city in the region of what is now northeastern Syria, in the valley of the Khabur River. Documents attest to it having a karum district.8 In the late third millennium, the city may have been the capital of the kingdom of Apum, although the attribution is not certain. As luck would have it, in my pre-professorial days, I joined an expedition to search for this ancient trade outpost.

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This period also marked the beginning of large-scale urban Chinese civilization and the emergence of Chinese literature. One of the greatest of all China’s Warring States cities was Linzi [臨 淄] in the eastern Chinese state of Qi [齊]. Colonized by a Zhou general shortly after the fall of the Shang empire, the state of Qi occupied the Shandong [山東] peninsula and thus had access to shoreline trade routes as well as north–south inland commercial traffic. It was noted in Zhou times for its silks and other textiles, fish, and salt. According to the Grand Historian Sima Qian [司馬遷], who wrote the first account of the Zhou and Warring States era, the people of Qi were “generous, easy-going, of considerable intelligence, and fond of debate.… All five classes of people (scholars, farmers, traveling merchants, artisans, and resident traders) are to be found among them.”3 Note that two of the five classes were directly engaged in commerce.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond
Published 2 Jan 2008

The Khmer Empire, with its capital at Angkor, used to be Southeast Asia’s most powerful state, and Angkor’s population then was more than 20 times that of London’s at that time, around 1200. Tree-ring records now show that the region’s monsoon climate became more unstable, and that floods, droughts, deforestation, enemies, and shifting trade routes combined to bring down Angkor. For the first time in history, we face the risk of a global decline. But we also are the first to enjoy the opportunity of learning quickly from developments in societies anywhere else in the world today, and from what has unfolded in societies at any time in the past.

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Ironically, raising sheep in Greenland doesn’t pay even in the short run: the government has to give each sheep-farming family about $14,000 each year to cover their losses, provide them with an income, and induce them to carry on with the sheep. The Inuit play a major role in the story of the demise of Viking Greenland. They constituted the biggest difference between the histories of the Greenland and Iceland Norse: while the Icelanders did enjoy the advantages of a less daunting climate and shorter trade routes to Norway compared to their Greenland brethren, the Icelanders’ clearest advantage lay in not being threatened by the Inuit. At minimum, the Inuit represent a missed opportunity: the Greenland Vikings would have had a better chance of surviving if they had learned from or traded with the Inuit, but they didn’t.

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The U.S. is the world’s leading importer nation: we import many necessities (especially oil and some rare metals) and many consumer products (cars and consumer electronics), as well as being the world’s leading importer of investment capital. We are also the world’s leading exporter, particularly of food and of our own manufactured products. Our own society opted long ago to become interlocked with the rest of the world. That’s why political instability anywhere in the world now affects us, our trade routes, and our overseas markets and suppliers. We are so dependent on the rest of the world that if, 30 years ago, you had asked a politician to name the countries most geopolitically irrelevant to our interests because of their being so remote, poor, and weak, the list would surely have begun with Afghanistan and Somalia, yet they subsequently became recognized as important enough to warrant our dispatching U.S. troops.

1947: Where Now Begins
by Elisabeth Åsbrink
Published 31 Jul 2016

Tired of the Zionists’ bombs and acts of terrorism; of keeping the Arabs happy; of the fact that £80 million has been squandered in Palestine over the last two years, and that 100,000 British men are obliged to be there, far from their homes and work. All “for the sake of a senseless, squalid war with the Jews in order to give Palestine to the Arabs, or God knows who,” as Winston Churchill puts it. Britain, which once occupied the region to secure trade routes and colonial power, no longer wants the future of Palestine to be seen as an internal British matter, but instead places the responsibility on the rest of the world. On February 18, five days after Christian Dior’s dream fireworks, the British announce that they are handing the issue of Palestine’s future over to the UN without making any recommendations whatsoever.

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On Thursday, February 20, the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, announces that the British will be granting India independence. On Friday, February 21, the Americans are informed that Great Britain will no long be supporting Greece and Turkey as it did in the past. The Empire is collapsing. The country that once wielded world dominion is relinquishing it; the country that commanded the seas and the trade routes, held the balance of power, and disseminated its language, sport, arms, education system, currency, and soldiers across the globe is now cutting ties and turning in on itself. An incomprehensible week. Budapest The purge of anti-Communist elements starts on February 25 with the arrest of Béla Kovács, leader of the small farmers’ party, FKGP.

The Outcast Blade
by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Published 26 Mar 2012

The look on the messenger’s face said he knew he was doomed either way. “Those are the Council’s orders, my lord.” “Damn the Council. I’m coming ashore.” “You’ll be arrested.” Even Lord Atilo looked shocked at that. “I’ve just sunk the Mamluk fleet. Saved Cyprus from capture and protected our trade routes. Do you really think anyone would dare?” “My lord. Your orders…” Atilo il Mauros wanted to say that no one gave him orders. Except that wasn’t true: Duchess Alexa did; her son would have done had he not been simple. And Prince Alonzo, the Regent of Venice, also had the right. “I’ve fought storms for three days.

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Standing, Giulietta felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Marco wide-eyed and offering her a purple scarf. Having wiped her nose, she hesitated about handing it back. “K-k-keep it.” “You arranged my marriage to Janus. And don’t you dare say I had to marry someone. You arranged my marriage to a Black Crucifer because he ruled Cyprus, and Cyprus controlled the trade routes out of Egypt.” “He was Black only briefly.” “So everyone says. Black Crucifers torture people.” “For the remission of their sins.” “I don’t care.” Her voice cracked. “You arranged the marriage. And then…” She stopped and glanced sidelong at Marco, wondering how to word what came next. She’d been told to murder Janus, but slowly using the poisons her aunt provided.

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She’d never had the fierce friendships other girls had because she’d never been allowed. Still, why would she stop her cousin? Giulietta spent much of her own nights talking to Tycho. He seemed willing to listen, eager to learn. He asked questions and she answered: about Sigismund’s empire, how the trade routes made Venice rich, what might happen to the Byzantine Empire after John V Palaiologos died. Like her, he found Venice easier to like at a distance. In fact, she was sure they could grow to love it provided they didn’t have to return there. Why would they want to? When they had Alta Mofacon. Her wheat was cut, threshed and stored, her hay was made and straw gathered.

Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India
by Shashi Tharoor
Published 1 Feb 2018

For centuries the handloom weavers of Bengal had produced some of the world’s most desirable fabrics, especially the fine muslins, light as ‘woven air’, that were coveted by European dressmakers. As late as the mid-eighteenth century, Bengal’s textiles were still being exported to Egypt, Turkey and Persia in the West, and to Java, China and Japan in the East, along well-established trade routes, as well as to Europe. The value of Bengal’s textile exports alone is estimated to have been around 16 million rupees annually in the 1750s, of which some 5 to 6 million rupees’ worth was exported by European traders in India. (At those days’ rates of exchange, this sum was equivalent to almost £2 million, a considerable sum in an era when to earn a pound a week was to be a rich man.)

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The Bengal fleet in the early seventeenth century included 4,000 to 5,000 ships at 400 to 500 tonnes each, built in Bengal and employed there; these numbers increased till the mid-eighteenth century, given the huge popularity of the goods and products they carried. This thriving shipping and shipbuilding culture would be drastically curbed by the British. To reduce competition after 1757, the Company and the British ships that they contracted were given a monopoly on trade routes, including those formerly used by the Indian merchants. Duties were imposed on Indian merchant ships moving to and from Indian ports, not just foreign ones. This strangled the native shipping industry to the point of irrelevance in everything but some minor coastal shipping of low-value ‘native’ goods to local consumers.

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(The war of 1803 destroyed 173,000 tons of British shipping, forcing the government in London to employ 112,890 tonnes of foreign vessels to conduct British commerce.) Expediently, Indian shipping was now deemed to be British and Indian sailors were reclassified as British sailors, allowing them access to British trade routes under the Navigation Acts. But as soon as the Napoleonic Wars ended, the Navigation Acts were again amended to exclude Indian shipping and the industry once again declined. The story was repeated in the early twentieth century, when V. O. Chidambaram Pillai in Madras was allowed to set up a shipping company in the run-up to World War I.

The Eternal City: A History of Rome
by Ferdinand Addis
Published 6 Nov 2018

All over the great fertile plain to the south and east of Rome, around the ancient volcano of Mons Albanus, farmers and herders speaking an Italic language known as Latin were banding together to form the primitive communities that would grow to become the flourishing cities of Latium.* As these communities grew more organized, trade routes emerged to link the not-yet cities of the Latin plain, both to each other and to peoples further afield. Two of these routes crossed under Rome’s hills: the Tiber island marked the furthest point downstream at which the river could be forded, the easiest crossing point for anyone travelling up Italy’s west coast.

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Most dangerous of all, from Rome’s point of view, was ongoing conflict with the Etruscan city of Veii, which lay less than a day’s march to the north, on the far side of the river. This was far too close for either Roman or Veientine comfort. Both cities were too powerful and too ambitious to let the other survive unmolested, and both were competing for control of the same vital trade route – the old salt road that led up the Tiber valley. As the Romans tried to cut off the Veientine route on the river’s right bank, so Veii kept pushing to cut off the Roman route on the river’s left. And at first, Veii had the best of it. At the Battle of the River Cremera, in 477 BC, the noble clan of the Fabii – a clan that would play a huge role in later Roman history – is supposed to have been almost wiped out.

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Dionysius I, lord of the Greek city of Syracuse on the Sicilian coast, was, at that time, carving out a successful little empire for himself, with outposts all along the Italian peninsula. His new colony at Ancona on the Adriatic, right next to the territory of the Senones, was perfectly positioned to tap into the great north–south trade route over the Alps, especially if the Etruscans could be kept out of the picture. It is perfectly likely, though it cannot be proved, that the warband that sacked Rome was in Dionysius’s service. That would explain – better than the story of the negotiation at Clusium – why the Gauls came so far south: they were hired mercenaries on their way to Sicily.

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Published 20 Mar 2012

Political and economic institutions became more extractive, and Venice began to experience economic decline. By 1500 the population had shrunk to one hundred thousand. Between 1650 and 1800, when the population of Europe rapidly expanded, that of Venice contracted. Today the only economy Venice has, apart from a bit of fishing, is tourism. Instead of pioneering trade routes and economic institutions, Venetians make pizza and ice cream and blow colored glass for hordes of foreigners. The tourists come to see the pre-Serrata wonders of Venice, such as the Doge’s Palace and the lions of St. Mark’s Cathedral, which were looted from Byzantium when Venice ruled the Mediterranean.

…

Just as Rome declined, so did Aksum, and its historical decline followed a pattern close to that of the Western Roman Empire. The role played by the Huns and Vandals in the decline of Rome was taken by the Arabs, who, in the seventh century, expanded into the Red Sea and down the Arabian Peninsula. Aksum lost its colonies in Arabia and its trade routes. This precipitated economic decline: money stopped being coined, the urban population fell, and there was a refocusing of the state into the interior of the country and up into the highlands of modern Ethiopia. In Europe, feudal institutions emerged following the collapse of central state authority.

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Inhabitants of these islands produced and exported these rare spices in exchange for food and manufactured goods coming from the island of Java, from the entrepôt of Melaka on the Malaysian Peninsula, and from India, China, and Arabia. The first contact the inhabitants had with Europeans was in the sixteenth century, with Portuguese mariners who came to buy spices. Before then spices had to be shipped through the Middle East, via trade routes controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Europeans searched for a passage around Africa or across the Atlantic to gain direct access to the Spice Islands and the spice trade. The Cape of Good Hope was rounded by the Portuguese mariner Bartolomeu Dias in 1488, and India was reached via the same route by Vasco da Gama in 1498.

Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain
by John Darwin
Published 12 Feb 2013

By the 1870s, every fifth ship at Calcutta was a British India steamship.73 Much of the rest of Mackinnon’s career was spent in the restless search for ways of extending this maritime empire, especially in East Africa, where, as a pious Scot, he was drawn by Livingstone’s grand project for promoting ‘Christianity, commerce and civilization’ to destroy paganism, slavery (and Muslim overrule). The sad end of this venture – the inglorious failure of his Imperial British East Africa Company – probably hastened his death. 9. Principal British trade routes and commodities, 1923 THE GOLDEN EMPORIUM Of course, the eastern economy was not just the handiwork of the India-based British. Around a vast arc of the southern oceans, from Natal to Fiji, Indian emigrant labour (some of it indentured and short-term) was vital to the growth of plantation economies.

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Lugard now had the perfect credentials for a colonial proconsul. Another ex-soldier turned trader, George Goldie, had extracted a charter from London to defend Britain’s stake in the Niger valley against a commercial takeover by France. Goldie formed his Royal Niger Company in 1886. It used strong-arm methods to force open the trade routes into the Nigerian interior. By the mid 1890s, it was embroiled in all but a shooting war with French advance parties, moving south from the Sahel. Lugard’s task, as commander of Goldie’s private army, was to repel French influence and sign up local rulers to support the Company. When the armed struggle proved too much for the Company’s finances, its assets were nationalized (in 1898) and London took over.

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As well as his and his family’s clothes, a medical chest and ‘civilized’ necessities such as coffee, sugar and tea, he would need some ‘equipment’ to make his presence effective: a stock of Bibles and books; the tools he would need for minimal self-sufficiency (spades, axes and saws) as well as those he would encourage his converts to use. The missionary could rarely operate very far from an established trade route or too far in advance of the trader’s frontier. Indeed it was sometimes convenient to become a trader himself. So determined was Samuel Marsden to rescue the Maori from the Prince of Darkness (his phrase) that he bought his own ship (he had become a rich man) and sailed the 1,200 miles from Sydney to the North Island of New Zealand to buy Maori flax in exchange for his trade goods.

Lonely Planet China (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet and Shawn Low
Published 1 Apr 2015

History With its remote location, harsh terrain and diverse ethnic make-up, Yunnan was once considered a backward place populated by barbarians. The early Han emperors held tentative imperial power over the southwest and forged southern Silk Road trade routes to Myanmar (Burma). From the 7th to mid-13th centuries, though, two independent kingdoms, the Nanzhao and Dali, ruled and dominated the trade routes from China to India and Myanmar. It wasn’t until the Mongols swept through that the southwest was integrated into the Chinese empire as Yunnan. Even so, it remained an isolated frontier region, more closely aligned with Southeast Asia than China.

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Best Classical Gardens AGarden of the Master of the Nets AHumble Administrator’s Garden APresidential Palace Best Museums ANanjing Museum ASuzhou Museum AMemorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre Jiangsu Highlights 1 Get a grade A cultural fix at the splendid Nanjing Museum 2 Feast your eyes on the historical artefacts at Suzhou Museum 3 Indulge in the beauty of the gardens of Suzhou 4 Suzhou’s charms reach a crescendo along Pingjiang Lu 5 Enjoy tea-tasting and a traditional pingtan performance at the Pingtan Teahouse 6 Lose yourself in the alleys and canals of Tongli 7 Four words: Chinese Sex Culture Museum 8 Relax in the charming towns of Luzhi, Mudu or Zhouzhuang 9 Get some highbrow culture at a Kunqu opera performance a Scenic Ming Xiaoling Tomb is perfect for a stroll History Jiangsu was a relative backwater until the Song dynasty (960–1279), when it emerged as an important commercial centre as trading routes were opened up by the Grand Canal. In particular, the south of the province flourished: the towns of Suzhou and Yangzhou played an important role in silk production, overseen by a large mercantile class. Prosperity continued through the Ming and Qing dynasties, and with the incursion of Westerners into China in the 1840s, southern Jiangsu opened up to Western influence.

…

Frequent buses depart Quanzhou’s long-distance bus station (¥13, 1½ hours), taking you past arrays of stone statues (the area is famed for its stone-carving workshop) before ending up in Chongwu. Motorbikes (¥5) will take you from the bus drop-off to the stone city. Xunpu Village The fishing village of Xunpu, some 10km southeast of the city centre of Quanzhou, was on the old trade route of the maritime Silk Road and was perhaps the Arabs’ first port of call when they set foot in Quanzhou during the Song dynasty. The village, now under encroaching urbanisation, is still fascinating and you’ll find some old houses built with oyster shells behind the main road in the village. Meanwhile, the grannies still wear the flamboyant traditional head ornaments that they love to brag about.

Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism
by Kevin Phillips
Published 31 Mar 2008

As early as 1670, despite the Dutch Republic’s “golden age” riches and its huge fleet and maritime outposts from Japan and South Africa to India and Brazil, some observers began to worry about how so many great merchants now lived on interest income and rents, rather than actively continuing earlier commercial and maritime activities.9 Then from 1688 to 1713, the Netherlands fought a series of wars—in retrospect, more beneficial to the future of their ally England, newly ruled by a king who was also a Dutch prince—that wound up costing the Hollanders, who were subordinate in war strategy, vital trade and trade routes while quintupling the Dutch debt. By the 1730s, it was reasonably clear that the Dutch Republic was starting to decline, and by the 1750s, as current-day historians like Simon Schama and Jonathan Israel have detailed with such thoroughness, there was malaise in the air, a sense of too much dependence on finance, a renewed fascination with the late-sixteenth-century Dutch revolt against Spain, and a yearning to somehow re-create the lost golden age.10 So was reform pursued?

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By the end of that century, Amsterdam traders were complaining that whereas the town regents had previously been active merchants, now they “derived their income from houses, lands and money at interest.” The wars between 1688 and 1713 broke Holland as a naval power and forced interest rates up to 9 percent, the highest since its independence. During those same years, the Dutch national debt quintupled. By the 1720s and 1730s, the Dutch ceased to dominate some of their prime trading routes, and local financiers preferred to loan money abroad rather than at home. Midcentury brought obvious economic decline. This chronology was not very different. Spain, the previous leading world economic power, probably reached its heyday in the 1550s, started losing self-confidence after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and by the early 1600s was in the clutch of a malaiselike desengano.

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The events and circumstances drawn together in this upheaval—unprecedented far-flung European maritime exploration; enough gold and silver from America to massively expand Europe’s money supplies; significant population growth; the rapid expansion of cities; the cultural dynamism of the Renaissance; European control of Asian trade routes, spices, and luxury goods; technological innovation in war, commerce, and navigation alike; huge new commercial fortunes; and much expanded consumer markets—signaled a new European centrality in the world. Asia, more populous and hitherto richer, fell behind. Prices did not always go up everywhere in Europe, but their general trajectory was upward.

Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science
by Jim Al-Khalili
Published 28 Sep 2010

Its life force was the well of Zamzam, which provided the city’s water. For a century or so before Islam there had been a massive migration of population from southern to western Arabia (the region known as the Hijaz) and further north to Syria and Palestine. With its prime location along this trade route between Yemen in the south and the Mediterranean in the north, Mecca had grown rich and powerful, not only as a trade centre but as a financial one too. More importantly, its role as a holy centre for the many pagan religions of the Arabians dating back to antiquity made it a safe haven for those wishing to escape the widespread violence that regularly broke out among the tribes in the region.

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Some historians have claimed that despite the Abbāsids’ admiration of all things Persian and, by association, their link to Indian science and culture in the East, the whole of the translation movement was built on what was originally Greek science.8 To some extent this is true. The expansion of Alexander the Great’s empire as far east as India, many centuries before Islam, carried the fruits of Greek science far beyond its home shores – although we should not forget the sea trade routes from Egypt as a separate avenue of transmission. This knowledge, one can argue, eventually made the circuitous journey from its Greek origins, via India, back to the palace courts of Abbāsid Baghdad. Much of Greek knowledge also reached the Arabic world through the great Christian cities of Antioch and Edessa where, to a lesser extent, a translation tradition from Greek to Syriac had flourished in the centuries before Islam’s arrival.

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In this sense, what Maimonides took from the Islamic philosophers and applied to Jewish theology was no different from what Thomas Aquinas did for Christian theology. And so we finally come to the most important legacy of Andalusia. For it is through Spain that so much of Arabic science reached Europe. While there were other avenues of transmission and translation, such as through Sicily and along the trade routes with city-states like Venice, as well as through the efforts of Christian travellers in the East such as the Englishman Adelard of Bath (1080–1152), it was nevertheless first and foremost the recapture of Islamic Spain by the Christians that would give Europe access to the wealth of knowledge produced in the Islamic world.

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be
by Moises Naim
Published 5 Mar 2013

Monopolies, single-party systems, military dictatorships, societies that officially favor a particular race or religious faith, marketplaces swamped with advertising for a dominant product, cartels like OPEC, political systems like the American one in which two parties effectively control the electoral process and small ones cannot get a foothold—all of these are situations where the barriers to power are high, at least for now. But some citadels can be stormed—either because their defenses are not as strong as they seem, because they are unprepared for new types of attackers, or, for that matter, because the treasures they protected have lost value in the first place. In such instances the trade routes now bypass them, and they are no longer of interest to marauding armies. For example, the founders of Google did not set out to erode the dominance of the New York Times or other powerful media companies, but that is in fact what they accomplished. Insurgents who use improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, or bands of Somali pirates who use rickety boats and AK-47s to hijack large ships in the Gulf of Aden, are circumventing the barriers that ensured the dominance of technologically sophisticated armies and navies.

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The key is this: When people are more numerous and living fuller lives, they become more difficult to regiment and control. The exercise of power in any realm involves, fundamentally, the ability to impose and retain control over a country, a marketplace, a constituency, a population of adherents, a network of trade routes, and so on. When the people in that territory—whether potential soldiers, voters, customers, workers, competitors, or believers—are more numerous and in fuller possession of their means and functioning at ever-greater levels of ability, they become more difficult to coordinate and control. The former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, reflecting on the drastic changes in the world order since he entered public life, put it bluntly: “It is infinitely easier today to kill a million people than to control them.”8 For those in power, the More revolution produces thorny dilemmas: How to coerce effectively when the use of force gets more costly and risky?

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For centuries, the job of tending the rivalry between nations and scrabbling for territory, resources, and influence has been the noble calling of generals and ambassadors. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the representatives of the so-called Great Powers wielded their respective country’s military might and economic clout to win wars, harness alliances, secure trade routes and territory, and set the rules for the rest of the world. After World War II even more impressive creatures, the superpowers, came to perch on top of this group. And the dawn of the twenty-first century, with the Soviet Union consigned to the history books, found just one player paramount: the sole superpower, the hegemon, the United States.

The Frayed Atlantic Edge: A Historian’s Journey From Shetland to the Channel
by David Gange
Published 10 Jul 2019

In the twentieth century, the papae were seen as holy men seeking a ‘desert place in the ocean’ and choosing these island sites because of their remoteness. But only a modern landlocked culture could misinterpret coastlines quite so drastically. Two things demolish that interpretation. One is the centrality of these islands to premodern trade routes. The ocean lanes now sometimes labelled ‘sea roads of the saints’ were general lines of travel for goods, ideas and people: these seas were society’s arteries. In later centuries Macleod lords set up home near two old Pabbays; historians long wrote of these lordly manors as sitting at ‘extreme outer limits of their territories’.

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Sea travel was not, for them, as unwelcome a risk as it was in the minds of the first scholars to study them. Nor were they simple folk: their arrival on Scottish shores may have been caused by the expansion of large-scale maritime trading networks.2 As the archaeologist Hugh Carthy put it in 2011: ‘we appear seriously to have underestimated the extent and importance of coastal trade routes throughout the prehistory of western Europe, perhaps flippantly dismissing our ancestors as primitive hunter-gatherers’.3 This region, with its many shoreline niches for human exploitation, offers a vivid demonstration of the sea’s role as the cohesive element of the Mesolithic world. For every onshore structure dug up by Scotland’s archaeologists a hundred shipwrecks must lie at the bottom of such places: rowed, sailed and sunk during vast tracts of human history when boats and not buildings were humans’ primary tool against starvation and the elements.

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Murray, 14; Orkney, 51–2, 57, 66, 86–7; in post-war Cornwall, 317–23, 324–5; Romantic poets, 131, 148; Shetland dialect poets, 25, 42, 54, 55; shieling songs and poems, 94–5; Simm’s otter poems, 175; Skye, 165, 175–8; Vagaland, 25–6, 40, 317; in Wales, 303–4, 306–10; of Western Isles, 93; wolves in, 136 poitín (home-made spirit), 220–1 Poldark (television series), 332 Pont, Timothy, 158 Pope, Alexander, 127 population density, 126–7 porphyry, 39 porpoises, 49, 167, 236, 272, 279, 333; as food, 276–7, 278–9 Porteous, William, 54, 55–6 Porter family of Enlli, 305 Portree (Skye), 181 potatoes, 111, 210, 214, 218, 228–9, 250 Praeger, Robert Loyd, 242–3 Presbyterians, Scottish, 219 primroses, 93 ptarmigan, 160, 180 puffins, 20, 32, 55, 55, 68, 87–8, 188, 227 Pwllheli (Wales), 292, 293, 294–5 Quandale, parish of (Rousay), 78–81 quartz, 33 quartzite, 126, 160 Quinag (A’ Chuinneag) (‘the Milk Churn’, mountain), 2, 3 Raasay, island of, 167 rabbits, 63, 65–6, 71, 228 racism, scientific, 190 Rackwick (‘Orkney riviera’), 83–5 railway boom (1830s), 5 Ramna Stacks, 32 Ramsbury, bishop of, 344 Rathlin lighthouse, 198 rats, 95 razorbills, 214, 271 Receivers of Wreck, 280 red fescue, 93 red ochre, 168 redstarts, 160 red-throated divers, 41 religion, 128, 219, 260–1, 304; mid-nineteenth century debates, 298–9; see also Catholicism; Celtic Christianity Renaissance, 189, 340 Rendall, Robert, Orkney Shore (1963), 67, 88 Rendall, Tommy, 68, 73 Ritchie, John, 11 Roan Inish, skerry of, 228 Robertson, Robin, ‘The Law of the Island’, 21–2 Robertson, Thomas, 34 Robinson, Mairead, 256–7, 259 Robinson, Tim, 256–7, 274–5, 310, 339, 340, 345; Connemara’s modern mapping, 240–1, 254, 256, 257, 258, 261; on Dún Aonghasa, 262; on imperial logic of mapping, 241–2; logic of attentive being, 265–7; noise of Atlantic coastlines, 85; as philosopher of place-lore, 256, 257, 258, 260, 263–4, 267–8; rejection of shore as boundary, 261; religion and secularism, 260–1 rock pipits, 277 Rodel (Harris coastal chapel), 172 Rognvald Kali Kolsson, Earl, 50–3, 60–1 Roman Britain, 209, 294 romanticism, 346–7; Celtic revival, 94–5; Cornish, 332; Romantic poets, 131, 148; and Shetland, 54; and Skye, 166, 182–3; of west of Scotland, 12 Rona, island of (Ronaidh an t’haf), 99, 167, 174 Ronas Voe (Shetland), 35 Ross, Mary, 282 Roundstone village (Connemara), 259 Rousay, island of, 59, 76–81, 86–7 Ruaidhrí, Patsaí Dan Mag (Thoraí island king), 225 Rullard’s Roost (tidal race), 59–60, 77 Rum, Isle of, 92, 180, 187, 190 Rumann mac Colmáin (poet), 273 Rusk Holm (Orkney skerry), 76–7 Ruvaal lighthouse, 198 rye, 220 Sabhal Mòr Ostaig (Skye), 165 Sakhalin Island, 248–9, 252 salmon, 236; farming of, 247 San Pellegrino of Ireland, 207 sand sedges, 93 sanderling, 254 Sandray (Sanndraigh), isle of, 116 sandstone, 33, 77, 82, 135 Sandwood Bay (near Cape Wrath), 310 Saro-Wiwa, Ken, 249–50, 251 Saunders, Gwenno, 316 Saurin, Amanda, 112–13 Saxa Vord (headland), 18 saxifrage, xi Scalloway (Shetland), 44 Scandinavia, xi, 168, 206; see also Norse world Scariff Island (County Kerry), 287 Schama, Simon, Landscape and Memory, 6 Schönberg, Arnold, 84 Scilly Isles, 333, 334, 335 Scoraig peninsula (Scotland), 153 Scotland: Act of Union (1707), 88, 128; ancient woodland, 157, 158, 159–60; Ardnamurchan coast, 187, 188; Argyll coastline, 198–204, 208; Balnakiel (near Cape Wrath), 123, 128–9, 172; Cape Wrath to Coigach, 123–4, 125, 132–4; clearances, 8, 127, 136, 188; conversion to strict Calvinism, 128; co-operative societies, 229, 230; deep sea lochs of west, 145; deforestation, 157–9; emptying of north-west, 152–3; first settlers, 167–70; geology/landscape in north-west, 123, 125–6, 130–3, 134, 135, 138–9, 145–9, 153–4; ‘Great Wilderness’, 153–6; ‘Highland problem’ as Enlightenment invention, 344; Highland sporting estates, 152–3, 154–5; historical sources for far north-west, 128, 130–2, 154; human traces/ruins, 123, 127, 136, 154, 155, 157–8; independence referendum (2014), 208; Industrial Revolution in, 157–9; land ownership today, 154; low treeline in mountain areas, 156–7; mountains of north-west, 2–3, 125–6, 134, 137, 145–6, 153, 155, 156, 157, 159–61; post-Culloden reign of terror, 129; steamers to Shetland, 26–7; stereotyping/mythologising of coastal communities, 11–12; urban Gaelic renaissance, 141–2; wildlife and flora of north-west, 125, 134–5, 139, 153, 156–7, 159–61; see also entries for islands and island groups; Sutherland Scotsman newspaper, 104 Scott, Walter, 182–3 Scottish Wildlife Trust, 135 sea clans, 171–4; stripped of power, 99–100, 173 sea conditions: death on the edge-zone, 236–7; as deceptive in changing weather, 28–9, 30, 40–1, 59–60; Dorus Mor tide, 193–4; at Foula, 55; late summer uncertainty, 59; noise of Atlantic coastlines, 83–7; Orkney tides, 19, 59–60, 75–7, 82–3; Outer Hebridean waves/rolling swell, 97–8; at Seven Stones, 335–6; shallow inshore in Hebrides, 97–8; Shetland tides, 19, 22–3, 27–30, 32, 36, 49, 50, 53, 75; tides of Hoy, 82–3; violence of waves, 18, 22; violent seas around Ireland, 228, 242–6, 266–8, 287; on Welsh coast, 293, 304 sea eagles, 7, 110, 135, 167 sea gooseberries, 110 Sea of Moyle, 229, 282 sea roads and trade routes: and early humans in Scotland, 168–9; historic sea links to China, xi, 206; in MacCaig’s verse, 137; Ness ships on, 101; of Norse world, 23, 50–1, 119–20, 172–3; plotted by ships of science, 240; revived during Donegal blockade, 230; role of in Mesolithic world, 168–70; in Shetland, 23, 26; South Atlantic sea route, 88; west coast of Ireland, 206, 211–13, 260 seabirds: breeding, 19; feathers as commodity, 117; as food, 11, 68, 70–1, 107; ground-nesting on Foula, 55; on Handa Island, 135, 137; in Ireland, 214, 215, 227, 228, 235, 236, 271, 283; ‘King Auk’, 62–3; on Orkney, 68, 70–1; on Shetland, 17, 20–2, 31–2, 38, 39, 42, 43, 46–8, 55–6; on Skye, 167, 168, 176, 178; Skye symbolism, 176; in Wales, 296; on Western Isles, 99, 107, 116, 117 Sealga, Loch na, 155, 156 seals, 81, 243, 246; killing of on Orkney, 68, 69–70; killing of on Papa Stour, 39 seaside resorts, 292–3, 310–11 seasons: autumn, 93–4, 116, 123–4; climbing in winter, 125–6, 145, 179–81; July as turn of British year, 17–18; late summer uncertainty, 59; spring, 188, 214, 227–8, 271; summer, 93–4, 315; winter, 18, 125–6, 155–6, 179–81, 187, 189, 293 Second World War, 317, 318, 321–2, 328, 332 secularism, 260–1, 297, 301 Sennen Cove (Cornwall), 333 Seven Stones (Cornish Atlantic), 334, 335–6 Severin, Tim, The Brendan Voyage (1978), 212 Sgoth Niseach (traditional Ness boat), 98, 108 Sgùrr Alasdair (Cuillin), 180–1 Sgùrr Mhic Choinnich (Cuillin), 181 Sgùrr na Banachdaich (Cuillin), 181 Sgùrr na Stri (Cuillin), 182 Sgùrr Thearlaich (Cuillin), 181 sharks, 17, 69, 139, 167, 254, 271–2 Sharp, William, 94 shearwaters, 236, 271 sheep, 40, 43–4, 46, 72, 76–7, 78, 96, 107, 117, 151, 156, 277 Shell (multinational company), 248–50, 251, 341 Shenavall bothy (Scotland), 153–6 Shetland Islands: arable land on Havera, 43, 47; boat design, 26–8, 29–31; coast of north mainland (Northmavine), 32–4; da roost (tide at Sumburgh Head), 27, 49, 50, 52; dialect tradition, 25, 31, 42, 53–4; drongs (sea stacks), 25, 48; Eshaness cliffs, 36–7; first newspapers, 53–4; Fitful Head, 49; geology/landscape, 18, 22, 25–6, 32–7, 38–40, 41–5, 48, 55–6, 75; Havera: The Story of an Island (2013), 41–2; history, 23, 24–31, 33–5, 39–40, 41–8, 52–3; human traces/ruins, 23, 24, 41, 43–7, 49, 50; intermixing of coast and culture, 24–6; Jarlshof Viking site, 50; and July’s double nature, 17–18; and Hugh MacDiarmid, 33–5; mountain heritage, 33, 75; Muckle Flugga, 18–22; Nort Atlantik term, 93; ocean floor, 33; Papa Stour caves, 38–9, 40; sea crossings, 75; sea fog (haa), 29, 40–1; sinking of coastline, 49; skerries, 5, 18–22, 23, 26; small boat tradition, 23, 24–31; St Magnus Bay, 36–7, 38–9, 40; steamers to Scottish mainland, 26–7; storms/shipwrecks in nineteenth-century, 27, 28–9, 30; Sumburgh Head, 27, 49, 50–2; tidal conditions, 19, 22–3, 27–30, 32, 36, 49, 50, 52, 75; tombolo beach, 49; violence of waves, 18, 22, 29–30; wildlife and flora, 17–18, 20–2, 31–2, 37–8, 41, 42, 43, 46–8, 50, 55–6; windmill on Havera, 43, 44–5, 47 Shiant Isles, 2, 99 Shieldaig (Scotland), 161 the shieling (Western Isles bothy), 94–5 Simm, Colin, 175 sixareens, 28, 29–31 Skea Skerries (Orkney), 76 Skellig Michael, skerry of, 283–7 the Skelligs, 277, 283–7 Skerryvore rock (Argyll), 198, 284 Skokholm (Pembrokeshire island), 291, 311 Skomer (Pembrokeshire island), 291, 311–12 skuas, 7, 17, 20, 38, 39, 47, 137 Skye, Ise of: Araidh na Suiridh, 94; ‘Battle of the Braes’, 177; bridge to mainland, 166; cattle-droving routes, 150–1; Cuillin, 176, 178, 179–82, 187; Dunnett and Adam reach, 193; Eyes on Skye community initiative, 166; fame as unique, 165; geology/landscape, 166–9, 174, 175–6, 177, 178, 179–82; ‘Glendale martyrs’, 177; history, 150–1, 165, 166; human traces/ruins, 167–71; in modern popular culture, 183; mountains, 3, 92, 176, 178, 179–82, 187; nineteenth-century land agitations, 165; poetry, 165, 175–8; politics, 176–8; ‘relict coastlines’, 167–9; Stallion Rock, 177, 178; and tourism, 165–6, 181–3; tradition of activism, 165, 166, 177; wildlife and flora, 167–9, 174–5, 176, 178, 180; as zoomorphic landscape, 176–8 slavery and British Empire, 88, 190 sleeping bag, 2, 35 Slieve league, sea cliffs of (County Donegal), 211 Sligo (Ireland), 237, 245 Slioch (‘the Spear’, mountain), 156, 157 Slyne Head lighthouse, 202 Smart, Borlase, 327 Smith, Brendan, 294 Smith, Brian, 53 Smith, Christine, 103 snipe, 198 snow buntings, 160 social inequality, 115, 177–8, 191–2; diet as marker of class, 127, 203; influence of new technologies, 343; shoreline sustenance associated with poverty, 127; and Trevelyan’s travels, 147–8, 152 social media, 9–10 socialism, 177–8 Society of Antiquaries, 44 Solnit, Rebecca, 7 Sound of Luing, 199 South Uist, 100, 109, 116–17 Spanish Armada, xi, 74–5 Spring, Dick, 248 Spring Rice, Thomas, 239 St Agnes (Cornwall), 324 St Boniface’s Kirk (Papay), 63–4 St Brendan, 118, 175, 212, 273, 284 St Columba (Colmcille), 118, 206, 214, 215, 225, 272–3, 284 St Cuthbert, 175 St David, 284 St Fionan, 272, 284 St George’s Channel, 291 St Gildas, 284 St Ives (Cornwall), 325–32, 333 St Kilda, 5, 8, 11, 99 St Ninian’s Isle, 48–9 St Patrick, 286 St Ronan, 98–9, 118 Stac Pollaidh (mountain), 2 Stac Clò Kearvaig, 134 Stafford, George Granville Leveson-Gower, marquis of, 127 Stags of Broadhaven, 243–6, 248 Stalin, Joseph, 178 Stenness Island, 36–7 Steven, Kenneth, 175 Stevenson family, 198 Stiùbhart, Domhnall Uilleam, 99 stone circles, 8 stonechats, 277 storm foul, 178 storm petrels, 1, 47 Stornoway, 97, 100, 105, 110, 132 Strathy Point lighthouse, 86 Stromeferry (Scotland), 152 Stromness (Orkney), 82, 83, 140–1 Stuart, house of, 100, 128–9 Styles, Harry, 183 Suilven (Sùilebheinn) (‘the Pillar’, mountain), 2, 3 Sula Sgeir, island of, 99, 107 Sula Stac, island of, 99 Summer Isles (Scotland), 1–3, 333 supernatural and the uncanny: Chamberlain’s Tide Races (1962), 302–3; mounds in landscape, 79–80 Sutherland: clearances, 127, 136; coastal mountains, 125–6; eighteenth-century communication lags, 129; and isolation, 188; and Jacobite cause, 128–9; low population density, 126–7; and Norman MacCaig, 121, 124, 137–40, 142; offshore skerries at Cape Wrath, 134; and urban Gaelic renaissance, 141–2; wildlife and flora, 134–5 Sutherland, Alex, 154 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 333 Taobh Tuath (Lewis), 109 Taransay (Harris), 118 ‘taskscape’, 79 Telford, Thomas, 141 Tennyson, Alfred, 333 terns, 32, 38, 43, 227 thalassophobia, 170, 205 Thomas, Antonia, 80–1 Thomas, Edward, 94 Thomas, Keith, 6 Thomas, R.S., 303–4, 308 Thompson, Sydney Mary, 282 Thomson, David, The People of the Sea, 246 Thomson, Willie, 66 timber trade, 157 Tobermory (Mull), 195, 196–7 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 218 Thoraí (Tory Island) (County Donegal), 214–23; island king, 215, 218, 223, 225, 226; lack of tourist infrastructure, 225–6; lighthouse, 198, 204; resistance to island’s emptying, 223–5; sean-nós (song style), 223; seasonal migration to Scotland, 229; as site of unfinished histories, 226; tradition of art, 223–5 Torridon range, 3, 161 tourism, 345; in Aran Islands, 262; in Cornwall, 312, 315–16, 325, 326; gulf between communities and visitors, 292; opening of Skye to visitors, 165–6, 181–3; in Wales, 292–3, 310–12 Traills (Orcadian laird family), 73–4, 88 transhumance customs, 94–5 transport: decline of boat travel, 6; mainland arteries, 5, 325–7 trees: ancient pinewoods, 157, 158, 159, 160; deforestation, 157–9, 175; low treeline in Scottish mountain areas, 156–7; on Skye, 167–8, 169 trefoils, 23, 94 Trevelyan, G.M., 6, 146–9, 152, 258 Trevose Head (Cornwall), 316 Tristan and Isolde myth, 333, 334 Tuatha Dé Danaan (mythological Irish race), 213 Turner, J.M.W., 182–3 A Turning Tide in the Life of Man (film, 2014), 264 Ùig (Skye), 100 Uist (Western Isles), 22–3, 100, 109, 111–12, 115, 116–17, 204 Ullapool (Scotland), 3–4, 124, 140–2 Ulster, province of, 118, 134; historical significance of coast, 205–9; see also Donegal, County (province of Ulster); Thoraí (Tory Island) (County Donegal) Underhoull (Shetland site), 23 Unst, island of, 22–3, 28–30, 32, 39–40 urban society, 141–2, 268, 339, 340, 341, 343, 344–6 Urquhart, Robert, 141–2 Vagaland (Thomas Alexander Robertson), 25–6, 40, 317 Valentia Island, 279–82 Vallay, island of, 111 Ve Skerries, 39 Viking heritage see Norse world voles, 95, 160 Wales: Anglo-Welsh ‘islomania’, 291, 295–6; and ‘Atlantic Arc’ idea, 295; Bae Ceredigion (Cardigan Bay), 291–2, 311; and Celtic Christianity, 296, 297–9, 301–4, 305; force of sea in winter, 293; geology/landscape, 295–6; Gorsedd festivals, 324; history, 292–3, 294–5, 296–302, 306–10, 311; human culture of coastlines, 293–5; human presence on coastlines, 292–3, 310–12; kingdom of Dyfed, 294; Llyn Peninsula, 291, 293, 295, 299–300; mixed essences of, 291, 293, 295–6; Pembrokeshire islets, 291, 311–12; St David’s Peninsula, 294; tourism in, 292–3, 310–12; Welsh language place names, 293–4, 296; wildlife and flora, 295–6, 307–8 walking: coastal walking routes, 9; in ‘Great Wilderness’, 153, 156; and Haldane, 149, 150; as research, 6, 7, 146–9, 257, 258–9; and Tim Robinson, 258–9; and Trevelyan, 146–9 Wallen, Errollyn, 86, 87 HMS Wasp, 215 Water Witch (sixareen), 30 Watt, Henry, North Sea (1939), 11 weather and climate, 336; and clothing decisions, 35; as deceptive in changing weather, 36; and deceptive seas conditions, 28–9, 30, 36, 40–1, 59–60; Europe’s ‘little ice age’, 49–50; July in Shetland, 17, 23–4, 28–9, 31; ocean as ecosystem, 343; prevailing sou’westerlies, 24; sea fog (haa) on Shetland, 29, 40–1; ‘Storm King’ on Shetland, 55–6; storms in nineteenth-century Shetland, 27, 28–9, 30 web resource, xii Wedgwood, Veronica, 148–9 Weisdale (Shetland), 44 Wellington, Duke of, 239 Welsh language, 4, 10, 293–4, 305–6; and oceanic geographies, 294–5; and slate industry, 246 West Africa, 169–70 West Burra, island of, 27 West Skerry, island of, 43 Western Isles, 1; active practice of history on, 104–14; broadcasting and publishing, 109; calcareous shell-sand, 93, 94, 95; clearances, 8, 95, 96, 100–1, 102; coffin roads and coffin ships, 96; competition for rich coastal land, 94; ‘Comuinn Eachdraidh’ (historical societies) in, 104–9, 112, 113, 115, 212; Cuan Siar term, 93; destigmatising of tradition, 107–8, 112–13; dramatic rejuvenation since 1970s, x, 91; early-medieval ‘thalassocracies’, 91; and Enlightenment ‘progress’, 95, 111–12, 258; farming on, 94–5, 96, 111–13, 116–17, 119–20; and Gaelic language, 72, 91, 93, 99, 100, 102, 104–5, 107–10; Gaelic language in, 72, 91, 93, 99, 100, 102, 104–5, 107–10; geology/landscape, 91–2, 93–4, 95–6, 98–9, 116; history, 94–5, 96, 98–100, 104–8; human traces/ruins, 96, 98, 99, 116–17, 119; illicit distilling on, 117; Industrial Revolution in, 100; infrastructure of Gaelic community, 109; lack of inscriptions, 92; linn nan creach (time of raids), 100; local government reform (1970), 105; machair (flowering grassland), 93, 96, 111, 112, 119, 227; mid-twentieth-century depression, 102; oral culture, 92, 99, 102, 106–7, 112; ‘papa’ sites, 117–20; poetry of, 93; potato blight of 1840s, 111; relationship of land with sea, 93–4; respect for unquiet ocean, 97–8; sea clans stripped of power, 99–100; small-scale crofting, 111–12, 115; sunsets and dawns, 96, 116; waves/rolling swell, 97–8; wildlife and flora, 93–4, 95–6, 110–11, 112–13, 116–17 Westray, island of, 60–1, 67–75 whales, 19, 49, 50, 167, 272–6, 280–1 Whalsay, island of, 26 wheatears, 42 Whitbread family, 153 White, Ben, 126 wild thyme, 112–13 wild-cats, 125 Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, 311–12 Williamson, Gideon, 44 Williamson, Laurence, 54 Wilson, Brian, Blazing Paddles: A Scottish Odyssey, 197 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 172 wolves, 136 Woolf, Virginia, 316–17, 326, 330 Wordsworth, William, 130, 148 wrens, 153, 277 Yarner Wood (Dartmoor), 160 Yeats, W.B., 250–1 Yell, island of, 23, 29, 32 Youth Hostel Association, 148 Zennor (Cornwall), 320 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO know how to approach the acknowledgements required in a project like this, since the whole thing would never have got going, and would have fallen apart many times thereafter, were it not for the kindness of multitudes of friends and strangers.

Double Entry: How the Merchants of Venice Shaped the Modern World - and How Their Invention Could Make or Break the Planet
by Jane Gleeson-White
Published 14 May 2011

Written from 1436 to 1439 entirely in the new Hindu–Arabic numerals, Badoer’s ledger is an invaluable record of Venetian mercantile life and of the hectic commercial activity of the Levant. Badoer was a nobleman who for over three years ran a commercial venture in Constantinople, the meeting place of the trade routes of Europe and Asia, trading for himself and as an agent for Venetian merchants. In the busy bazaars of Constantinople he bought spices, incense, leather, wool and slaves to ship back to Venice for his brother to sell on the Venetian market. The first two weeks of November and June were always Badoer’s busiest times, because it was then that his fleet prepared for its return trip to Italy, in compliance with the Venetian Senate, which required merchants to return to Venice at Christmas time and again in July to ensure a regular marketing of goods in the city.

…

But the merchant bankers of Venice thought otherwise. They soon realised the commercial potential of printed books and invested the large sums required to keep the printing presses running. To the merchants of Venice, the printed book was simply a commodity like any other and could be sold along the trade routes of Europe like pepper, silk, wax and other luxury goods. Venice became the centre of the new communications technology, the Silicon Valley of the Renaissance, and many of the first printed works on business and commerce were published in the city on the lagoon. By the time Pacioli returned in 1494, Venice had become the publishing capital of southern Europe, with more than 268 printing shops run mostly by experts from Germany and France.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses
by Tom Standage
Published 1 Jan 2005

Coffeehouse discussions led to the establishment of scientific societies, the founding of newspapers, the establishment of financial institutions, and provided fertile ground for revolutionary thought, particularly in France. In some European nations, and particularly in Britain, coffee was challenged by tea imported from China. Its popularity in Europe helped to open lucrative trade routes with the East and underpinned imperialism and industrialization on an unprecedented scale, enabling Britain to become the first global superpower. Once tea had established itself as Britain's national drink, the desire to maintain the tea supply had far-reaching effects on British foreign policy, contributing to the independence of the United States, the undermining of China's ancient civilization, and the establishment of tea production in India on an industrial scale.

…

Its overall population tripled between 630 and 755 to exceed fifty million, and its capital, Changan (modern Xi'an), was the greatest metropolis on Earth, home to around two million people. The city was a cultural magnet at a time when China was particularly open to outside influences. Trade thrived along the trade routes of the Silk Road and by sea with India, Japan, and Korea. Clothing, hairstyles, and the sport of polo were imported from Turkey and Persia, new foodstuffs from India, and musical instruments and dances from central Asia, along with wine in goatskin bags. China exported silk, tea, paper, and ceramics in return.

The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?
by Ian Bremmer
Published 12 May 2010

Privately funded ventures like the merchant Marco Polo’s gave way to state-subsidized projects led by explorers like Columbus, Vasco da Gama, John Cabot, and Magellan, men charged with opening new trade routes and helping their benefactors amass new wealth—and in some cases, new territory. The acquisition of new land brought fresh supplies of raw materials with which to produce goods for export in return for more gold. Conflicts over trade routes and colonies became inevitable.11 So did transatlantic slavery. Growing bureaucracies, colonialism, and trade competition stoked conflicts. To thwart the efforts of competitors to build a positive trade balance, mercantilist governments imposed tariffs, taxes, and quotas on imports, particularly of manufactured goods, while promoting the interests of their export merchants through subsidies, tax rebates, and monopoly licenses.

Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order
by Jason Sharman
Published 5 Feb 2019

Particularly when they encountered Eastern empires far mightier than any European great power of the day, Europeans had little choice but to pay deference. Though they were quick to use violence whenever they thought they could get away with it, more important than military prowess in explaining expansion was the coincidence whereby Europeans’ goals were largely maritime—trade routes and port outposts—whereas local great powers were concerned with controlling land and territory, but largely indifferent to the seas. These complementary preferences allowed for a rough- and-ready coexistence. In addition, European ventures in the East and the Atlantic world were crucially reliant on the cultivation of local allies, patrons, and vassals.

…

Aside from military calculations, Europeans also depended on access to Asian markets much more than vice versa. The Mughals, Japanese, Chinese, and others could bring the Europeans to heel simply by refusing to trade with them. For their part, the polities of the region had little desire to contest Westerners’ efforts to establish control of key trade routes, resulting in a rough modus vivendi sometimes referred to as an “age of contained conflict.”139 CHAPTER TWO Company Sovereigns and the Empires of the East THE BEGINNING of the seventeenth century saw the arrival of a new type of European actor in Asia: the chartered company or “company sovereign,” epitomized by the Dutch and English East India Companies.

Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction
by Judith Grisel
Published 15 Feb 2019

I prefer the Bantu Lozi description of the falls and the island, roughly translated as “smoke that thunders” and “place of the rainbow.” At any rate, Livingstone dropped out of missionary service because he felt a spiritual calling to political and economic action, hoping to work against slavery by opening up trade routes in Africa. He wasn’t especially effective, in part because his expeditions to find new trade routes generally failed. He’d been ill and out of touch for several years by the time the Welsh explorer H. M. Stanley located him in 1871. Livingstone died about a year and a half later of malaria and dysentery at the age of sixty. 2. Eric Wiertelak, Steven Maier, and Linda Watkins, “Cholecystokinin Antianalgesia: Safety Cues Abolish Morphine Analgesia,” Science 256, no. 5058 (1992). 5: THE SLEDGEHAMMER: ALCOHOL 1.

Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity
by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods
Published 13 Jul 2020

But this period of time, now known as the Upper Paleolithic, was remarkable for more than just an upgrade in weapons and living conditions.35 It was around this time that we began to leave evidence of unique forms of cognition, especially our expanding social networks.36 Jewelry made from shells has been found hundreds of miles inland, implying that an object with no practical value was either worth carrying some distance or was obtained from someone else who had traveled on one of our first trade routes.37, 38 We painted animals on rocks so skillfully that the contours of the stone rippled beneath their bodies and gave them a third dimension. In what can be regarded as the creation of protocinema, a cave wall bears the illustration of a bison with eight legs that would have seemed to gallop in firelight.

…

Nyugen suggests subsidized housing in the cities, or close to transit lines, that can efficiently move people to job centers. “Exposure creates tolerance,” she points out. Cities should be places where people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences can freely mix and exchange ideas. For our ancestors, these were settlements along trade routes, where far-flung travelers could share ideas, technology, and merchandise. For us, these are common areas—parks, cafés, theaters, restaurants—where we can meet and become familiar with neighborhood faces. Our habitat has changed, but we have not. We are at our most productive when we live in large, cooperative groups.

Salt: A World History
by Mark Kurlansky
Published 28 Jan 2003

THE SEARCH FOR salt has challenged engineers for millennia and created some of the most bizarre, along with some of the most ingenious, machines. A number of the greatest public works ever conceived were motivated by the need to move salt. Salt has been in the forefront of the development of both chemistry and geology. Trade routes that have remained major thoroughfares were established, alliances built, empires secured, and revolutions provoked—all for something that fills the ocean, bubbles up from springs, forms crusts in lake beds, and thickly veins a large part of the earth’s rock fairly close to the surface. Almost no place on earth is without salt.

…

Ramsauer’s investigation of these salt miners began to challenge the perception of northern Europe’s Iron Age barbarians. ONLY IN THE 1990s did Westerners become aware of the mummies that had been found in the Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. They had been discovered in and near the Tarim Basin, west of Tibet, east of Samarkand and Tashkent, between China and central Asia along the Silk Road, the principal trade route between the Mediterranean and Beijing. It was the road of Marco Polo, but these people had lived more than three millennia earlier, about 2000 B.C. As with the early Egyptian burials that are 1,000 years older, the corpses had been preserved by the naturally salty soil. The condition of the bodies and their bright colored clothing was spectacular.

…

The last Lot’s wife collapsed several years ago, and the current one, featured in postcards and on guided tours, will go very soon, according to geologists. In biblical times, Mount Sodom was the most valuable Dead Sea property. It was long controlled by the king of Arad, who had refused entry to Moses and his wandering Hebrews from Egypt. One of the most important trade routes in the area was from Mount Sodom to the Mediterranean—a salt route. Not far from Mount Sodom, in the motley shade of a scraggly acacia tree, are a few stone walls and the remnants of a doorway. They are the remains of a Roman fort guarding the salt route. A little two-foot-high stone dam across the wadi, the dry riverbed, after flash floods still holds water to be stored in the nearby Roman cistern.

Dawn of Detroit
by Tiya Miles
Published 13 Sep 2017

South, white men developed an extremely profitable “fancy trade” in which African American women, most often of mixed-race ancestry, were sought for sexual slavery. Marketed at exorbitant prices, these women referred to as “fancy girls” or “fancy maids,” were sexually abused by slave dealers in slave pens, markets and prisons along trade routes, as well as by a string of buyers. While we do not have a record as explicit in its ugliness as that which exists in the South, this particular order for young girls in Askin’s letter whispers of unseemly ends, especially when viewed in the context of the numerous Native women who were bearing babies to unknown fathers in Detroit.

…

When the Moravians finally reached “the city” and saw “the whole country round about, on both sides [of] the river . . . about a mile wide,” they had passed through a territory made wild by the vagaries of a natural water-rich environment as well as by the vicissitudes of an unpredictable war.76 The Moravians had likewise passed through lands inhabited by indigenous people whose villages and trade routes surrounded Detroit from as near as the Detroit River to the southern reaches of Ohio and into the Cherokee territory of the Southeast. The scene was similar far north of Detroit where Fort Michilimackinac was situated and far west of the city at the southeastern shores of Lake Michigan: Native people and Native lands encompassed Detroit, a center for distributing goods, passing information, and crafting wartime strategy that pulled in people of various colors, cultures, and creeds.

…

Schlosser, June 12, 1762, Sterling Letter Book. I am grateful to Jonathan Quint for pointing out the reference to Native women in this letter. 89. Dowry: Crouch, “Black City,” 25; James Sterling to [?], February 26, 1765, Sterling Letter Book; quoted in Marrero, “Founding Families,” 281; Marrero, “Founding,” 282–83. 90. Independent trade routes: Crouch, “Black City,” 25. 91. Crouch, “Black City,” 1, 4; James Sterling to [?], Sept 29, 1765, Sterling Letter Book. Christian Crouch was the first to analyze Sterling’s preference for black male laborers. In her paper, “The Black City,” she carefully considers and leaves open the question of why Sterling preferred black male laborers, speculating that black men had a greater facility in travel because of a learned ability to get along with native people lacking in white men like Morrison. 92.

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet
by Jeffrey Sachs
Published 1 Jan 2008

By 1950, this had reached the 50 percent mark as shown in Figure 2.5. Since then, extreme poverty has continued to decline to below 25 percent in 1992 and to just 15 percent today. The challenge now is that extreme poverty is concentrated in the toughest places: landlocked, tropical, drought-prone, malaria-ridden, and off the world’s main trade routes. It is no accident that today’s poorest places have been the last to catch the wave of globalization. They have the most difficulty in getting on the ladder of development. THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL COOPERATION To solve the remaining dire problems of environmental degradation, population growth, and extreme poverty, we will need to create a new model of twenty-first-century cooperation, one that builds on past successes and overcomes today’s widespread pessimism and lack of leadership.

…

In the subsequent 175 years, the global population has risen sixfold, from 1 billion to 6.5 billion, in 2005. In the preindustrial era, societies learned gradually to master the local environment—crop choices, water control, soil management, domestication of animals, mining of minerals, land clearing for pasture and fuel wood—in order to support larger populations. Each opening of new trade routes, such as the silk road from China to Europe during the Roman Empire or the sea routes from Europe to the Americas at the time of Columbus, gave opportunity for another step increase in human populations because increased productivity came along with increased trade. Trade allowed the exchange of crops, animals, technologies, and, of course, human populations.

…

Sea-based transport costs are lower in main trading lanes than in remote reaches of the world. Transport costs are obviously lower to reach a neighboring market than a distant market. These differences give Singapore a profound economic advantage over, say, Fiji. Singapore is on the world’s main trade route between Europe and Asia. A ship going from Osaka, Japan, to Rotterdam, Netherlands, will pass by Singapore as it traverses the Strait of Malacca. Fiji, by contrast, is far away in the South Pacific. That may contribute to its exotic reputation, but it certainly does not contribute to its economic development.

Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization
by Iain Gately
Published 27 Oct 2001

It is possible that in a country motivated by Zen and the spirit of minimalism, an antidote to gluttony was not a priority. In Japan, tobacco had been abstracted from the rituals of and reasons for its consumption, and it flourished in their absence. Tobacco arrived in many other Asian countries via the trans-Pacific trade route that the Spanish had opened up between Mexico and the Philippines in 1571. From the Philippines it was dispersed to Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Goa. From Goa its use spread rapidly throughout the Indian subcontinent, so that within a few years of its introduction an English ambassador to the court of the Great Mogul was able to report: ‘They sow tobacco in vast plenty and smoke it much.’

…

Even government-owned tobacco companies, fearful of missing opportunities, have participated in ‘General Trade’ as the market for smuggled cigarettes is known. For example, Japanese International Tobacco, a state-owned behemoth with more than half of the Japanese market, sells most of its cigarettes into Taiwan via the UK and Switzerland using the General Trade route to circumvent an embargo on imports ex-Japan. Eighty-six per cent of Japanese International Tobacco’s sales volume in Taiwan in 1993 was General Trade. Tobacco is the contraband of choice all over the world. Real camels carry loads of their namesake along the ancient silk route. Cigarette adverts with the useful reminder ‘Available in Duty Free’ appear in countries where the product is not officially available anywhere else.

…

Reynolds 212, 223–4, 274–5, 316, 334–5 Highly Leveraged Transaction, target for 335–6 Roberts, Julia 349 Robinson, Edward, G. 250 rock ’n’ roll 270–1, 312 Rogers, Sir Philip 294 Rolfe, John 70–2, 74, 80, 105 Rolling Stones 299 Roman Catholic clergy and snuff 36, 80 Röntgen, Wilhelm 218 Roosevelt, Eleanor 252 Roosevelt, Franklin 257 Roosevelt, Theodore 222 Rosenblatt, Stanley 356 Rosie, George 261–2 Rousseau 132 Rowlands, Samuel 49 Royal College of Physicians 292 Royal Navy 102, 104, 141 tobacco rations 232 Vigo, battle of 120–1 Russia 85, 93, 94–5, 258, 261, 269, 270, 337–8 Napoleon’s blockade, resistance to 145 Napoleon’s defeat 152 Napoleon’s invasion 145–6 Peter’s beard tax 95 smoking habits 146, 337 Russian Orthodox Church 94–5 Ryamin, Valery 337 Saba 84 Saddam Hussein 341 Saigon 91 St Croce, Prospero 40 St Eustatius 84 St Kitts 76–7 St Maarten 84 Saka, Dr 57 Salons, The (Baudelaire) 180 Saluzzo, Bishop of 40 San Agustín 51 San Francisco 44 see also United States of America San Salvador 22 Sands of Iwo Jima, The 268 Sandwich Islands 171 Santa Fe, California 166 Santa Maria, capture of 56 Santo Domingo 51, 79 Sassoon, Siegfried 232, 233 Saturday Night Fever 313 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning 281 Sauckel, Gauleiter Fritz 263 Saxony 95 Schairer, Eberhard 255 Schöniger, Eric 255 Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) 346 Scotland 100–5 colonization attempt 102 Edinburgh 100 England, union with 104 Glasgow 105, 140–1 Highlands 100–2 Lowlands 102 slave trade 105 tobacco growing 141 Scott, Captain Robert Falcon 219 Scott, Sir Walter 159 Scouting for Boys (Baden-Powell) 217 Scuttertnull of Glen Moran (legend) 101–2 Sears, Roebuck & Co. 225 SEITA 180–1 Serbia 231 Serturner, Friedrich Wilhelm 161 Seven Years War 136, 137 Seville 80, 115 Fabrica del Tobacos 115–16, 146–7, 177–9 Sex Pistols 314 Shakespeare, William 50, 78, 83 shamans 6–7, 8, 9–10, 27, 283 Shaw, George Bernard 220 Shelley, Percy 159 Siberia 87 Sirius convict ship 134 slavery and the slave trade 63–4, 77, 106, 110–13, 138, 183–4 abolition of in USA 184 American tobacco plantations, life on 111–12 Dickens offended by 176–7 Dutch 84 names, choosing of 112 Scots 105 tobacco as trigger 73 Small Faces 299 Smith, Adam 126 Smith, Captain John 72 smoke-blowing ritual 7 smoking: age barriers among Victorians 193 apparel 158 arts, represented in 82–3, 220, 280–1 children, warnings to 194 curiosity to craze, change from, in England 46 decline during nineties 345 divans 159 English rituals 47 films, portrayed in 246–51, 267–8, 271, 348–50 product placement 331–4 giving-up-smoking books, courses and counselling 310–11 health issues 274, 283, 321 see also lung cancer health warnings 296–7, 302, 309, 311 ‘It Girls’ 240 Johnson’s observation 123 meditation link 97 no-smoking areas 306–7, 310, 341 London Underground trains 341 opposition 195–6, 215–18, 229–31, 241, 317, 320 propaganda battle 347 passive (Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)) 329–31, 346–7 cot death 346 punishments: China 86–7 Islamic countries 86 Japan 86 Lüneburg (Lower Saxony) 95 Persia 92 Russia 85 ‘reeking gallants’ 47 ritual blowing 7 scientific research 161–3, 218, 255, 315, 318–19, 321 segregation 158 smoking rooms 193 teenage females, proportion of smokers rises in UK 351 tribal customs, North America 17 versus snuff 123–4 see also cigarettes; cigars; nicotine; pipes; tobacco Smoking and Health (Royal College of Physicians) 292 Smoking and Health Now (Royal College of Physicians) 311 Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service (USA) 292–3 ‘Smoking Kills’ (White Paper) 352, 353 smuggling 98–9, 358–60 snuff 4, 7, 9, 31–2, 42, 63, 80, 117–24 adulteration 122, 124 boxes 101 Brummell 154 English etiquette 121, 152, 154 Fabrica del Tobacos, Seville 115–16 French fashion 119 in Ireland 101 Martinique blend 154 as medicine 124 Morocco blend 154 ‘Nicotian Herb’ 40 in Prussia 117 in Scotland 100–1 ‘snuffy [Queen] Charlotte’ 138, 154 taxes 124 versus smoking 123–4 snuffing machines 9 Sofala 59 Solly, Samual 195 Song of Hiawatha, The (Longfellow) 168 South Africa 361 Spain 43–4, 113–15, 146–8, 357–8 Armada 56 bandoleros 149–50 Bible and fairy-tale morality 23 Bonaparte, Joseph, as king 146 Britain’s 1808 expeditionary force 150 Caribbean islands’ population, extermination of 25 conquistadores 21, 25 Aztec temples, overthrow of 30 contraband under French rule 149 crown’s regulations in colonies 113 decree limiting tobacco growing 79–80 disease, spreaders of 25–6 Ferdinand and Isabella 21, 22 Inca, subduing and extermination of 9, 34–5 infidels, cruel towards 23 Inquisition 115 papelote, punishments for using 148–9 population’s tobacco preferences 147–8 slaughter, Biblical ‘justification’ for 25 Tabacalera (tobacco company) 80 tobacco, growing techniques 71–2 trans-Pacific trade route 58 Venezuela, tobacco production banned in 113–14 Vigo, battle of 120–1 Spanish Inquisition 115 Spenser, Edmund 49 sports sponsorship 207, 298, 313 Formula One 353 Sri Lanka 58, 90 Stalin, Joseph 265 Stallone, Sylvester 332–3 Stanley, Henry 200 Stephen Mitchell & Sons 213 Strychnine 162 Sublime Tobacco (Mackenzie) 283 Sunday, Billy 241 Superman II 331–2 supernatural forces 6 Swanson, Gloria 247 Sweden 81 Switzerland 43, 95 Sydney Opera House 135 syphilis 27 Tabacalera (tobacco company) 80 Tachard, Guy 89 Tahiti 127, 128–9, 131–3, 135–6 as New Scythera 133 Taiwan 337, 359 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de 164 Tatler 121 taxation of tobacco 69, 85, 104, 208, 209, 255, 312, 353–4, 358–60 taxonomy 118 Team Lotus 298 television 276–7 cigarette advertising banned in UK 297 cigarette advertising banned in USA 309 commercial, in UK 278 soap operas 276 sponsorship of shows 277 television ads banned in Japan 357 temperance movement 195, 216, 241, 294, 351 Tempest, The (Shakespeare) 78 Teniers, David, the Younger 82 Tennessee 216 Tennyson, Lord Alfred 187 Terry, Luther 292–3 Tess of the D’Urbevilles (Hardy) 192 Tezcatlipoca 13 Thackeray, William 159 Thailand 58, 359 Thevet, André 33 Thirty Years War 81 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud) 228 Thunderball 284 Thurman, Uma 349 To Have and Have Not 267 Tobacco Industry Research Committee (USA) 288 Tobacco Smoking and Cancer of Lung 286 tobacco: addiction 25, 68, 226, 314–15, 317–19, 324, 340–1 additives 211 adulteration by apothecaries 51–2 bandoleros 149–50 Bright 211 British Empire, growing encouraged throughout 199 British excise bill and consequent riots 124 Burley 211 cancer, potential cure for 39–40 see also lung cancer Cartier’s description 31 centre of origin 3 chewing 7–8, 173–6, 339 ingredients 175 Chinese medicine 58 Christians’ spiritual aversion 27 cleansing and fertility 5 clyster 8, 186 companies as targets for Highly Leveraged Transaction (HLT) 335–6 company diversification 335 consumption leaps in industrial world 219–20 cost 42–3, 50–1 as currency 108 Devil, association with 38, 41, 67 domestic production 43 Double Happiness brand 303 as drink 7, 8 duty raised in USA 216 enemas 8, 186, 196 English import statistics 51 essence de tabac 162 Europeans, first to smoke 23 exchange, instrument of 88 first smoking of 4 flavour enhancers 19 as fumigant 5 habit spread by seamen 56–7 as hallucinogen 5 home growing See Appendix 1 as hunger suppressant 10, 24, 245, 351 as insecticide 5 as intoxicant 46 James I’s prohibition 78–9 law suits 289, 294, 355 legends 91 Scottish 101–2 licking 8–9 longevity claim 96 Master Settlement Agreement 355–6 Mayan farms 11 medicinal use 5–6, 16–17, 41 in animals 41 in bubon-c plague 83–4, 96 military rations 231–2 Monardes’ pamphlet 40–1 name, etymological debate about 32–3 Napoleon I’s influence 144 Nicotiana: benthamiana 130 excelsior 130 gossei 130 ingulba 130 Linnaeus’s taxonomy 118 rustica 2, 3, 118 tabacum 2, 3, 70, 118 Orinoco brand 74, 84, 100, 102 oversupply and consequent price drop 106–7 papelote 148–9, 179 becomes ‘cigarette’ 179 ‘picado’ (minced) 147 Piedmont leaf 184 pigtail 186 Prince Albert brand 223 prohibition of sale to young in UK 217–8 prohibition, first ever 36 religious attitudes 65–6 as rite of passage 5 ritual 7, 9, 89 salaries paid in 107–8 Salem brand 303 sex, association with 177–8 shag 186 shamans 6–7, 8, 9–10, 27, 283 Silk Cut 87 Skoal Bandits 339 slave trade, introduction of 73 smuggling 98–9, 358–60 ‘sotweed’ tag 46 Southern States growers’ co-operatives 221 spiritual functions 54 spittoons 174, 175 sports sponsorship 207, 298, 313 Formula One 353 taxation 69, 85, 104, 208, 209, 255, 312, 353–4, 358–60 twist 186 Vatican crop 40 war causes demand 146, 302 ‘yallacure’ 184, 210 youth market targeted by manufacturers 316–17 see also cigarettes; cigars; nicotine; pipes; smoking; snuff Todd, Geoffrey 294 Tolstoy, Leo 145 Tom Jones (Fielding) 122 Tophane 94 Torres Strait 91 Torres, Luis de 23, 24 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 220 Trafalgar, battle of 145 Travis, Dave Lee 339 Travolta, John 349 Tropic of Cancer 90 Twain, Mark 175–6 Tyler, John 175 Under Two Flags (Ouida) 197 United States of America 140–1 Castro, attempt to overthrow 309 child smokers 216 cigarette consumption, fall in 213 cigarette consumption, growth in 205, 209, 212 cigarette habit, nation dismayed by 205 Civil War 184 Declaration of Independence 140 diplomatic relations with Britain’s enemies, establishment of 141 Lewis and Clark 164–5 Louisiana Purchase 164 migration west 165–6 tobacco duty raised 216 tobacco exports 141 War of Independence 140–3 Treaty of Paris 142–3 USA Today 348 Utopia (More) 77 van Gough, Vincent 220 Van Riebeck, Jan 89 Vanity Fair (Thackeray) 156, 159 Vauquelin, Nicolas 162 Venezuela 27, 79 tobacco production banned 113–14 Venice 183 tobacco tariff 80 Venitia 182 Vespucci, Amerigo 32 Vicious, Sid 314 Victoria, Queen 173 Vietnam 91 War 302–3 Vigo 120–1 Vile Bodies (Waugh) 240 Virginia 53–5, 107–8 Britain’s firing of tobacco fields 142 Company 69–70 dissolved by James I 74–5 first tobacco taken to London 72 Orinoco brand 74, 84, 100, 102 population growth 105 slaves 110 thriving tobacco trade 105 tobacco, French preference for 181 Tobacco Inspection Act (Virginia) 108 tobacco, salaries paid in 107–8 see also United States of America Volstead Act (USA) 241 Wagner, Honus 223 Wahlstatt, Field Marshal Prince Blucher 152, 159 Wales 103 Walker, John 202 Wallis, Captain Samuel 127 Walpole, Horace 136 War and Peace (Tolstoy) 145–6 Washington, George 136, 137, 139 Waterloo 156–7 Waugh, Evelyn 240, 251 Wayne, John 268 W.

The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World
by Robert Morrison
Published 3 Jul 2019

IV In pursuit of wealth and treasure, Britons also traveled far beyond the Levant. The British East India Company was the largest and most powerful multinational corporation in the world. Founded in 1600, it had by the time of the Regency transformed itself from a mercantile body into an empire builder, with a vast series of highly lucrative trade routes under its control and hundreds of thousands of people in its employ, including the soldiers of its own private army. India, with its rich stores of silk, cotton, tea, coffee, and spices, was the company’s most prized possession, and from its base in Calcutta (as it was then known), it extended its influence across the subcontinent until, in the Regency, it achieved a stranglehold.

…

Probably the oldest drug known to humankind, it is obtained by slightly incising the unripe seed capsules of the poppy plant, Papaver somniferum. The East India Company exported it from Bengal to China, and then used the revenue from the sales to buy Chinese luxury items like spices, ivories, porcelain, silk, and, especially, tea, all of which were in great demand in Regency Britain. Better, shorter, and more well-established trade routes, however, meant that Turkey supplied the vast majority of the opium consumed in Britain. Turkish opium was also a good deal stronger than the Indian variety. Opium pills were available, but most people consumed the drug as “laudanum,” a tincture “made by pouring the best French brandy, or spirits of wine, upon crude Opium.”

…

Britain extended its reach in West Africa even further in 1816 when its soldiers moved from Sierra Leone north to The Gambia, purchased St. Mary’s Island from the chief of Kombo, and founded the town of Bathurst (Banjul). Named after the colonial secretary, Henry Bathurst, third Earl Bathurst, it became for Britain another power base from which its ships checked the slave trade, its merchants explored trade routes and opportunities, and its missionaries promulgated European ideals and the Christian faith. In the West Indies, meanwhile, it was business as usual. British plantation owners had increased their numbers of enslaved people prior to the passage of abolition, and thus continued the frequently barbaric exploitation of black women, men, and children in order to produce two major Regency commodities: rum and sugar.

The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire
by Wikileaks
Published 24 Aug 2015

When the billionaire New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman spoke of the “hidden fist” of the US military making the world safe for Silicon Valley and McDonald’s,1 what was most arresting about his claim was not the assertion of America’s overpowering military dominance, but the connection he drew between politico-military power and economic power. Pre-modern empires tended to be about the acquisition of fertile or resource-rich territory for landed oligarchies, the enslavement of populations for exploitation, and the conquest of trade routes. The Roman Empire annexed land for its rich landowners. The Dutch Empire used piracy to take control of trade routes. And the Spanish Empire’s colonization of Southern America, put crudely, turned the continent into vast gold- and silver-mining enterprise, and its population into slave labor. The modern American empire is a different beast. Its network of military bases from Greenland to Australia is not part of a system of territorial occupation or annexation, but rather serves to localize American military power in convenient ways, so that it can maintain a system of states whose features suit its interests.

…

While a sea, desert, or mountain could be crossed or bypassed at some expense, and energy resources discovered or stolen, the ability to project an empire’s desires, structure, and knowledge across space and time forms an absolute boundary to its existence. Cultures and economies communicate using all manner of techniques across the regions and years of their existence, from the evolution of jokes shared virally between friends to the diffusion of prices across trade routes. This does not by itself make an empire. The structured attempt at managing an extended cultural and economic system using communications is the hallmark of empire. And it is the records of these communications, never intended to be dissected, and so especially vulnerable to dissection, that form the basis for understanding the nature of the world’s sole remaining “empire.”

…

Its network of military bases from Greenland to Australia is not part of a system of territorial occupation or annexation, but rather serves to localize American military power in convenient ways, so that it can maintain a system of states whose features suit its interests. In general, the United States wants access to trade routes, and can back up its claims with impressive naval power, but does not need to control them directly. And it has learned, by and large, to do without slavery since 1865, as waged labor has proved adequate. In the modern era, we have trade agreements, debt bondage, and structural adjustment. What the United States wants is to expand the domain of markets.

When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures
by Richard D. Lewis
Published 1 Jan 1996

The exploitation of this market, with its enticing mix of such ingredients as high GDP per capita, low labor costs and skilled workforces, could be more attractive and viable in the long term than many areas of Southern Europe and elsewhere. The historical opportunity beckons, as the Danes and Swedes link their countries with the Oresund Bridge and the eastern Baltic states, encouraged by Finland, seek to revive the old Hanseatic trade routes. The three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) qualified for and were admitted to the European Union in 2004. In the past, the three nations have rarely cooperated effectively, divided as they have been by language, religion, foreign rulers and dreams of separation and independence. Lithuanians, an emotional and grandiloquent people, feel more at home with Slavic Poles and Russians than they do with Latvians and Estonians.

…

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest and most powerful state in Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century. Lutheran Latvians, blond and stocky, are more like northern Germans, who colonized them as early as the thirteenth century. Estonians, also Lutheran and even more reserved, strongly resemble their Finnish cousins and speak a Finno-Ugrian tongue. If the Hanseatic highway and trade routes are to be resurrected—and this would bring enormous benefit and prolific growth to the region—the three small Baltic states will have to cooperate closely with one another, as well as with other nations on the Baltic shores. A subtle but important consideration in this regard is the common sprinkling among the Balts of a sizeable number of Russophones (speakers of Russian).

…

Develop a personal working relationship based on mutual affection. Show sentiment and be willing to indulge in soulsearching with them—it is a favorite pastime. MOTIVATION KEY Cross-century mood Good manners combined with liveliness They share the Baltic states’ hopes of reviving the old Hanseatic trade routes. ✦ They were happy to be in the EU—they point out that Vilnius is the geographic center of Europe! ✦ Motivating Factors Share their strong sense of national identity. ✦ Show some interest in their language—it is the oldest and most archaic IndoEuropean language. ✦ (continued) 372 WHEN CULTURES COLLIDE MOTIVATION (continued) ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Discussion can be livelier than in the other two Baltic states—you can express personal opinions strongly, but with good taste.

Heaven's Command (Pax Britannica)
by Jan Morris
Published 22 Dec 2010

It was specifically a trading company, but it was incidentally an instrument of policy—the three little ships of its first expedition failed in their attempts to find a northern route to Cathay, but instead the company opened up trade with Russia, founded the first British trading stations or ‘factories’ in foreign territory, and learnt a great deal about the geography of Central Asia. The Muscovy Company never aspired to foreign dominion, but in establishing diplomatic contacts, in assembling intelligence, in exploration and in the establishment of trade routes, its merchants were in effect doing the work of the State. By the early decades of Victoria’s reign two great exemplars of this tradition survived, and were now assuming a new role in national affairs. The relationship between trade and dominion was becoming more complex. As Disraeli said of that traditional colonial commodity, sugar, all considerations now mingled in it: ‘not merely commercial, but imperial, philanthropic, religious; confounding and crossing each other, and confusing the legislature and the nation lost in a maze of conflicting interests and contending emotions’.

…

As Dilke wrote in 1868, ‘the power of America is now predominant in the Pacific: the Sandwich Islands are all but annexed, Japan is all but ruled by her, while the occupation of British Columbia is but a matter of time, and a Mormon descent upon the Marquesas is already planned’. To the British the island groups had seemed irrelevant, for they were utterly detached from the great imperial trade routes, and seemed to offer neither threat nor promise to the imperial aspirations. Successive British Governments had declined to assume new responsibilities there, though urged to do so by Australians and New Zealanders, and repeatedly supplicated by island kings and queens. In many parts British missionaries had converted the islanders to Christianity and western civilization, more or less; in many others British traders had been active and influential for generations; but to provide administrations for these remote and infinitesimal communities, to be saddled with the cost of garrisons or the bore of moral responsibility, to take on yet another rivalry with the Americans, was the last thing British Governments had desired.

…

Only Empire, it seemed to many businessmen, could restore the proper status quo: with new markets, with new sources of raw material, and with convenient barriers, actual if not explicit, against foreign competition. Strategically the impulses of the new imperialism were also largely defensive. If the London military planners wished to acquire new territory, it was generally to prevent foreigners acquiring it first, or to protect some existing possession, or guard a threatened trade route. The grand assurance of Waterloo and Trafalgar had waned rather with the years. The Britain of the 1870s was no longer beyond challenge. The Americans, in their civil war, had shown themselves capable of immense military exertion, and had for a few years possessed not merely the most experienced, but actually the largest armies in the world.

Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa
by Martin Meredith
Published 1 Jan 2007

INTRODUCTION When Britain took possession of the Cape Colony in 1806 during the course of the Napoleonic Wars it was a slave-owning outpost, three months’ sailing distance from London, previously run as a Dutch commercial enterprise that had teetered on the edge of bankruptcy for years. Britain’s only interest in the Cape was its use as a naval base at the foot of Africa halfway along the vital trade route between Europe and Asia - a stepping stone that the British government was determined to keep out of French hands. Its wartime occupation was not expected to be permanent. The white colonial population, descendants of Dutch, German and French Huguenot settlers, was small, no more than 25,000 in all, scattered across a territory of 100,000 square miles.

…

But not only did his actions enrage the freebooters, they infuriated Rhodes and Robinson who wanted Cape expansion, not imperial trusteeship. Rhodes’ campaign to extend the Cape’s boundaries gathered momentum during 1884. Addressing parliament in July, he repeated his warning of the previous year: Is this House prepared to allow these petty republics to form a wall across our trade routes? Are we to allow the Transvaal and its allies to acquire the whole of the interior? Bechuanaland is the neck of the bottle and commands the route to the Zambesi. We must secure it, unless we are prepared to see the whole of the North pass out of our hands . . . I do not want to part with the key to the interior, leaving us settled just on this small peninsula.

…

Rhodes endeavoured too to appeal to the trek geest - the trekking spirit - of the Afrikaners. ‘I feel that it is the duty of this Colony, when, as it were, her younger and more fiery sons go out and take land, to follow in their steps with civilised government.’ In line with this, he declared that ‘what we want now is to annex land, not natives’. To wine farmers he offered a free-trade route to the interior for their products, seeking to harness Afrikaner support for northern expansion. To his fellow Englishmen, he stressed the need for white colonial unity. ‘You cannot have real prosperity . . . until you have first established complete confidence between the two races [English and Afrikaner].’

The Rough Guide to Sweden (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 1 Nov 2019

To experience the setting at its most frenetic, come in August during Medieval Week, when people put a huge effort into dressing the part. Brief history Visby, Gotland’s capital, has always been the scene of frenetic activity of some kind. Its temperate climate and position attracted the Vikings as early as the sixth century, and the lucrative trade routes they opened, from here through to Byzantium and western Asia, guaranteed the island its prosperity. With the ending of Viking domination, a “golden age” followed, with Gotland’s inhabitants maintaining trading posts abroad and signing treaties as equals with European and Asian leaders. However, by the late twelfth century, their autonomy had been undermined by the growing power of the Hanseatic League.

…

But there is evidence that the Swedish Vikings were among the first to leave home, the impetus being rapid population growth, domestic unrest and a desire for new lands. Sweden being located on the eastern part of the Scandinavian peninsula, the raiders largely turned their attention further eastwards, in the knowledge that the Svear had already reached the Baltic. By the ninth century, the trade routes were well established, with Swedes reaching the Black and Caspian seas and making valuable trading contact with the Byzantine Empire. Although more commercially inclined than their Danish and Norwegian counterparts, Swedish Vikings were quick to use force if profits were slow to materialize. From 860 onwards Greek and Muslim records relate a series of raids across the Black Sea against Byzantium, and across the Caspian into northeast Iran.

…

The Black Death reached the country in 1350, wiping out whole parishes and killing around a third of the population. Subsequent labour shortages and troubled estates meant that the nobility found it difficult to maintain their positions. German merchants had driven the Swedes from their most lucrative trade routes: even the copper and iron-ore mining that began around this time in Bergslagen and Dalarna relied on German capital. Magnus soon ran into trouble, and was threatened further by the accession of Valdemar Atterdag to the Danish throne in 1340. Squabbles concerning sovereignty over the Danish provinces of Skåne and Blekinge led to Danish incursions into Sweden; in 1361, Valdemar landed on Gotland and sacked Visby.

Fodor's Essential Israel
by Fodor's Travel Guides
Published 2 Aug 2023

Tel Hatzor National Park 8 km (5 miles) north of Rosh Pina, 14 km (9 miles) east of Tzfat. On the Via Maris—the major trade route linking Egypt and Mesopotamia—Hatzor is referred to several times in documents from ancient archives in both lands, and scholars believe a huge archive may someday be found here. GETTING HERE AND AROUND From Rosh Pina, head north on Route 90; from Tzfat, head east on Route 89, then north on Route 90. s Sights Tel Hatzor National Park RUINS | This site on the Via Maris, an ancient trade route, is a good stop for archaeology buffs—its massive mound is made up of the remnants of 21 cities.

…

Visitors from around the world flock to this controversial and politically charged white-stone structure and write handwritten wishes or prayers (Ch. 3). CRUSADER RUINS OF AKKO In the 12th century, the Crusaders made Akko their chief port city, valuing its strategic location as an entry point into the flourishing trade route of the greater Levant region. Some of the most fascinating ruins in this UNESCO World Heritage Site City are underground (Ch. 6). TOMB OF KING DAVID On Mount Zion, outside of Jerusalem’s Old City and with views of the nearby Temple Mount, lies what is believed to be the burial site of the ancient Israeli King David.

…

When Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land and asked to pass through Edom, he was denied. By the 7th century BC, a new group had swept in from Arabia: the Nabateans. The spectacular tombs and carved monuments of these intrepid traders draw travelers to Petra today. With a wealthy empire that at its height reached from Damascus to the Sinai, the Nabateans controlled the region’s trade routes, their caravans bearing frankincense and myrrh, Indian silks, and African ivory. Most of Petra’s famous tombs—which fuse Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian styles—were carved during the 1st century AD, before the Nabatean kingdom was subsumed into the Roman Empire. Although the combination of a necropolis and a capital city may seem strange today, this custom was common among ancient peoples, who established cemeteries at the entrances to many of their capitals.

Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations
by Norman Davies
Published 30 Sep 2009

A couple of decades later, the bishop of Basle went one step further by creating a ‘prince-bishopric’, and ruling not only over his episcopal see, but also over nearby lands once confiscated from Rainald III.75 Large parts of the future Switzerland were also carved out of the imperial Kingdom of Burgundy. Sometime early in the thirteenth century, a peasant migration occurred from the lands of the bishop of Sion in the Valais eastward to the Grisons. The migrants took bridge-building techniques with them, opened up the Schollenen Gorge to travellers and provided access to the valuable trade route over the St Gotthard pass into Italy. In August 1291 the men of Uri, Schweiz and Unterwalden, who operated tolls on the pass, swore an oath to resist outside interference. They had performed the founding act of the Swiss Confederation.76 Provence, by contrast, drifted apart from Burgundy through a succession of marriages.

…

An international folk festival is held every August at Amélie-les-Bains (Els Banys d’Arles).9 Unlike Roussillon, Cerdagne (Cerdanya in Catalan, Cerdaña in Spanish) is entirely landlocked, and is nowadays split into French and Spanish halves. It grew strong through its relative inaccessibility, and rich from an ancient trans-Pyrenean trade route. Its historic capital and county seat stood at Llívia. The counts of Cerdagne-Conflent, who reached their apogee during the eleventh century, founded the abbeys both of St Michel de Cuxa and of Montserrat, before bequeathing their inheritance to their descendants, the counts of Barcelona. Their legacy stayed intact until the seventeenth century.

…

The Pyrenean ridge, dominated in this section by the peaks of the Aneto and the Perdido, creates a formidable barrier. A few oases of greenery nestle in the steep, upland valleys, but the only area suitable for large-scale agriculture spreads out below the mountains among the wheat fields, orchards and vineyards that line the Ebro. One of the oldest trans-Pyrenean trade routes runs across the pass of the Port de Canfranc from Zaragoza to Béarn. Here, towards the end of the first millennium, Christian lords ruling the north-eastern perimeter of Iberia started to fight back against the Muslim Moors, who had ruled over most of the peninsula since crossing from North Africa some two centuries earlier.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000
by Paul Kennedy
Published 15 Jan 1989

Printing by movable type had already appeared in eleventh-century China, and soon large numbers of books were in existence. Trade and industry, stimulated by the canal-building and population pressures, were equally sophisticated. Chinese cities were much larger than their equivalents in medieval Europe, and Chinese trade routes as extensive. Paper money had earlier expedited the flow of commerce and the growth of markets. By the later decades of the eleventh century there existed an enormous iron industry in north China, producing around 125,000 tons per annum, chiefly for military and governmental use—the army of over a million men was, for example, an enormous market for iron goods.

…

The fact was that in Europe there were always some princes and local lords willing to tolerate merchants and their ways even when others plundered and expelled them; and, as the record shows, oppressed Jewish traders, ruined Flemish textile workers, persecuted Huguenots, moved on and took their expertise with them. A Rhineland baron who overtaxed commercial travelers would find that the trade routes had gone elsewhere, and with it his revenues. A monarch who repudiated his debts would have immense difficulties raising a loan when the next war threatened and funds were quickly needed to equip his armies and fleets. Bankers and arms dealers and artisans were essential, not peripheral, members of society.

…

In the sixteenth century, indeed, “to most European statesmen the loss of Hungary was of far greater import than the establishment of factories in the Orient, and the threat to Vienna more significant than their own challenges at Aden, Goa and Malacca; only governments bordering the Atlantic could, like their later historians, ignore this fact.”28 Yet when all these reservations are made, there is no doubt that the development of the long-range armed sailing ship heralded a fundamental advance in Europe’s place in the world. With these vessels, the naval powers of the West were in a position to control the oceanic trade routes and to overawe all societies vulnerable to the workings of sea power. Even the first great clashes between the Portuguese and their Muslim foes in the Indian Ocean made this clear. No doubt they exaggerated in retrospect, but to read the journals and reports of da Gama and Albuquerque, describing how their warships blasted their way through the massed fleets of Arab dhows and other light craft which they encountered off the Malabar coast and in the Ormuz and Malacca roads, is to gain the impression that an extraterrestrial, superhuman force had descended upon their unfortunate opponents.

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
by Norman Davies
Published 27 Sep 2011

A couple of decades later, the bishop of Basle went one step further by creating a ‘prince-bishopric’, and ruling not only over his episcopal see, but also over nearby lands once confiscated from Rainald III.75 Large parts of the future Switzerland were also carved out of the imperial Kingdom of Burgundy. Sometime early in the thirteenth century, a peasant migration occurred from the lands of the bishop of Sion in the Valais eastward to the Grisons. The migrants took bridge-building techniques with them, opened up the Schollenen Gorge to travellers and provided access to the valuable trade route over the St Gotthard pass into Italy. In August 1291 the men of Uri, Schweiz and Unterwalden, who operated tolls on the pass, swore an oath to resist outside interference. They had performed the founding act of the Swiss Confederation.76 Provence, by contrast, drifted apart from Burgundy through a succession of marriages.

…

An international folk festival is held every August at Amélie-les-Bains (Els Banys d’Arles).9 Unlike Roussillon, Cerdagne (Cerdanya in Catalan, Cerdaña in Spanish) is entirely landlocked, and is nowadays split into French and Spanish halves. It grew strong through its relative inaccessibility, and rich from an ancient trans-Pyrenean trade route. Its historic capital and county seat stood at Llívia. The counts of Cerdagne-Conflent, who reached their apogee during the eleventh century, founded the abbeys both of St Michel de Cuxa and of Montserrat, before bequeathing their inheritance to their descendants, the counts of Barcelona. Their legacy stayed intact until the seventeenth century.

…

The Pyrenean ridge, dominated in this section by the peaks of the Aneto and the Perdido, creates a formidable barrier. A few oases of greenery nestle in the steep, upland valleys, but the only area suitable for large-scale agriculture spreads out below the mountains among the wheat fields, orchards and vineyards that line the Ebro. One of the oldest trans-Pyrenean trade routes runs across the pass of the Port de Canfranc from Zaragoza to Béarn. Here, towards the end of the first millennium, Christian lords ruling the north-eastern perimeter of Iberia started to fight back against the Muslim Moors, who had ruled over most of the peninsula since crossing from North Africa some two centuries earlier.

The Rough Guide to Morocco
by Rough Guides

Some of the flanking columns are of Roman origin, particularly well suited to the small display of mosaics and finds from Volubilis. Within other rooms are well-presented artefacts discovered in and around Tangier, with origins dating from the Palaeolithic era up until Portuguese occupation. Other exhibits include a map depicting international trade routes, a section dedicated to the Islamization of Tangier, and an interesting room concerned with Roman religion and funeral rites. Opposite the museum’s entrance, and off the main interior courtyard, are the herb- and shrub-lined palace gardens, shaded by jacaranda trees.

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If you just want a day-trip from Fez, the Middle Atlas is most easily accessible at Sefrou, a relaxed market town 28km southeast of the city, though Azrou should be on most itineraries as well, an interesting Berber settlement with an excellent and authentic souk, and ideally located for forays into the surrounding cedar forests. At Azrou, the road forks and you can take one of two routes. The N13 heads southeast to the former mining town of Midelt and on to Er Rachidia, a journey that traces the old Trek es Sultan, or Royal Road, an ancient trading route that once carried salt, slaves and other commodities with caravans of camels across the desert from West Africa. Heading southwest, the N8, the main route to Marrakesh, skirts well clear of the Atlas ranges, and is lined with dusty, functional market centres, though Beni Mellal is something of a transport hub along the way.

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Most travellers’ first taste of the region is the Tizi n’Tichka, the dizzying pass up from Marrakesh, and the iconic kasbashs at Telouet and Aït Benhaddou – an introduction that is hard to beat. Benhaddou is less than an hour’s drive from Ouarzazate, a modern town created by the French to “pacify” the south and one of the area’s few urban centres of any significance, buoyed in recent years by its association with the film industry. From here, you can follow the old trading routes: south through the Drâa to Zagora and the fringes of the desert at M’Hamid; or east through the Dadès to the towering Todra Gorge and, ultimately, the dunes at Erg Chebbi near Merzouga. These are beautiful journeys, the roads rolling through crumbling mud-brick villages and past long ribbons of deep-green palmeries as they stretch out towards the Sahara.

The Rough Guide to Morocco (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 23 Mar 2019

Some of the flanking columns are of Roman origin, particularly well suited to the small display of mosaics and finds from Volubilis. In the rooms are well-presented artefacts discovered in and around Tangier, with origins dating from the Palaeolithic era up until Portuguese occupation. Other exhibits include a map depicting international trade routes, a section dedicated to the Islamization of Tangier, an interesting room concerned with Roman religion and funeral rites, and other rooms are devoted to Moroccan arts including silks and ceramics from Fes. Opposite the museum’s entrance, and off the main interior courtyard, are the herb- and shrub-lined palace gardens, shaded by jacaranda trees.

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If you just want a day-trip from Fez, the Middle Atlas is most easily accessible at Sefrou, a relaxed market town 28km southeast of the city, though Azrou should be on most itineraries as well, an interesting Berber settlement with an excellent and authentic souk, and ideally located for forays into the surrounding cedar forests. At Azrou, the road forks and you can take one of two routes. The N13 heads southeast to the former mining town of Midelt and on to Er Rachidia, a journey that traces the old Trek es Sultan, or Royal Road, an ancient trading route that once carried salt, slaves and other commodities with caravans of camels across the desert from West Africa. Heading southwest, the N8, the main route to Marrakesh, skirts well clear of the Atlas ranges, and is lined with dusty, functional market centres, though you can cut south from here to Azilal, jumping-off point for the magnificent Cascades d’Ozoud and the stunning High Atlas valley of Aït Bouguemez, or strike out for Imilchil and the epic mountain roads that lie beyond.

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Most travellers’ first taste of the region is the Tizi n’Tichka, the dizzying pass up from Marrakesh, and the iconic kasbashs at Telouet and Aït Benhaddou – an introduction that is hard to beat. Benhaddou is less than an hour’s drive from Ouarzazate, a modern town created by the French to “pacify” the south and one of the area’s few urban centres of any significance, buoyed in recent years by its association with the film industry. From here, you can follow the old trading routes: south through the Drâa to Zagora and the fringes of the desert at M’Hamid; or east through the Dadès to the towering Todra Gorge and, ultimately, the dunes at Erg Chebbi near Merzouga. These are beautiful journeys, the roads rolling through crumbling mud-brick villages and past long ribbons of deep-green palmeries as they stretch out towards the Sahara.

The Long Good Buy: Analysing Cycles in Markets
by Peter Oppenheimer
Published 3 May 2020

The creation of publicly financed, but limited liability, insurance companies changed the nature of risk-sharing, thereby allowing for a significant increase in appetite for funding risky endeavours. Meanwhile, technological changes (in maritime navigation, for example) made possible the opening up of the Atlantic trade routes, a shift that was game-changing; the new trade routes among Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, which were financed partly as a result of the new risk-sharing instruments, became the dominant trade system through to the early 19th century and resulted in what was arguably one of the first major forms of globalisation. The combination of risk appetite, funding conditions, a vehicle that offered attractive returns and technological advances in navigation that enabled the opportunity to be exploited provided a fertile backdrop for speculation.

The "Talmud"
by Wimpfheimer, Barry Scott.
Published 22 Jan 2018

The questioner seeks the history of the composition of rabbinic literature, and Rav Sherira Gaon obliges with a history of the rabbis from Temple times to his day focusing on institutions and works of literature. Much of this is historically imprecise by modern critical standards, but the work remains valuable, particularly for its description of the Geonic period. Responsa largely traveled via trade routes. Scribes at nodes on these trade routes would sometimes copy the responsa in transit. Some rabbis retained handwritten copies of their own responsa. Medieval responsa usually come to us from such collections. Occasionally, they were preserved through other avenues. A sixteenthcentury rabbi, Bezalel Ashkenazi, who lived in Ottoman Election 131 Palestine, is the source of an important anthology of medieval Talmud commentary to several tractates.

Divided: Why We're Living in an Age of Walls
by Tim Marshall
Published 8 Mar 2018

And it is these divides that may pose the greatest threat to the prospects of long-term prosperity and unity in China. It’s a threat taken very seriously by the Communist Party. It has learned the lessons of history and knows what happens when the state is weakened by a fragmented population. In the nineteenth century, China saw a major reversal in the way its trading operated. The land trade routes through Central Asia had always been the economic priority, but now the sea lanes became the primary route. This reversal was not entirely by choice – the British and other foreign powers had used their military strength to force favourable trading terms upon China. As a result, the focus of trade shifted to the Pacific coast, which helped the communities in that region to develop, but it weakened the trading prospects of the interior, which in turn reduced the amount of money spent on its infrastructure.

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Crossing the Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe, on the other hand, required a passport, paperwork and security checks, and was done in the knowledge that your every movement would be monitored. The Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall were the stark physical reminders that a continent with a shared history, interlinked cultures and ancient trading routes had been completely riven by ideology and Great Power politics. In the aftermath of the Second World War, as the communist and capitalist victors sized each other up across this new divide, the Soviet economic system quickly started to fail its citizens. Just by looking out of a window or crossing a street, ordinary people in the East could see the spectacularly successful rebuilding of West Germany.

Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags
by Tim Marshall
Published 21 Sep 2016

It reminds us of blood and incites us to victory.’ More interesting, arguably, is that the coat of arms in the centre of the flag is set on an armillary sphere. This was an instrument used for navigation and is symbolic of the Age of Discovery, when Portuguese sailors were at the forefront of opening up new trade routes to what were, for the Europeans, undiscovered lands. The coat of arms is based on a design that dates back to 1139, and it is also deeply Christian. It features five white dots on five blue shields – a reference to the Battle of Ourique, fought in Portugal in 1139, in which Alfonso I defeated five Moorish kings ‘In the name of the five stigmata of Christ’.

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They have been used both at sea and on land for thousands of years, much longer than in the West.’ Smith argues that we owe to the Chinese the focus on attaching cloth to a staff laterally, rather than fixing an object such as an animal carving to its top. What is unclear is whether silk flags then spread to the Near East, or if it was just that the silk arrived through the trade routes and was fashioned into flags by people who were already using versions of them. What is more certain is that the Western world began copying the flags of the Arabs during the Crusades. Several hundred years later, things came full-circle. The Chinese used a huge variety of flags for shipping and military purposes, but never bothered to come up with one to symbolize China and the Chinese.

The Perfect House: A Journey With Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio
by Witold Rybczynski
Published 2 Sep 2002

The chief reason to conquer these territories was to control the overland trade routes from Venice to northern Europe, but starting in the 1540s, exactly the time that Palladio embarked on his architectural career, the role of the terraferma changed. Wealthy Venetians began to invest heavily in mainland agriculture—land reclamation, irrigation canals, and drainage schemes. Historians do not agree about the exact reason for this newfound interest, but it was probably a combination of factors. Thanks to the growth of the Turkish empire, the discovery of alternative trade routes, and the growing naval power of the Baltic states, England, and the Low Countries, Venice was no longer dominant in international trade, and wealthy Venetians needed new vehicles for their investments.

The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World
by Peter Frankopan
Published 14 Jun 2018

We are living through a transformation and a shift that is epochal in its scale and character, similar to what happened in the decades that followed the crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus and those who soon followed him, and the near-simultaneous rounding of the southern tip of Africa by Vasco da Gama that opened up new maritime trade routes between Europe, the Indian Ocean, South Asia and beyond. Those twin expeditions, just over 500 years ago, laid the ground for a dramatic shift in the world’s centre of economic and political gravity, placing western Europe at the heart of global trade routes for the first time in history.74 Something similar is happening today, albeit in reverse. Asia and the Silk Roads are rising – and they are rising fast. They are not doing so in isolation from the west, nor even in competition with it.

The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century
by Robert D. Kaplan
Published 6 Mar 2018

The Mongols, whose Yuan Dynasty ruled China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were, in fact, “early practitioners of globalization,” seeking to connect the whole of habitable Eurasia in a truly multicultural empire. And Yuan China’s most compelling weapon was—despite the Mongols’ bloody reputation—not the sword but trade: gems, fabrics, spices, metals, and so on. It was trade routes, not the projection of military power, that emblemized the “Pax Mongolica.”*9 Mongol grand strategy was built on commerce much more than on war. If you want to understand China’s grand strategy today, look no further than Kublai Khan’s empire. Yet, for Kublai Khan it didn’t altogether work.

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Indian warships are in the South China Sea while Chinese warships sail throughout the Indian Ocean, with China deeply involved in port development projects in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea that virtually surround India on three sides. The high wall of the Himalayas no longer separates these two great civilizations, and hasn’t for some time. Trade routes linking China and India, by way of Tibet, Nepal, West Bengal, and Myanmar—joining Lhasa, Kathmandu, and Kolkata—will only further mature, with peaceful commerce cushioning the impact of this new strategic geography.*35 But these widened tentacles of vehicular transport also might be used for Chinese tanks to enter India.

Uprooting: From the Caribbean to the Countryside - Finding Home in an English Country Garden
by Marchelle Farrell
Published 2 Aug 2023

. *** When living with my babies surrounded by the constant traffic of cars, buses and ambulances in the busy streets of our neighbourhood in Oxford, I had begun to turn to the plants around me to see if they had any answers to the perennial issue of how I might root into foreign ground. Instinctively, I did not look to the glamorous cultivated garden plants, mostly foreigners welcome for their beauty, transported along colonial trade routes with other commodities and people. Like the now muchmaligned buddleia, their welcome was always uncertain, and conditional. Instead, I turned inward, and downward, to the unwanted, insignificant beings in the crevices and cracks underfoot – the city’s last wild place. I started to notice the weeds.

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England was modern Trinidad’s colonial motherland; the Royal Botanic Gardens where the petrea avenue grows was a colonial creation, established in 1818, as was the introduction of wisteria to this country, brought in 1816 via the Inspector of Tea for the East India Company, who was acting on commission by renowned botanist (or botanic thief) Joseph Banks. The flowers travelled along Imperial trade routes, which moved plants and people around the world, so often violently against their will, like poisoned umbilical cords that bind places together to this day. And yet, despite the ambivalence that may grow as we come to know them as adults, their faults as well as their care deeply embedded in our flesh, so often we still love our mothers.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
Published 1 Jan 2011

The idea of progress is built on the notion that if we admit our ignorance and invest resources in research, things can improve. This idea was soon translated into economic terms. Whoever believes in progress believes that geographical discoveries, technological inventions and organisational developments can increase the sum total of human production, trade and wealth. New trade routes in the Atlantic could flourish without ruining old routes in the Indian Ocean. New goods could be produced without reducing the production of old ones. For instance, one could open a new bakery specialising in chocolate cakes and croissants without causing bakeries specialising in bread to go bust.

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The empires built by bankers and merchants in frock coats and top hats defeated the empires built by kings and noblemen in gold clothes and shining armour. The mercantile empires were simply much shrewder in financing their conquests. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but everyone is happy to invest. In 1484 Christopher Columbus approached the king of Portugal with the proposal that he finance a fleet that would sail westward to find a new trade route to East Asia. Such explorations were a very risky and costly business. A lot of money was needed in order to build ships, buy supplies, and pay sailors and soldiers – and there was no guarantee that the investment would yield a return. The king of Portugal declined. Like a present-day start-up entrepreneur, Columbus did not give up.

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Mercenary armies and cannon-brandishing fleets cost a fortune, but the Dutch were able to finance their military expeditions more easily than the mighty Spanish Empire because they secured the trust of the burgeoning European financial system at a time when the Spanish king was carelessly eroding its trust in him. Financiers extended the Dutch enough credit to set up armies and fleets, and these armies and fleets gave the Dutch control of world trade routes, which in turn yielded handsome profits. The profits allowed the Dutch to repay the loans, which strengthened the trust of the financiers. Amsterdam was fast becoming not only one of the most important ports of Europe, but also the continent’s financial Mecca. How exactly did the Dutch win the trust of the financial system?

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
by David Graeber and David Wengrow
Published 18 Oct 2021

Each hamlet seems to have developed its own expertise (stone-grinding, bead-carving, shell-processing and so on), and industries were often associated with special ‘cult buildings’ or seasonal lodges, pointing to the control of such skills by guilds or secret societies. By the ninth millennium bc, larger settlements had developed along the principal trade routes. Lowland foragers occupied fertile pockets of land among the drainages of the Jordan valley, using trade wealth to support increasingly large, settled populations. Sites of impressive scale sprang up in such propitious locations, some, such as Jericho and Basta, approaching ten hectares in size.25 To understand the importance of trade in this process is to appreciate that the lowland crescent was a landscape of intimate contrasts and conjunctures (very similar, in this respect, to California).

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We know something about the mass production of woollen garments and other commodities in temples; we can also infer that – somehow or other – these woollens and other temple manufactures were being traded for wood, metal and precious stone that were not available in the river valleys, but abounded in the surrounding high country. We know little about how this trade was organized in its earliest days, but we do know from archaeological evidence that Uruk was establishing colonies, tiny versions of itself, at many strategic points along the trade routes. Uruk colonies appear to have been both commercial outposts and religious centres, and traces of them are found as far north as the Taurus Mountains and as far east as the Iranian Zagros.75 ‘Uruk expansion’, as it is called in the archaeological literature, is puzzling. There’s no real evidence of violent conquest, no weapons or fortifications, yet at the same time there seems to have been an effort to transform – in effect, to colonize – the lives of nearby peoples, to disseminate the new habits of urban life.

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Mercenaries and traders went both ways, pilgrimages and diplomatic visits followed; immigrants from Teotihuacan built temples in Maya cities, and there was even a Maya neighbourhood, replete with murals, at Teotihuacan itself.15 How do we resolve the puzzle of this Mayan depiction of Teotihuacan kings? Well, first of all, if history teaches us anything about long-distance trade routes, it’s that they are likely to be full of unscrupulous characters of various sorts: bandits, runaways, grifters, smugglers, religious visionaries, spies – or figures who may be any combination of these at a given time. This was no less true in Mesoamerica than anywhere else. The Aztecs, for instance, employed orders of heavily armed warrior-merchants called pochteca, who also gathered intelligence on the cities where they traded.

Greece Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

Alexander spread the Greek culture and language widely, creating a Hellenistic society that would be absorbed by the Romans. Later, after their empire split into eastern and western halves in the 4th century AD, the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire emerged. Thessaloniki became Byzantium’s second city, a vital commercial, cultural and strategic centre on the Balkan trade routes. However, 6th- and 7th-century-AD Slavic migrations brought new populations and challenges. The empire frequently battled with the medieval Bulgarian kingdom from the 9th century to the 11th century. In 1018 Emperor Basil II finally defeated Bulgarian Tsar Samuel, who had ruled much of the southern Balkans from Macedonia’s Mikri Prespa Lake.

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Taxis from Litohoro to Dion cost from €12. Castle of PlatamonasCASTLE (Κάστρο Πλαταμώνα %23250 44470; Platamonas; adult/child €2/free; h8am-3pm daily) Looming from a coastal bluff near Platamonas village, 20km south of Plaka Litohorou, this well-preserved 11th-century castle was once defended by brave Byzantines, safeguarding trade routes and scanning for pirates. Today, however, the only stratiotes (soldiers) you're likely to see are handymen with weed whackers and the occasional lumbering turtle. Taxis from Litohorou town cost about €22. From the parking area, pass the (unstaffed) booth and take the hilly path 150m to the castle and ticket booth.

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Secret rituals were associated with Orpheus, the mythical, tragic Thracian father of music. Powerful Greek city-states vied with the Persians for Thrace's coast. Athens prevailed at the Battle of Plataea, though Philip II of Macedon took over in 346 BC. Later, with the Roman Empire’s AD 395 division, Thrace's strategic positioning on the Via Egnatia trade route made it important. Constantinople's defensive zone was the Thracian plain, though its flatness made it vulnerable to marauding Goths, Huns, Vandals, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Cumans and poorly behaved Latin Crusaders – relatively few historic structures thus remain predating the Ottomans' 14th-century invasion.

The Rough Guide to Portugal (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 1 Mar 2023

In 1150, with Afonso Henriques now Portugal’s first monarch, the Sé (cathedral) was established on the site of the main mosque, and in 1255 Lisbon became the capital of a Christian country. The discoveries By the fifteenth century, Lisbon was the capital of an expansionist country whose navigational expertise had set up trading routes round half the world. Vasco da Gama sailed from Belém to open up a sea route to India in 1498, and within sixty years Lisbon controlled ports from Brazil in the west to Macau in the east. Lisbon became one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, able to fund lavish buildings such as the Torre de Belém, the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and the palace at Terreiro do Paço.

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Post office Largo General Humberto Delgado (Mon–Fri 9am–7pm). Taxis There’s a rank at the end of Rua Direita at Largo Monzinho Albuquerque (232 429 453). Mangualde and around MANGUALDE, 15km east of Viseu along the A25, is a well-to-do town which traditionally flourished thanks to its position on the trading routes between the mountains and the coast. As a result, a tree-lined avenue leads into a centre of noble mansions, pick of which is the tiled baronial eighteenth-century Palácio dos Condes de Anadia on Largo Condes de Anadia (Mon–Fri 2–6pm; charge; 232 622 138), packed with period furniture and beautiful azulejos.

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There are scores of manorhouses in the handsome town centre, and a series of extraordinary churches, monasteries and fortified buildings in the surrounding verdant valleys, a legacy of the twelfth-century Reconquista, when Lamego was among the first towns to be retaken from the Moors. Much of Lamego’s early wealth derived from its position astride the trade route from the Beiras to the Douro, but the town’s real importance is its history: in 1143, Lamego hosted Portugal’s first parliament, when a group of clergy and noblemen assembled to recognize Afonso Henriques as the nation’s first king. As such, it claims to be the birthplace of country and crown – a fact hotly disputed by Alfonso Henriques’ birthplace, Guimarães.

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts
by Joshua Hammer
Published 18 Apr 2016

Great original books as well came out of Timbuktu, by a swelling number of local scientists, historians, philosophers, and versemakers. Anthologies of poems celebrated everything from the Prophet to romantic love to more mundane subjects such as green tea. The Tariq Al Sudan presented, in thirty-eight chapters, an unparalleled history of life on the Middle Niger under the Songhai emperors, describing in great detail trade routes, battles, invasions, and daily life in cities such as Djenné, famed for its thirteenth-century Great Mud Mosque. “The land of Djenné is prosperous and densely inhabited, with major markets every day of the week. It is said there are 7,077 villages in that land, all close to one another,” the author observed.

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Belmokhtar traded in both counterfeits produced in China and Vietnam and genuine Western brands, which typically entered West Africa from the United States and Europe through Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Guinea, and reached Mali by road or by boat along the Niger. Belmokhtar and his colleagues charged a tax for safe passage of the cigarettes or smuggled the product themselves through the Sahara along established salt-trading routes by SUVs, trucks, and motorcycles. The final destinations were Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia, which together consume nearly half of Africa’s cigarettes, much of them purchased on the black market. Belmokhtar was, by all accounts, a cunning, energetic, and resourceful gangster. Within a couple of years, by building an entrenched network of support through the desert, and intimidating would-be competitors, he gained so great a share of the trans-Saharan contraband business that he became known in the region as “Mr.

The Places in Between
by Rory Stewart
Published 1 Jan 2004

When I had the idea of an Asian walk five years earlier, such legacies of the Silk Road had fascinated me. There would once perhaps have been lapis lazuli here, carried west from the mines of Afghanistan to make the blue in medieval Sienese paintings, and amber cut from tree fossils in the Baltic and brought east for Tibetan necklaces. Even more mysterious objects had moved down such trading routes: diamonds that could make you a king, Buddhist texts on birch-bark scrolls in characters that could no longer be deciphered, Chinese astrolabes to mystify the Vatican. But now that I was walking, I found it more difficult to be interested in the Silk Road. Such things had little to do with modern Afghanistan and I doubted whether the people who lived in this building had a clear idea of its past.

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I guessed, however, that the international community would not act before it was too late, and I was right.38 Just before I left the site of the Turquoise Mountain, Abdullah, Bushire's son, showed me three pieces he'd found that morning. They suggested the Ghorid dynasty was in some ways more open to the world in the twelfth century than the government in Herat is today. One was a fragment of porcelain that appeared from the delicate design in under-glaze red to have been imported eight hundred years ago from China on a trading route four thousand kilometers long. The other was a coin depicting Zoroastrian fire worshippers, one element in the complex religious patchwork from which the minaret emerged: The Hebrew tombstones showed there had been Jews; the indigenous people had perhaps been Hindus; while the Ghorids' second capital of Bamiyan was dominated by two giant Buddhas.39 The third piece was a fragment from the rim of a plate.

Lonely Planet Maldives (Travel Guide)
by Planet, Lonely and Masters, Tom
Published 31 Aug 2015

There are six frequent ferries connecting most of the inhabited islands in the two atolls, including Kaadedhoo. The network is centred on the Gaafu Dhaalu’s capital island Thinadhoo, and to a lesser extent on Gaafu Alifu’s capital Viligili. Gaafu Dhaalu Geographically isolated from Male, but strategically located on the Indian Ocean trade routes, Gaafu Dhaalu – or Huvadhoo Atoll, to use its geographical name – had independent tendencies dating back many years. It had its own direct trade links with Sri Lanka, and the people spoke a distinct dialect almost incomprehensible to other Maldivians. The island of Thinadhoo was a focal point of the ‘southern rebellion’ against the central rule of Male during the early 1960s, so much so that troops from Male invaded in February 1962 and destroyed all the homes.

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At one stage, when the Portuguese first arrived on the scene, there were actually two ruling dynasties, the Theemuge (or Malei) dynasty and the Hilali. For a detailed overview of Maldivian history see www.maldivesstory.com.mv. The Portuguese Early in the 16th century the Portuguese, who were already well established in Goa in western India, decided they wanted a greater share of the profitable trade routes of the Indian Ocean. They were given permission by the sultan to build a fort and a factory in Male, but it wasn’t long before they wanted more from the Maldives. In 1558, after a few unsuccessful attempts, Portuguese Captain Andreas Andre led an invasion army and killed Sultan Ali VI. The Maldivians called the captain ‘Andiri Andirin’ and he ruled Male and much of the country for the next 15 years.

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age
by Annalee Newitz
Published 2 Feb 2021

Beset by political woes from outside, facing a crumbling infrastructure inside, the city transformed from a dense hub to a rambling sprawl of farming villages. Still, it would be several centuries of expansion before Angkor went full Koh Ker. During that time, Suryavarman’s laborers built up the empire’s trade routes and bureaucracy, while Suryavarman II improved its infrastructure. And then, in 1181, Angkor underwent its most profound urbanization. A new king rose, Jayavarman VII, who is still often called “the great king.” His workers built thousands of roads, hospitals, and schools. His reign is referenced so frequently in Angkorian history that archaeologists refer to him by the nickname J7.

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Ohkay Owingeh author Rebecca Roanhorse writes popular fantasy novels like Trail of Lightning, which incorporates indigenous histories and culture. One recent novel takes place partly at Cahokia, and I caught up with her as she was in the process of writing it. Speaking from her home in New Mexico, she told me that Cahokia is important to her because she wants readers to know that “there were extensive, sophisticated cities and trade routes in the Americas before European invasion.” She imagines the city as very cosmopolitan, with Iron Age technology, busy streets, pens full of animals, and a rivalry with the urbanites living in Chaco Canyon to the south. Unlike many of the archaeologists I spoke with, Roanhorse says she’s not particularly focused on the spirituality of the people who lived at Cahokia.

Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (In a Big Way)
by Roma Agrawal
Published 2 Mar 2023

Around 1300 BCE, metal workers in India and Sri Lanka discovered how to make iron (which is about as hard as bronze, and harder than copper). This ushered in the Iron Age in the East, and bronze was soon supplanted by the new material. The final nail in the coffin for bronze was a politically tumultuous period in the Middle East that started in about 1200 BCE, disrupting trade routes and making tin (and therefore bronze) very expensive. Later, iron too was supplanted, once people discovered that mixing it with a little bit of carbon created alloys like steel, which led to much stronger nails. The Romans became very skilled in manipulating Indian iron, using it in a variety of ways, from making armour to mass-manufacturing nails across their empire, including Britain.

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Travelling became safe (assuming you’d surrendered), increasing trade along the Silk Road, which in turn spurred the cross-cultural exchange of technologies and goods, bringing, among other things, silk and paper-making to medieval Europe. It’s tempting for me to paint a picture of engineering as a force for advancement and good in the world, of course, but that’s only a partial perspective. Trade routes also introduced to Europe the bow and arrow, the crossbow, and the catapult – weapons that were deadlier than those that came before them, thanks to the science of springs. Springs still play a central role in weaponry (now for the smoking barrels I promised earlier). Modern machine guns can fire multiple bullets in succession without reloading, usually because of an arrangement of springs driving the belt of bullets through the barrel.

How We'll Live on Mars (TED Books)
by Stephen Petranek
Published 6 Jul 2015

And every person’s view of what the world was expanded, contracted, and multiplied. A voyage to Mars will make the Age of Discovery look like a minuscule event in human history. Our world will suddenly encompass an entire solar system instead of one planet. Our abilities to geoengineer something as large as a planet will flourish. Trade routes that would have seemed impossible to previous generations will be established. The Earth will gain metals it desperately needs and the technical knowledge to very possibly save its environment. Opportunity for a new life elsewhere will give hope to millions. We must work desperately and devotedly to save our home planet—there is simply nothing else like it anywhere that we know of.

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
by Misha Glenny
Published 7 Apr 2008

The vote imposing an embargo on Yugoslavia immediately rendered all Bokan’s trade illegal in international law, as Serbia was the center of his trading empire. Sanctions had a negligible impact on the European Union and America. Most Western companies could afford to stop trading with Belgrade, an insignificant market, especially as their governments threatened tough penalties if anybody violated them. Serbia lies at the heart of all Balkan trading routes—its roads and its markets are almost as essential for its neighbors as they are for Serbia itself. The UN, of course, issued warnings to the surrounding countries that they must break all links with Serbia and Montenegro. For Balkan countries, the sanctions were a catastrophe. Even though the Bulgarian government could no longer officially buy and sell to Serbia, businessmen such as Ilya Pavlov felt less constrained.

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Not a penny of assistance or compensation was offered to Yugoslavia’s neighbors—they were all expected to shoulder the costs of the international community’s moral indignation about Serbia’s behavior in Bosnia. So the only way they could pay pensions, wages, and health care was by allowing the mob to shore up its control of the country’s main trading routes, and claim ignorance, helplessness, or both. As the crisis deepened, so did this damaging symbiotic relationship between politics and crime. In Serbia itself, Vanja Bokan was quick to arrange shipments of oil and metals into Yugoslavia. Criminals and businessmen throughout the region worked feverishly to create a dense web of friendships and networks to subvert the embargo.

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Civil war devastated the east until 1970, when Biafra—broken, battered, and famished—surrendered. Ever since then, the Igbo have complained that they have been excluded from the riches of Nigeria by the Yoruba and Hausa. The rich of the west and the north became even richer, while the Igbo returned to their old ways. For hundreds of years, the Igbo had forged trading routes along the coast of West Africa as far as South Africa. In collaboration with the emirs of the Hausa and their trading counterparts from Lebanon, they also pioneered a trans-Saharan route that stretched as far as Mecca, Medina, and Jeddah in what is now Saudi Arabia. Thanks to wars and apartheid, these traditional routes were less easily negotiated in the 1970s than was once the case (although some of the many Nigerians studying in the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies assisted in the delivery of supplies to the ANC in southern Africa).

An Empire of Wealth: Rise of American Economy Power 1607-2000
by John Steele Gordon
Published 12 Oct 2009

In 1453 the Turks had taken Constantinople, the ancient capital of the eastern Roman Empire. A Muslim power now sat athwart the trade routes to the East, extracting taxes on all goods that passed. More, the Turks were expanding into Europe itself, and by the middle of the sixteenth century would be at the very gates of Vienna. Christendom felt itself under attack as it had not since the Dark Ages a thousand years earlier. But thanks to the full-rigged ship, western Europeans could do an end run around the Muslim control of the ancient trade routes. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese had rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and reached India.

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Geopolitically, that situation resembled England’s, only on a much grander scale. Until the second half of the twentieth century, North America was largely immune from foreign attack, and the hand of government (and thus the tax man) lay very lightly indeed upon it for most of that time. And just as Great Britain was perfectly situated on the map to dominate the trade routes of northern Europe as that area began to dominate European and world affairs, the United States was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the emergence of a fully globalized economy. The United States is the only Great Power to front on both the Atlantic and the Pacific and the only one whose national territory sprawls across arctic, temperate, and tropical climate zones.

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
by Matt Ridley
Published 17 May 2010

First the Milesians then the Athenians and their allies grew wealthy by trading among small, independent ‘citizen states’, not by uniting as an empire. Having copied the Phoenicians’ ships and trading habits, Miletus, the most successful of the Ionian Greek cities, sat ‘like a bloated spider’ at the junction of four trade routes, east overland to Asia, north through the Hellespont to the Black Sea, south to Egypt and west to Italy. But though it established colonies all over the Black Sea, Miletus was not an imperial capital: it was first among equals. The city of Sybaris, a preferred trading partner of Miletus on a fertile plain in the toe of southern Italy, grew to perhaps several hundred thousand people and became a byword for opulence and refinement before it was destroyed by its enemies and buried under the diverted river Crathis in 510 BC.

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It was ruled at its zenith in 250 BC by Asoka, a warrior who turned into a Buddhist pacifist once he had won (funny, that) and was as economically benign a head of state as you could wish. He built roads and waterways to encourage the movement of goods, established a common currency and opened maritime trade routes with China, south-east Asia and the Middle East, sparking an export-led boom in which cotton and silk textiles played a prominent part. Trade was carried on almost entirely by private firms (sreni) of a recognisably corporate kind; taxation, though extensive, was fairly administered. There were remarkable scientific advances, not least the invention of zero and the decimal system and the accurate calculation of pi.

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Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 170 ‘advanced by David Hume’. This argument goes back to David Hume’s History of Great Britain, and has been pursued recently by Douglass North. p. 170 ‘Miletus, the most successful of the Ionian Greek cities, sat “like a bloated spider” at the junction of four trade routes’. Cunliffe, B. 2001. The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek. Penguin. p. 172 ‘Humanity’s great battle over the last 10,000 years has been the battle against monopoly.’ Kealey, T. 2008. Sex, Science and Profits. Random House. p. 172 ‘The Mauryan empire in India’. Khanna, V. S. 2005.

Lonely Planet Florence & Tuscany
by Lonely Planet , Virginia Maxwell and Nicola Williams
Published 1 Dec 2013

End the tour 12km south in Aulla, known for its abbey founded in AD 884 and housing the remains of St Caprasio, the hermit monk who inspired the spread of monastic life in Provence from the 5th century. Top of Chapter Pontremoli pop 7820 It may be small, but this out-of-the-way town presided over by the impressive bulk of Castello del Piagnaro has a decidedly grand air – a legacy of its strategic location on the pilgrimage and trading route of Via Francigena. Its merchants made fortunes in medieval times, and adorned the centro storico with palaces, piazzas and graceful stone bridges. The centro storico is a long sliver stretching north–south between the Magra and Verde rivers, which have historically served as defensive barriers.

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They secretly allied themselves with Hannibal to bring about the ignominious defeat of the Romans – one of the deadliest battles in all of Roman history – at Lago Trasimeno in neighbouring Umbria: 16,000 Roman soldiers were lost in approximately three hours. After that, Rome took a more hands-off approach with the Etruscans, granting them citizenship in 88 BC to manage their own affairs in the new province of Tuscia (Tuscany), and in return securing themselves safe passage along the major inland Roman trade route via the Via Flaminia. Little did the Romans realise when they paved the road that they were also paving the way for their own replacements in the 5th to 8th centuries AD: first came German emperor Theodoric, then Byzantine emperor Justinian, then the Lombards and finally Charlemagne in 800. Medieval Scandal Political power constantly changed hands in medieval Tuscany.

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For medieval pilgrims unaccustomed to multiplexes and special effects, entering a space that had been covered from floor to ceiling with stories told in living colour must have been a dazzling, overwhelming experience. The Middle Ages: The Rise of the Comune While communities sprang up around hermits and holy men in the hinterlands, cities took on a life of their own from the 13th and 14th centuries. Roman road networks had been serving as handy trade routes starting in the 11th century, and farming estates and villas began to spring up outside major trading centres as a new middle class of merchants, farmers and skilled craftspeople emerged. Taxes and donations sponsored the building of hospitals such as the Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala in Siena.

The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State
by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg
Published 3 Feb 1997

For example, it is possible that microbiological barriers to the exercise of power, equivalent to malaria but more virulent, could have halted the Western invasion of the periphery in its tracks. The first intrepid Portuguese adventurers who sailed into African waters could have contracted a deadly retrovirus, a more communicable version of AIDS, that would have stopped the opening of the new trade route to Asia before it even began. Columbus, too, and the first waves of settlers in the New World might have encountered diseases that decimated them in the same way that indigenous local populations were affected by measles and other Western childhood diseases. Yet nothing of the kind happened, a coincidence that underlines the intuition that history has a destiny.

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The catalysts for these changes were new technologies, from gunpowder weapons to the printing press, which changed the boundaries of life in ways that few could grasp. 73 By the final decade of the fifteenth century, explorers like Columbus were just beginning to open an approach to vast, unknown continents. For the first time in the immemorial ages of human existence, the whole world was compassed. Galleons, new high-masted improvisations on Mediterranean galleys, circumnavigated the globe, charting the passages that were to become trade routes and thoroughfares for disease and conquest. Conquistadors wielding their new bronze cannon on sea and on shore blasted open new horizons. They found fortunes in gold and spices, planted the seeds of new cash crops, from tobacco to potatoes, and staked out new grazing lands for their cattle. The First Industrial Technology Just as the cannon was opening new economic horizons, the printing press opened new intellectual horizons.

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They could draw on tight kinship relations to defend against most violent threats on a limited scale, which were the only sort they were likely to encounter. When they encountered larger threats, organized by states, they were overpowered and subjected to rule monopolized by outside groups. This happened over and over. Wherever societies have formed at a scale above bands and tribes, especially where trade routes brought different peoples into contact, specialists in violence have always emerged to plunder any surplus more peaceful people could produce. When technological conditions raised the returns to violence, they doomed societies that were not organized to channel large resources into making war.

Florence & Tuscany
by Lonely Planet

These fruits of the forest and other regional delicacies, including Zeri lamb, freshly baked focaccette, crisp and sweet rotella apples, boiled pork shoulder, caciotta (a delicate cow’s-milk cheese), bigliolo beans, local olive oil and Colli di Luni wines, are reason alone to visit. Pontremoli POP 7820 It may be small, but this out-of-the-way town presided over by the impressive bulk of Castello del Piagnaro has a decidedly grand air – a legacy of its strategic location on the pilgrimage and trading route of Via Francigena . Its merchants made fortunes in medieval times, and adorned the Old Town with palaces, piazzas and graceful stone bridges. The Old Town is a long sliver stretching north–south between the Magra and Verde rivers, which have historically served as defensive barriers. Meandering its streets takes you beneath colonnaded arches, through former strongholds of opposing Guelph and Ghibelline factions, and past a 17th-century cathedral and an 18th-century theatre.

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They secretly allied with Hannibal to bring about the ignominious defeat of the Romans – one of the deadliest battles in all of Roman history – at Lago Trasimeno in neighbouring Umbria: 16,000 Roman soldiers were lost in approximately three hours. After that Rome took a more hands-off approach with the Etruscans, granting them citizenship in 88 BC to manage their own affairs in the new province of Tuscia (Tuscany) and in return securing safe passage along the major inland Roman trade route via the Via Flaminia. Little did the Romans realise when they paved the road that they were also paving the way for their own replacements in the 5th to 8th centuries AD: first came German emperor Theodoric, then Byzantine emperor Justinian, then the Lombards and finally Charlemagne in 800. MEDIEVAL SCANDAL Best Etruscan Ruins » Vie Cave, Pitigliano » Parco Archeologico di Baratti e Populonia, Golfi di Baratti » Necropoli, Sovana Political power constantly changed hands in medieval Tuscany.

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The Middle Ages: the Rise of the Comune Best Art Galleries » Uffizi Gallery, Florence » Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence » Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena » Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa » Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence While communities sprang up around hermits and holy men in the hinterlands, cities began taking on a life of their own from the 13th and 14th centuries. Roman road networks had been serving as handy trade routes starting in the 11th century, and farming estates and villas began to spring up outside major trading centres as a new middle class of merchants, farmers and skilled craftspeople emerged. Taxes and donations sponsored the building of hospitals such as the Ospedale Santa Maria della Scala in Siena.

Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89
by Rodric Braithwaite
Published 15 Jan 2011

Peter ordered Alexander Bekovich, a captain in the Life Guards and a converted Muslim prince from the North Caucasus, to find out more. He gave Bekovich a force of over six thousand men – horse, foot, guns, and a clutch of merchants – to build fortresses along the Amu Darya, to persuade the Khan of Khiva to help find the gold, and to open the trading route to India. Bekovich reached Khiva in the summer of 1717. After an initial welcome, the Khan treacherously slaughtered him and his men, stuffed his head with straw, and sent it to the Khan of Bukhara. A few years later, in 1728, the Russians collided for the first time with the Afghans, when their troops encountered an Afghan army which had invaded Persia.

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Its people are Tajiks, devout but not fanatical Sunni Muslims, often at odds with the Pushtuns to the south. Alexander the Great went this way in an epic winter march in pursuit of Bessus, the last claimant to the imperial Persian throne. Later the locals made a living by extracting tribute from the rich caravans from China which passed through the valley, until the twentieth century one of the main trade routes northwards from Kabul. The painters of the European Renaissance used lapis lazuli mined around the upper valley for making the blue paint for the robes of their Madonnas. The mines generated an income of more than $5 million a year even during the war; they were carefully camouflaged, heavily protected against air attack, and exploited with the help of Japanese and West German engineers.

…

The mines generated an income of more than $5 million a year even during the war; they were carefully camouflaged, heavily protected against air attack, and exploited with the help of Japanese and West German engineers. Because of their economic importance to the resistance, the mines were attacked – unsuccessfully – in June 1981 by long-range bombers from bases in the Soviet Union.47 After the road over the Salang Pass was built, the valley lost its significance as a trade route. But despite its diminished importance, its position – dangerously close to Bagram, the main Soviet airbase, to the main Soviet supply line across the Hindu Kush through the Salang Tunnel, and to Kabul itself – meant that guerrilla forces operating out of the valley were a thorn in the Russians’ side from the first day of the Soviet occupation to the last (see Map 4).

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
by Daniel Yergin
Published 14 Sep 2020

“As I stand here and look back to that episode of history, I could almost hear the camel bells echoing in the mountains and see the wisp of smoke rising from the desert.”1 Zhang Qian’s reports marked the beginning of the development of trade routes that ran to the west, first to Central Asia and Persia, and then, at least intermittently, as far as the Roman Empire. This transcontinental trade route had no particular name. Only in 1877 was it dubbed Die Seidenstrasse—“the Silk Road”—by Baron Ferdinand von Richthoften, a German geologist and geographer who had been dispatched to China to scout mining opportunities and a possible route for a railroad to Europe.

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China is expanding its reach in all dimensions: geographically, militarily, economically, technologically, and politically. The “workshop of the world,” it now seeks to move up the value chain and become the global leader in the new industries of this century. China is also asserting its own map for almost the entirety of the South China Sea, the most critical oceanic trade route in the world, and now the sharpest point of strategic confrontation with the United States. Energy is an important part of that claim. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is designed to redraw the economic map of Asia and Eurasia and beyond, putting what was once the “Middle Kingdom” in the middle of a reordered global economy.

The Rough Guide to Norway
by Phil Lee
Published 25 Nov 2013

CRUISING THE BLINDLEIA Lillesand’s nautical highlight is the three-hour cruise aboard M/B Øya (July to early Aug Mon–Sat daily at 10am; 255kr one-way, 420kr return; 95 93 58 55, blindleia.no), a dinky little passenger ferry which wiggles its way south to Kristiansand in part along a narrow channel separating the mainland from the offshore islets. Sheltered from the full force of the ocean, this channel – the Blindleia – was once a major trade route, but today it’s trafficked by every sort of pleasure craft imaginable, from replica three-mast sailing ships and vintage tugboats to the sleekest of yachts. Other, faster, boats make the trip too, but the M/B Øya is the most charming. If the sailing schedule of the M/B Øya does not suit, contact Lillesand tourist office for details of a wide variety of local boat trips, from fishing trips and cruises along the coast to the summertime badeboot (bathing boat), which shuttles across to Hestholm bay on the island of Skauerøya, where swimmers don’t seem to notice just how cold the Skagerrak actually is.

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THE TELEMARKSKANAL Dalen is the terminus of the passenger ferry that wends its way southeast along the Telemarkskanal to Skien (ferries mid-May to early Sept 3–6 weekly; 800kr one-way; 35 90 00 30, telemarkskanalen.no), a journey that takes a little under nine hours, leaving around 8am. Extending 105km, the canal links a string of lakes and rivers by means of eighteen locks that negotiate a difference in water levels of 72m. Completed in 1892, the canal was once an important trade route into the interior, but today it’s mainly used by pleasure craft and vintage passenger ferries. It’s also possible to make shorter excursions out by boat and back by bus. The jetty is 750m beyond the Dalen Hotel. Dalen Trailing along the valley between steep forested hills, the sleepy little town of DALEN is a pleasant place in a pleasant setting, its string of modern houses somewhat reminiscent of small-town USA.

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The hotel is about 2.5km south of the Breheimsenteret on Highway 604; the Glacier Bus from Sogndal passes close by. 930kr The Sognefjellsveg The mountain roads of Norway are some of the most melodramatic in Europe, but the wildest of them all is perhaps the Sognefjellsveg (Highway 55; sognefjellet.com), which runs the 110km from Skjolden, a dull little town at the head of the Lustrafjord, over to Lom. Despite the difficulty of the terrain, the Sognefjellsveg – which is closed from late October to May depending on conditions – marks the course of one of the oldest trading routes in Norway, with locals transporting goods by mule or, amazingly enough, on their shoulders: salt and fish went northeast, hides, butter, tar and iron went southwest. That portion of the road that clambers over the highest part of the mountains – no less than 1434m above sea level – was only completed in 1938 under a Great Depression “make-work” scheme, which kept a couple of hundred young men busy for two years.

Are Trams Socialist?: Why Britain Has No Transport Policy
by Christian Wolmar
Published 19 May 2016

There are two key aspects of the Swiss system that underpin its success: it is based on cooperation rather than competition (the derogatory description would be ‘monopoly’) and it is a product of a highly decentralized political system where much decision making is made at the local level. Although it is difficult to imagine, Switzerland at the beginning of the twentieth century was a poor country and, while it was not a participant, suffered economically from both world wars as the country’s trading routes were disrupted. When the economy recovered after World War II, the priority was to ensure that transport facilities were developed quickly and it was seen as inefficient to create services that competed within or between modes. Unrestrained market forces are seen as wasteful. Transport services are mostly locally controlled and financed.

Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise (Expertise: Cultures and Technologies of Knowledge)
by Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox
Published 22 Jun 2015

On Sundays Zlatter and Stambor would come down to the river from their haciendas, looking for gold and keen to hunt and fish. On one occasion they used dynamite to fish, but after the explosion only three small fish floated to the surface. The name Kimsa Challwa registered their petty failure. By now this was now a major trading route, with mule trains of up to two hundred animals bringing goods down from the Andes to service the miners who were flooding into the region. There was work loading and unloading the animals. Goods for the shops were winched across the river on pulley systems while the animals swam across below. However many things were brought in, there was never enough because there were so many people now living in the area.

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The power of Kalinowski’s tale about his encounter with the Amarakaeri hinged on his shock at discovering an enduring connection between contemporary lowland Amazonia and the colonial highlands. This opaque reference to an enduring connection between Andean and Amazonian people beyond the better known trading routes and missionary incursions stands in stark contrast to more common renderings of this region of the Amazon forest as the home of peoples never before contacted by outsiders (Slater 2002).1 If Gupta and Ferguson encourage us to be attentive to rethinking difference through connection, Kalinowski’s story reminds us that not all histories of connection are equally legible.

Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That's Changing How the World Gets High
by Mike Power
Published 1 May 2013

Do not list anything related to pedophilia [sic].’ The site has Norwegians selling Cambodian mushrooms, Canadians selling Afghan heroin, and Brits selling concentrated cannabis tinctures from ancient Nepalese cannabis landraces grown under artificial sunlight in lofts that may well be in Basildon. Appropriately for a site named after a trade route that first brought these drugs to the West, there are also opiates, including opium, prescription morphine, and white and brown heroin from Afghanistan. Most of the products are illegal, but whether you want a quarter gram of heroin or a gram of glittering Peruvian escama de pescado cocaine, you’re in the right place, and there’s not a great deal the police or customs can do to stop you.

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There’s high-grade kush marijuana, with enthusiastic recommendations from satisfied customers for one particular vendor, detailing how he vacuum-sealed and wrapped and triple-packed the highly fragrant goods into an envelope small enough to be posted through most standard letterboxes, negating the need to sign for the packets – or for the raising of any red flags at customs. That the strain is one of the world’s oldest and earliest genetic examples of the plant, brought to Europe and thence to the US along traditional trading routes, is an irony probably not lost on the Silk Road’s intelligently combative and articulate owner, who operates under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts. Buying is a simple matter of adding the goods to your shopping cart, and paying for them. The money is held in an escrow account hosted at the site, and although you have to supply a delivery address, this can be encrypted, and is deleted as soon as you have received the goods.

The Big Ratchet: How Humanity Thrives in the Face of Natural Crisis
by Ruth Defries
Published 8 Sep 2014

The cells form the trade winds—so named for the routes they opened for exchange between the Old and New Worlds—on either side of the Equator. These engines of the trade winds are sometimes called the Hadley cells, a name honoring the English amateur meteorologist George Hadley, who noted the link between the rotating Earth and the trade routes of his era in 1735. The trade winds carried Columbus westward, where he landed in the Bahamas in October 1492. He returned via the northward loop of a Hadley cell that blows winds eastward toward Europe. The New World that Columbus opened to other conquistadors and explorers—Hernando Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and Vasco Nuñez de Balboa—during the wind-powered Age of Discovery had little resemblance to the Old World.

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In Search of the Soybean Soybeans, the third in the triumvirate of the industrializing agriculture of the Midwest in the early twentieth century, took another path. The Chinese first domesticated the bean in the northeastern part of China several thousand years ago, and it had gone on to become one of the sacred grains of Chinese civilization, along with rice, wheat, barley, and millet. Trade routes spread the bean throughout Asia, where miso, tempeh, and tofu, all produced from high-protein soy, became a cornerstone of nutrition in the region. Missionaries and scholars brought soybeans to Europe in the late sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth, but the crop failed to take a prominent place in European agriculture.

The Age of Stagnation: Why Perpetual Growth Is Unattainable and the Global Economy Is in Peril
by Satyajit Das
Published 9 Feb 2016

The relationship between the developed and emerging worlds is long, complex, and fraught with tension. Historically, the developing world was seen as a new frontier to be conquered. From the 1500s, the European powers expanded, acquiring land and new resources to complement the increasingly intensive exploitation of their homelands. Voyages of exploration and discovery opened up trade routes. Trading relationships evolved into colonial empires. Conquest of these often sophisticated countries was made possible by Europe's superior military power. This in turn was supported by superior industrial and scientific technologies, as well as highly evolved legal systems, property rights, politics, and systems of government.

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By the nineteenth century, England, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Germany had established major colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, built upon what English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace termed “the unblushing selfishness of the greatest civilized nations.”1 The objective was to strengthen economic and political power by controlling key resources and strategic trading routes, and to deny these advantages to sovereign rivals. Over time, the colonies came to resemble modern global supply chains. In a thoroughly contemporary twist, Britain even outsourced the management of its colonies to private interests, the British East India Company. Colonialism provided access to low-cost raw materials, fueling the growth and prosperity of the Old World.

This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America
by Ryan Grim
Published 7 Jul 2009

But the act did come at a time when Americans readily gave up their civil liberties in the name of the war effort. The infamous Espionage Act was passed in 1917, banning “disloyal” speech and leading to the imprisonment of Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs. World War I affected the American drug market in other ways. First, the global conflagration disrupted drug trade routes and diminished supply. Second, prohibitionist sentiment merged with nationalist fervor to promote the idea that sobriety was a way to strengthen the nation. Xenophobia played a major role. Anything German was despised: sauerkraut was renamed Victory Cabbage, and beer fell out of favor. A 1918 New York Times editorial exemplified the nexus of the period’s antidrug and anti-German attitudes:Into well-known German brands of toothpaste and patent medicines—naturally for export only—habit-forming drugs were to be introduced; at first a little, then more, as the habit grew on the nonGerman victim and his system craved ever-greater quantities.

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Donald Semesky, the DEA’s chief of financial operations, has noted that 90 percent of the 1.7 billion euros that were registered as having entered the United States in 2005 came through Latin America, “where drug cartels launder their European proceeds.” As the cocaine market has shifted, use along its new trade routes has grown. A UN report notes increases in use not only in South and Central America but also in Africa, where seizures jumped tenfold from 2003 to 2006 and then doubled again between 2006 and 2007. West African nations, which make Colombia and Mexico look like models of transparent governance, have become important stopping-off points for coke traffickers on the way to Europe.

The Alps: A Human History From Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond
by Stephen O'Shea
Published 21 Feb 2017

THE CHILLON CASTLE stands just offshore, perched on a rocky island the same color as its tawny fortifications. It is a multiturreted jewel, a small masterpiece sited in a place of scenic perfection. The castle’s landward walls are almost windowless, with watchtowers, sentry walks, and slits for archers that show its role as a jealous guardian of the Via Italica, the age-old trade route linking Burgundy with Lombardy by way of the nearby Great St. Bernard Pass. Lakeward, the façade is punctuated by graceful Gothic windows to take in the view long enjoyed by the ruling family of the region, who regularly summered at Chillon and held feasts in the four great halls of the castle.

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Mozart gave his first concert here, at age six. We cross the Salzach and find our way to Steingasse. The baroque vanishes in favor of the medieval. This tiny, cobbled lane, once home to butchers, potters, and dyers (professions needing the waters of the nearby Salzach), also constituted the main trade route into and out of the city—a rather amazing reminder of how cramped urban life was in the Middle Ages. Today the lane is a quiet place, with children walking their bicycles into recessed doorways. A plaque indicates that Steingasse is the birthplace of Joseph Mohr, who in the early nineteenth century wrote the lyrics to the carol “Silent Night.”

A Second Chance
by Jodi Taylor
Published 31 Dec 2012

Using the big screen, I brought up such maps as we had been able to find. Plus a few artists’ impressions, just to give everyone an idea. ‘This is our objective – the city of Troy and its surrounding areas. Situated on the coast of north-west Turkey and flanked by the two rivers Simoeis and Scamander, Troy’s position on the major east/west trade routes and guarding the entrance to the Black Sea has ensured it has become the most important and richest city in this part of the world. Troy has accumulated massive wealth by collecting tributes and tolls and generally skimming everyone’s profits. ‘The ruling family is headed by King Priam. He has a large family, mostly sons, nineteen of whom are legitimate.

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A breach of the rules of hospitality that should have resulted in both of them being returned to Menelaus with Priam’s compliments, apologies, and an invitation to dispose of them as he pleased. No, I was convinced the Trojan War was about money and power, not a queen, no matter how beautiful she might have been. Troy was the most important city in that part of the world, strategically placed to control the maritime trade routes of the time. Mycenae coveted that role. Hence Agamemnon’s move against them and the massive following he was able to muster. It was a power struggle. We would see this again with Rome and Carthage. I continued. ‘Doctor Black will be at Site A and Doctor Peterson at Site B. ‘Mr Roberts, you’ll be at Site A.

DIY Kombucha: 60 Nourishing Homemade Tonics for Health and Happiness
by Katherine Green and Rana Chang
Published 2 Mar 2015

It is brewed throughout Asia and Eastern Europe, and lore indicates that kombucha SCOBYs have been passed down within families and villages for countless generations. Thought to have made its first appearance during the Chinese Qin dynasty of the third century BC, kombucha had its first boom as trade routes extended into India and Russia. The energizing tea is said to have improved the vitality of long-marching armies, travelers, and traders. The elixir grew in popularity, and in AD 415, a Korean physician named Dr. Kombu reportedly brought it to Japan. Because cha is the Japanese word for tea, stories suggest that kombucha was named after this doctor, who treated Japanese emperor Inyoko with the invigorating drink.

The Wars of Afghanistan
by Peter Tomsen
Published 30 May 2011

The European imperial expansion followed maritime trade routes around Africa into Asia, obviating the potential revival of the age-old land-centered Eurasian trade corridors through Afghanistan. Instead of a crossroads of trans-Eurasian commerce, the Afghan highland became a battleground18 for neighboring larger powers—a role that it has continued to play into contemporary times. The Indian Mughals and Persian Safavids fought to dominate the Afghan highland separating their empires. Neither was willing to commit the resources necessary to establish a lasting presence, or to restore the centuries-old international trade routes. Both recruited Afghan mercenaries, the Persians from the Durrani and Ghilzai tribes in southern Afghanistan, the Mughals from the eastern Ghilzai tribes.

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He then escalated tensions by blocking all trade routes across the Durand Line. The restriction cut off the centuries-old annual winter migration of over a million Afghan Pashtun nomads into Pakistan. More important, the Pakistani blockade severed Afghanistan’s main economic and trade corridors to the outside world. Daoud looked to Moscow for help. Soviet planes airlifted Afghanistan’s entire 1961 fruit crop to markets in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Afghanistan and the Soviet Union signed new transportation agreements to offset closed Afghan-Pakistani trade routes by constructing new roads to the northern Soviet-Afghan border.

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The Huns, and then the Turks and Mongols, continued to invade Afghanistan over the next 1,300 years.7 In the first century A.D. the Kushans overran Afghanistan and built an empire based near Peshawar in the region of Gandhara. Kushan kings adopted Buddhism.8 Their empire profited from its location at the center of the Great Silk Road network of trade routes linking Han China to the Roman Empire. Caravans traversed Eurasia east to west, passing through the Afghan cities of Balkh, Kabul, Bamian, and Herat, and robust trade also moved along the north-south corridors linking Balkh, Kabul, Jalalabad, Peshawar, and Delhi. During the third to fifth centuries A.D., Buddhist missionaries traveling the Silk Road carved two giant Buddha statues into the soaring mountain cliffs of the Bamian Valley about 70 miles northwest of Kabul.

Collapse
by Jared Diamond
Published 25 Apr 2011

Ironically, raising sheep in Greenland doesn't pay even in the short run: the government has to give each sheep-farming family about $14,000 each year to cover their losses, provide them with an income, and induce them to carry on with the sheep. The Inuit play a major role in the story of the demise of Viking Greenland. They constituted the biggest difference between the histories of the Greenland and Iceland Norse: while the Icelanders did enjoy the advantages of a less daunting climate and shorter trade routes to Norway compared to their Greenland brethren, the Icelanders' clearest advantage lay in not being threatened by the Inuit. At minimum, the Inuit represent a missed opportunity: the Greenland Vikings would have had a better chance of surviving if they had learned from or traded with the Inuit, but they didn't.

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is the world's leading importer nation: we import many necessities (especially oil and some rare metals) and many consumer products (cars and consumer electronics), as well as being the world's leading importer of investment capital. We are also the world's leading exporter, particularly of food and of our own manufactured products. Our own society opted long ago to become interlocked with the rest of the world. That's why political instability anywhere in the world now affects us, our trade routes, and our overseas markets and suppliers. We are so dependent on the rest of the world that if, 30 years ago, you had asked a politician to name the countries most geopolitically irrelevant to our interests because of their being so remote, poor, and weak, the list would surely have begun with Afghanistan and Somalia, yet they subsequently became recognized as important enough to warrant our dispatching U.S. troops.

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Two other overview papers by Weisler are "The settlement of marginal Polynesia: new evidence from Henderson Island" (Journal of Field Archaeology 21:83—102 (1994)) and "An archaeological survey of Mangareva: implications for regional settlement models and interaction studies" (Man and Culture and Oceania 12:61-85 (1996)). Four papers by Weisler explain how chemical analysis of basalt adzes can identify on what island the basalt was quarried, and thus can help trace out trade routes: "Provenance studies of Polynesian basalt adzes material: a review and suggestions for improving regional databases" (Asian Perspectives 32:61-83 (1993)); "Basalt pb isotope analysis and the prehistoric settlement of Polynesia," coauthored with Jon D. Whitehead (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 92:1881-1885 (1995)); "Interisland and interarchipelago transfer of stone tools in prehistoric Polynesia," coauthored with Patrick V.

The Age of Wonder
by Richard Holmes
Published 15 Jan 2008

Here, it was said, lay a great West African metropolis, packed with treasures and glittering with towers and palaces roofed with gold. It was strategically situated astride the fabled river Niger, at the confluence of the Arabic and African trade routes. Beyond Timbuctoo, it was thought that the mysterious Niger might flow due eastwards, providing a trade route across the entire African continent, and eventually meeting up with the Nile in Egypt. But to the Europeans nothing was known for certain, though many speculative maps had been drawn by military cartographers, such as Major John Rennell’s ‘Sketch of the Northern Parts of Africa’, presented to the Association in 1790.

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He was allowed to take along his best friend, his wife’s brother Dr Alexander Anderson, as a companion, and a young Edinburgh draughtsman, George Scott, as the expedition’s official artist. Banks had spent many months trying to organise this expedition, but as war with France continued, its raison d’être had clearly altered. It was now transformed from a geographical survey to that of an armed trading caravan, its main purpose to seek to establish a commercial trade route down the Niger. Banks had secretly sent the outline of a grand imperial ‘project’ to the President of the Board of Trade, the Earl of Liverpool, as early as June 1799. The Niger expedition would form just one small element in this strategy. ‘Should the undertaking be fully resolved upon, the first step of Government must be to secure to the British Throne, either by conquest or by Treaty, the whole of the Coast of Africa from Arguin to Sierra Leone…’ For a moment Banks had a heady vision of a vast, benign commercial empire stretching over the dark continent and bringing light and happiness in its wake: ‘I have little doubt that in a very few years a trading Company might be established under the immediate control of Government, who…would govern the Negroes far more mildly, and make them far more happy than they now are under the Tyranny of their arbitrary Princes…by converting them to the Christian Religion…and by effecting the greatest practicable diminution of the Slavery of mankind, upon the Principles of natural Justice and commercial Benefit.’

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But equally, his intensely romantic attachment to his wife Allison did not prevent him from returning to the Niger, and the high likelihood of death. His agreement to lead an armed expedition, to accept a military commission and payment (and in effect a form of life insurance) from the Colonial Office, suggests a quite new kind of professionalism. So too does his acceptance of a commercial mission, to search for a ‘new trade route into the Sudan’, as well as his decision to learn Arabic before he set out. On his first trip he traded mostly in amber and cloth; on his second, in guns and gunpowder. Whether all this means that Mungo Park had consciously undertaken an ‘imperial’ mission in his second expedition remains ambiguous.

The Rough Guide to Jerusalem
by Daniel Jacobs
Published 10 Jan 2000

Later referred to as Jebus (Judges 19:10), the city is first called “Yerushalayim” (Jerusalem) when David brings Goliath’s head here in I Samuel 17:54. The name may be a corruption of Ir Shalem (“City of Salem”, Salem being the city’s Canaanite patron god, and presumably Melchizedek’s “most high God”). Whatever the origins of its name, the site has been settled since the early Bronze Age, around 2600 BC, but as it wasn’t on a trade route its importance was always more strategic than commercial. Ancient Jerusalem receives its first documentation on “execration texts” (lists of Egypt’s enemies and rebellious vassal states, inscribed in hieroglyphics on bowls and figurines which were then broken) dating from the nineteenth century BC.

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The revelation which prompted the change of the qibla (direction of prayer) is set out in the second sura of the Koran, which established the Ka’aba in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) as the religious centre to which all Muslims have turned in prayer ever since. Mohammed claimed Abraham and his son Ishmael (Isma’il in Arabic) as founders of the Ka’aba and of Arabian monotheism, thus predating and independent of both Judaism and Christianity. Mohammed was born in 571 AD in Mecca and worked for a merchant for whom he travelled along trade routes as far north as Damascus. He met Jews and Christians, and it may be that their religions inspired him to reject Arab polytheism in favour of a single God. But the new monotheistic faith that Mohammed introduced into his native city of Mecca met with opposition and persecution so that, in 622 AD, he and his followers were forced to flee to Medina.

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A collection of scholarly articles by eminent Israeli archeologists, covering excavations across the Old City, with the emphasis on what they reveal about daily life in Jerusalem during biblical and postbiblical times. History Meir Ben-Dov Historical Atlas of Jerusalem. Lots of photos, maps and detailed plans accompany this historical description of Jerusalem from Jebusite times to the present, which not only discusses the city itself, but also shows how it fitted in with regional politics and trade routes at different times in its history. Meron Benvenisti City of Stone: the Hidden History of Jerusalem. A well-balanced account of Jerusalem’s history – and most especially its modern history – by an Israeli former deputy mayor of the city. 05 Jerusalem contexts 265-290.indd 285 | Books K.J. Asali (ed) Jerusalem in History.

One Day in August: Ian Fleming, Enigma, and the Deadly Raid on Dieppe
by David O’keefe
Published 5 Nov 2020

Due to a combination of factors, all exacerbated by the Bletchley code-breakers’ sudden inability to read the German messages and locate enemy submarines before they attacked, merchant shipping losses in the Atlantic suddenly skyrocketed, seriously threatening Britain’s vital oceanic supply and trade routes. There was near panic in some circles over the perceived threat to the Allies’ command of the vital sea lanes essential to ultimate victory in the war. Fortunately for the Allies, when the Germans introduced their updated four-rotor Enigma, they possessed only enough of these machines to equip their Atlantic fleet, leaving for the moment all the other areas of operation – the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic, Norway and the German home waters – with the three-rotor machine and still vulnerable to Bletchley’s code-breaking skills.

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Although it was questionable that Hitler would reach this target, Churchill, the chiefs of staff, the Admiralty and the NID were nonetheless all deeply worried. Submarines, however, were not the only problem. The Germans also possessed a small but potent surface raiding fleet that posed a major threat to Great Britain’s Atlantic trading routes, even though it was not yet large enough to rival the Royal Navy ship for ship. Admiral Erich Raeder, the head of the Kriegsmarine, was no fool: he had nothing like the Kaiser’s Grand Fleet of the earlier war, but he knew that merely maintaining a ‘fleet in being’ to make periodic convoy raids would do more to tie up British resources than actually engaging in a traditional Götterdämmerung-style showdown with the Royal Navy.

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The cryptanalysts had dug up a series of out-of-date decrypts from April, and although the first messages did not reveal anything overt, on May 21, Bletchley Park sent the following message to the OIC: ‘Bismarck embarked five prize crews with necessary charts at the end of April and been carrying out practices in the Baltic with Prinz Eugen.’11 The Operational Intelligence Centre responded immediately: ‘prize crews’ used for manning captured merchant ships plus requests for charts of the North Atlantic could mean only one thing. It informed Admiral John Tovey, the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, that ‘it is evident that these ships intend to carry out a raid on trade routes.’12 With the original message so far in the past, Tovey initially regarded the OIC’s interpretation with some suspicion, thinking that the Bismarck might be sortieing for a ‘winner takes all’ showdown with the British ships. However, based on the accumulating evidence, Tovey accepted the OIC’s breakout theory.

The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth
by Michael Spitzer
Published 31 Mar 2021

We hear this ‘Orientalism’ (Edward Said’s term – see chapter 2) in Mozart’s flirtation with Turkish marching bands (see the Rondo alla Turca from his Piano Sonata no. 11 in A major, K. 331), and the Moorish sighs of the Spanish guitar. This love affair began in ancient Egypt. Figure 6.1 Animal musicians in a Dynasty 19 papyrus Egypt’s relationship with ‘the Orient’ was part of a system of exchanges spanning most of Asia. Much later, this system would coalesce into a network of trade routes, stretching from China to the Mediterranean, called the Silk Roads. We will explore the musical Silk Road in Chapter 7. The point to stress now is that the traditional Euro-centric view of ancient music, fostered by our obsession with classical Greece and Rome, is way out of kilter. Its true centre of gravity was Asia Minor.

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The West had polyphony (with notes and notation). Islam had ornament. India pursued taste. And China’s power was colour or timbre. Far from standing in stately isolation, these giants of ancient music bumped, jostled and blended. And cultural blood flowed between them through the arteries of the Silk Road, the system of trade routes stretching from the steppes of Central Asia to the Mediterranean and North Africa, from China to Rome. The Silk Road continues to fascinate because it shunts the spotlight of history from Europe to Eurasia. As Peter Frankopan has observed, if ever there was a misnomer, it was the word ‘Medi-terranean’, the ‘centre of the Earth’.95 By the same token, all roads nowadays lead to China.96 The Silk Road was also a musical superhighway for melodies, scales and modes, instruments and performance techniques.

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Mendieta goes on to confess that their pieces ‘have been adjudged superior works of art when shown to Spanish masters of composition. Indeed the Spanish masters often thought they could not have been written by Indians.’ Across the opposite hemisphere, precisely the same conversion was being effected at Manila in the Philippines, Spain’s transpacific entrepôt in the trade route between America and Asia. Ships from Mexico conveyed not just musical manuscripts and musical instruments (organs, guitars, harps and bandurrias), but the skilled craftsmen who built them. Intramuros, Manila’s walled city centre, contained the thickest concentration of convents and churches anywhere in the world, and these interiors resounded with sacred music performed in Latin by Filipino singers.

An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
by Jason Elliot
Published 1 Aug 2011

Alexander founded a number of important cities in Afghanistan along his bloody route to India, but Kabul does not seem to have been one of them. The closest of Alexander’s cities to Kabul, Alexandria-ad-Caucasum, lies in a similarly contested site near the junction of the Panjshīr and Kabul rivers about fifty miles north of Kabul, next to the modern town of Jebel as-Serāj. Kabul itself lay off the main trade routes and became the seat of power in Afghanistan only in the sixteenth century. Certainly Greek rulers squabbled over control of the Kabul valley and beyond after Alexander’s departure, and the names on the coins they minted are resoundingly Greek: Diodotus, Antimachus, Demetrius, Menander, Hippostratus, Straton.

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There would be collection sites in every town with seed and livestock bonuses for the first comers. Word would quickly get around that money was available and the guns could be gathered up by the truckload; soon even the most corrupt commanders would be robbed of their very armies; Pakistan would be forced to give up its old dream of manipulating the trade routes to central Asia through Afghanistan, and the general population could begin the task of rebuilding their shattered land. All that was needed was to establish the taste of peace. A hundred million dollars would do it: the budget of the latest Hollywood blockbuster … * * * After the mountains, Faizābād seemed like a place of high civilization; yet against it, Kabul was a megalopolis.

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Every day and night the opposing armies writhed snake-like in combat along the southern front, winning and losing pockets of territory in the fight for the capital. It was a crucial time. Rocket and artillery fire fell in the streets with the same terrifying unpredictability, and the level of hardship grew. The nights were steadily colder. Disruption of the usual trade routes to the north and south meant firewood was in short supply, and the cost of alternative fuel was increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary families. One morning, as we were sitting in the house reading and writing, we heard five thumps in succession from the hills to the south. Tim began to count and we moved away from the window.

The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy
by Dani Rodrik
Published 23 Dec 2010

The territorial control of the company did not end for some two hundred years, until 1870, at which point the company turned possession of Rupert’s Land over to the Dominion of Canada in exchange for £300,000 ($34 million in today’s money).6 The Canadian fur trade was comparatively small and the Hudson’s Bay Company no more than a footnote in the extensive mercantile system of long-distance trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The major trade routes lay elsewhere. There was of course the infamous Atlantic triangular trade, which carried slaves to the Americas in exchange for sugar, cotton, and tobacco (with the Europe-Africa leg providing an important connecting link). There was also the ever important trade with India and Southeast Asia, which could now bypass Venetian and Muslim intermediaries thanks to Vasco da Gama’s passage of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497–98.

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oid=134655&sn=Detail. 37 Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, Communication to the House of Representatives, December 5, 1791. 9. The Political Trilemma of the World Economy 1 See the interview with Domingo Cavallo at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/ shared/pdf/int_domingocavallo.pdf. 2 This account draws on Dani Rodrik, “Reform in Argentina, Take Two: Trade Rout,” The New Republic, January 14, 2002, pp. 13–15. 3 Cavallo would later argue that the true culprit was loose fiscal policy in the years preceding the crisis. See the interview cited in note 1. From a narrow economic perspective, he may well be right. With enough fiscal austerity, price deflation, and belt-tightening, the Argentine economy would have been able to service external debts and maintain financial market confidence.

The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China
by Jonathan Kaufman
Published 14 Sep 2020

The defining issue of his life—his flight from Baghdad—had been triggered by his misreading the politics of Baghdad and believing the sultan would side with him against Baghdad’s rulers. He was determined that he and his family would never make that mistake again. David arrived in India at a fortunate time. The expanding British Empire wasn’t opening just trade routes, it was opening the British mind. Britain itself remained a stratified society, with clubs and landed aristocrats looking down on “outsiders.” But business and politics were displaying more tolerance. In India, the British needed ambitious entrepreneurs to extend trade to the frontiers of a growing empire.

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Jardine relied on its long-established network of smugglers and corrupt Chinese officials. But with the opium trade now legalized, Elias saw a more efficient—and cheaper—way to reach customers. He negotiated with the Chaozhou, a Chinese minority group that had settled near the China coast but had contacts along trade routes throughout China. In return for a share of the profits, the Chaozhou sold the Sassoons’ opium to other Chinese. To undercut Jardine and other dealers, the Sassoons sometimes sold their opium at discount or lent money to Chinese opium shops. The Chaozhou profited enormously from working with the Sassoons.

The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class
by Joel Kotkin
Published 11 May 2020

Where class privilege remained in place over a shifting base, particularly in France, the Third Estate rose up in a violent assault on the last vestiges of feudalism.1 The entrepreneurs who chipped away at the feudal order did not generally come from the nobility, who in some cases were prohibited or socially discouraged from engaging in commerce.2 Aristocratic elites did sometimes give valuable funding and sponsorship to entrepreneurs, many of whom were from groups that had long been persecuted, including itinerant workers and dissenting Protestants, as well as Jews.3 These commercial risk takers played a major part in creating our modern world, as their technological improvements, opening of trade routes, and building of cities ushered in an era of unprecedented economic growth.4 Liberal capitalism laid the basis for Western economic hegemony. In the year 1000, the gross product of China and of India each easily exceeded that of all western Europe combined, and the same was true of the Islamic empire.

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But the large numbers of slaves brought in as the empire grew displaced many self-sufficient farmers and artisans, who then became dependent on the public provision of bread for sustenance. The best advice for Romans, said Juvenal, was to emigrate from the Eternal City.12 Urban culture deteriorated after the empire collapsed, and especially after the Muslim conquests and incursions cut off lucrative trade routes.13 Cities turned into fortresses where barbarian chieftains and ecclesiastical authorities could live sheltered behind protective walls. But for centuries these fortress-towns were peripheral to the lives of most people: barely 5 percent of the medieval European population lived in cities. As commerce quickened again in the later Middle Ages and a substantial merchant class emerged, city walls were extended to include growing populations.14 During the Early Modern era, cities became generators of prosperity again.

Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner
by Po Bronson
Published 14 Jul 2020

Good ultramarine was more expensive than gold. During the Renaissance, using lots of ultramarine was mandated in artists’ contracts. Blue became a highly desired color. To satisfy the desire for blue apparel, trade routes with India were established to import plant indigo. Both Germany and England banned indigo, to protect their inferior woad industries until they could set up their own trade routes. The history of indigo is a history of exploitation of the global south by wealthier countries. In the 1800s, the British convinced Bengali farmers to grow indigo instead of food; they loaned the farmers money, but paid the farmers only 2.5 percent of the market value of the indigo, so these farmers lived in permanent debt, which was inherited by their children.

The Mini Rough Guide to Helsinki
by Rough Guides
Published 9 Nov 2023

The early settlers were subsistence hunters and fishermen, but by around 500 BC, agriculture had become the dominant way of life. Stable settlements grew up first along Finland’s coast, spreading inland by the middle of the Finnish Iron Age. Around AD 800–1050, Vikings occupied what is now the southern coastline of Finland as a trade route to the east. Public domain A sixteenth-century map of the Nordic countries and Lapland The Swedish Era During the early medieval period, the area now known as Finland was coveted by both its western and eastern neighbours – the Roman Catholic Swedes and the Greek Orthodox Novgorod Republic (Russia).

Lonely Planet Mexico
by John Noble , Kate Armstrong , Greg Benchwick , Nate Cavalieri , Gregor Clark , John Hecht , Beth Kohn , Emily Matchar , Freda Moon and Ellee Thalheimer
Published 2 Jan 1992

With their odd mix of brutality and bravery, gold lust and piety, the Spanish conquistadors of the Americas were the natural successors to the crusading knights of the Reconquista. * * * The Broken Spears: Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, edited by Miguel Leon-Portilla, is a rare piece of history from the losers’ point of view. * * * Spain’s Atlantic location placed it perfectly to lead the search for new westward trade routes to the spice-rich Orient. Its explorers, soldiers and colonists landed first in the Caribbean, establishing bases on the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba where they quickly put the local populations to work mining gold and raising crops and livestock. The Spanish then began seeking a passage through the land mass to their west, and soon became distracted by tales of gold, silver and a rich empire there.

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Within a century they become the most powerful tribe in the Valle de México, going on to rule an empire extending over nearly all of central Mexico. 1487 Twenty thousand human captives are sacrificed for the dedication of Tenochtitlan’s Great Temple. 1492 Christopher Columbus, searching for a new trade route from Spain to the Orient, comes across the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola. In the following years further Spanish expeditions explore the Caribbean and found settlements there. 1519–20 A Spanish expedition from Cuba, under Hernán Cortés, makes its way to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán. Initially well-received, the Spaniards are attacked and driven out on the ‘Noche Triste’ (Sad Night), June 30, 1520. 1521 The Spanish, with 100,000 native Mexican allies, take three months to finally capture Tenochtitlán, razing it building by building.

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Outlying Paquimé settlements, such as Cuarenta Casas and Cueva Grande, built their dwellings on cliffsides for protection against attack. Colonial times brought Spaniards to find and mine precious metals and save indigenous souls. Known as Nueva Vizcaya, the region sat astride the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road of the Interior), a 2560km trade route from Mexico City to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Chihuahua became a frontier state with Mexico’s loss of Texas and New Mexico in the 1830s, ’40s and ’50s. Like neighboring Sonora and Coahuila, Chihuahua and Durango states were prime movers in the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20. Unrest in the mines and the inequities of land ownership contributed to this, and the revolutionary División del Norte, an army led by legendary Durango-born Pancho Villa, was in the forefront of several major battles.

The Temporal Void
by Peter F. Hamilton
Published 1 Jan 2008

‘Lady, we’ve got him,’ Boyd told the others, giving them a broad thumbs up. ‘What do you mean?’ Chae asked. ‘He’s come to gloat,’ Edeard told him. His own farsight showed him the squads from Bellis and Neph hurrying through Pholas Park. As expected, they had already crossed into Sampalok via the bridge over Trade Route Canal, which put them a lot closer to the hideaway than Edeard. They’d arrive a good ten minutes early. ‘What are you thinking?’ Kanseen asked shrewdly. Edeard halted the squads, and beckoned Felax forward. He handed an envelope over to the young probationary constable. ‘I want you to go directly to the house in Whitemire Street and deliver this to the sergeants from the other squads.’

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Quite a few farming families have arrived in the city since New Year. I spoke with some of them; they were forced off their land.’ ‘I know.’ ‘He will come back.’ ‘Thank you, Edeard. You’re a lovely man.’ After the meal they settled down to read a book Jessile had brought. Kadril’s Voyage, which told of the legendary merchantmen captain who’d opened up the trade route to the south, finding a navigable route through the Straits of Gathsawal. Edeard enjoyed the tales of ocean life and fights against pirates, even though he suspected the author had enlivened the tales somewhat. They took it in turns to read to each other, slowly sipping red wine as the coal in the stove hissed and snapped.

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Take them out one at a time.’ ‘You might be right,’ Edeard said. He wasn’t sure. The size and animosity of the response had caught him off guard. But then Sampalok residents always had a chip on their shoulder, it wouldn’t take much to rile them. He went over to the watcher crew at the end of the concourse next to Trade Route Canal to find out which of the Hundred was nearby. Before he’d even spoken to anyone the sergeant at the middle bridge into High Moat was longtalking that the crowd was rampaging along the streets, breaking into shops and businesses. Looting had begun. Edeard’s farsight flicked over to the area, sensing a deluge of anger and glee.

A History of Judaism
by Martin Goodman
Published 25 Oct 2017

The urbanization of Mesopotamia, a process dependent on both the region’s fertility and development of irrigation systems, long predated the birth of Abraham in Ur, whatever date might be assigned to this event – the internal chronology of the Bible places his birth in the first half of the second millennium BCE, but this chronology is highly unlikely to have been based on any firm ground. An extensive network of trade routes across the fertile crescent in the second millennium BCE provides the background to the stories of his migration to Canaan. The stability of the kingdom of Egypt through the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, in the second half of the same millennium, with foreign policy dedicated to expansion to the north, explains the centrality of Egypt in the narratives of Israelite patriarchs and the exodus.

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The connection of intellectual talmudic scholarship to the practical concerns of European Jews was facilitated by a new role for individual rabbis as local communal arbitrators in Jewish communities in the Rhineland and in France from the eleventh century. As commercial practices grew more complex in new settlements of Jews in urban centres along the great trade routes of northern Europe, communal legislation by appointed or elected representatives and the authority of rich merchants as lay communal leaders sometimes proved insufficient for the resolution of internal disputes between Jews, and communities turned instead to rabbis as experts in Jewish law. The selection of a rav, the title used from the second part of the eleventh century to refer to the rabbi of a city, seems to have been by consensus of lay leaders rather than any formal procedure.

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More ambivalent as a source of moral authority was recognition of a rabbinic appointment by the Christian state, as in the appointment in 1270 by the king of Naples and Sicily of ‘Maborach Fadalchassem the Jew, inhabitant of Palermo, our faithful who has been elected by you in order to exercise the priestship in your synagogue, to slaughter in your butchery and to hold the notary’s seal among you’.1 Diversity encouraged by such local rabbinic jurisdiction was counter-balanced by thriving interregional contacts along trade routes across the Mediterranean and along the great rivers and old Roman roads of Europe. Local rabbis sought advice in difficult cases from more learned colleagues. In any one region there was often just one rabbinic sage widely recognized as the ‘leader of his generation’. Books travelled through the copying of manuscripts, of which increasing numbers have been preserved in European collections amassed from the twelfth century onwards.

Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2020
by Lonely Planet
Published 21 Oct 2019

High-speed rail services connect Guiyang and a handful of smaller cities to neighbouring Yunnan, Guangxi and Sichuan and further afield in China. Regional bus and train services help you get around; hiring a driver is recommended to reach some of the provincew’s most rural areas and small villages. TELL ME MORE… Remote Guizhou is largely unknown to modern travellers, though it was once a main artery on the Tea-Horse Road trading route between ancient China and the Tibetan plateau. Guizhou stayed secreted away, its tiny wooden villages left untouched in the province’s signature misty mountains. Change began a few years ago, when impoverished Guizhou became a technological destination of choice – such companies as Apple, Huawei and Tencent began moving in to take advantage of the province’s cool year- round climate for big data storage.

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2022
by Lonely Planet
Published 26 Oct 2021

High-speed rail services connect Guiyang and a handful of smaller cities to neighbouring Yunnan, Guangxi and Sichuan and further afield in China. Regional bus and train services help you get around; hiring a driver is recommended to reach some of the provincew’s most rural areas and small villages. TELL ME MORE… Remote Guizhou is largely unknown to modern travellers, though it was once a main artery on the Tea-Horse Road trading route between ancient China and the Tibetan plateau. Guizhou stayed secreted away, its tiny wooden villages left untouched in the province’s signature misty mountains. Change began a few years ago, when impoverished Guizhou became a technological destination of choice – such companies as Apple, Huawei and Tencent began moving in to take advantage of the province’s cool year- round climate for big data storage.

Insight Guides Pocket Helsinki
by Insight Guides
Published 12 Dec 2017

The early settlers were subsistence hunters and fishermen, but by around 500 BC, agriculture had become the dominant way of life. Stable settlements grew up first along Finland’s coast, spreading inland by the middle of the Finnish Iron Age. Around AD 800–1050, Vikings occupied what is now the southern coastline of Finland as a trade route to the east. A 16th-century map of the Nordic countries and Lapland Getty Images The Swedish Era During the early Medieval period, the area now known as Finland was coveted by both its western and eastern neighbours – the Roman Catholic Swedes and the Greek Orthodox Novgorod Republic (Russia).

The World Without Us
by Alan Weisman
Published 5 Aug 2008

Again, Tsavo was emptied. Again, in the absence of humans, it filled with animals. Sandpaper trees laden with yellow saucerberries overgrew the World War I battlefields, hosting families of baboons. In 1948, stating that people had no other use for it, the Crown declared Tsavo, one of human history’s busiest trade routes, a wilderness refuge. Two decades later, its elephant population was 45,000—one of Africa’s biggest. That, however, was not to last. As the white single-engine Cessna takes off, one of the Earth’s most incongruous sights unfolds beneath its wings. The wide savanna below is Nairobi National Park, where elands, Thomson’s gazelles, cape buffalo, hartebeest, ostriches, white-bellied bustards, giraffes, and lions live jammed against a wall of blocky high-rises.

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In the opposite direction, until recent improvements halved travel time, the rutted road southwest from Flores took three miserable hours, ending at the scruffy outpost of Sayaxché, where an army machine gun placement perched atop a Mayan pyramid. Sayaxché is on the Río Pasión—the Passion River—which lolls through the western Petén province to the confluence of the rivers Usamacinta and Salinas, together forming Guatemala’s border with Mexico. The Pasión was once a major trade route for jade, fine pottery, quetzal feathers, and jaguar skins. More recently, commerce includes contraband mahogany and cedar logs, opium from Guatemalan highland poppies, and looted Mayan artifacts. During the early 1990s, motor-driven wooden launches on a sluggish Pasión tributary, the Riochuelo Petexbatún, also carried quantities of two modest items that in the Petén are veritable luxuries: corrugated zinc roofing and cases of Spam.

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road
by Nick Bilton
Published 15 Mar 2017

There were not “hundreds of open cases” on the Silk Road, as his training officer had claimed. There were none. Jared thought for a moment and then decided to go to the next-best technology that any seasoned government official uses to search for something important: Google. The first few results were historical Web sites referencing the ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean. But halfway down the page he saw a link to an article from early June of that year on Gawker, a news and gossip blog, proclaiming that the Silk Road was “the underground website where you can buy any drug imaginable.” The blog post showed screenshots of a Web page with a green camel logo in the corner.

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A vile and putrid prison system kept those people locked away; lives destroyed because the government wanted to tell people what they could and could not do with their own bodies. This new Web site he was working on could change that. Coming up with a name for his store was a challenge, but he finally settled on the Silk Road, a title borrowed from the ancient Chinese trade route of the Han dynasty. The biggest challenge now was finding the time to actually work on the project, given that he was still involved with Good Wagon Books and had even taken over most of the operation. Still, he had hired a couple of employees to do most of the book work, so Ross could hole up in his messy bedroom and toil away on the site, work that was difficult, even for someone as capable as Ross.

The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions
by Jason Hickel
Published 3 May 2017

Originally, imperialism had been organised around direct, coercive appropriation of wealth. In some cases – as with the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas – it focused on stealing precious metals such as gold and silver or on the use of slavery on plantations and in mines. In other cases its goal was securing access to trade routes, as with the French in Canada and the Dutch in South Africa. In all cases, the basic idea was to gain access to existing sources and flows of wealth. But when England got involved in the imperial project, the logic of imperialism changed. And it started in Ireland. In 1585, English colonisers made their first attempt at reproducing the new system of enclosure and ‘improvement’ in a foreign territory.

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There, the process of enclosure and improvement in the late 19th century led to human suffering on a scale that outstripped that visited on both the Irish and indigenous North Americans, if such tragedies can be compared. It is a story that truly boggles the mind, although it is very little known. The colonisation of India began in the early 1600s as a corporate affair. It was led by the East India Company, which focused on securing control over trading routes east of the Cape of Good Hope. But the Company’s mandate gradually expanded, and by the 1800s it had established direct administrative power over most of the subcontinent, which it eventually handed over to the British government. Wielding this power, the main intervention that the British made in India was to reorganise the farming system, once again according to the logic of improvement.

Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City
by Edmund Richardson
Published 12 May 2021

He was outraged when the East India Company’s spymaster did not believe him and (as the spymaster wearily recorded in his own report) ‘laments that he should not be believed in all that he writes, whereas if a sahib filled his situation, everything he wrote would be received as Gospel’.45 Karamat Ali’s rapid downward spiral had an unexpected side effect. Masson’s gossipy letters to Pottinger became the best intelligence the East India Company had coming out of Afghanistan. Early 1834 found Masson in Bimaran, a tiny, tumbledown village of twenty houses built on an ancient trading route, about ninety miles from Kabul.46 Five gigantic artificial mounds towered over the village. Masson now knew that they were Buddhist sites. In fact, the mounds were ruined stupas: huge domes, built of brick and earth, which contained sacred relics. For centuries, when Afghanistan was a Buddhist country, the stupas were sites of devotion.

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‘You have laid before me the rocks which endanger every movement,’ Burnes thanked Masson, ‘and so foul is the path that I much fear, with such a beacon, I shall yet be involved in great embarrassments.’42 ‘I shall,’ Burnes reported to Macnaghten, ‘owe much to Mr Masson, whose high literary attainments, long residence in this country, and accurate knowledge of people and events, afford me, at every step, the means of coming to a judgment more correct than, in an abrupt transition to Kabul, I could have possibly formed.’43 Dost Mohammad was tired of sleeping with one eye open. He wanted to be free from the threat of invasion from Persia and from Ranjit Singh. He also wanted Ranjit Singh to hand over Peshawar, the city which commanded the Khyber Pass and the trade routes from India to Afghanistan. Ranjit Singh had captured it from one of Dost Mohammad’s brothers in 1834. ‘I had and have a great desire to make friendship with the British government,’ Dost Mohammad wrote to Burnes, ‘and to drive the Sikhs from Peshawar through the advice of that government.’44 There was, unfortunately, a considerable snag.

Into the Raging Sea
by Rachel Slade
Published 4 Apr 2018

And so, without much resistance from regulators, Puerto Rico’s lifeboats, banned everywhere else, were grandfathered in and remained on the ship until the day she went down. Saltchuk, through TOTE, continued to expand its holdings, acquiring Sea Star lines in 1998, digging deeper into the Puerto Rican trade route. By now, there was a lot of competition in that market. Someone was going to lose his shirt. When Puerto Rico was lengthened, she was renamed Northern Lights and sent into the Pacific Northwest trade. During the second Persian Gulf War, she was chartered by the US government to carry military cargo to Iraq.

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But first, the island needed to develop a robust middle class—a new generation of Puerto Rican consumers who were wealthy enough to buy American goods. In 1950, Congress enacted Operation Bootstrap, a stimulation package that would check several boxes. The tax-based incentives gave mainland manufacturers a new source of cheap American labor—Puerto Ricans; it created a new market for American stuff; and all this would result in a booming new trade route for US-flagged ships. Bolstered by these local and federal tax credits, mainland corporations raced to offshore manufacturing jobs to the island. Billions of dollars flowed to island from the US to build plants where lower wages meant things could get built cheaper, without the penalty of import duties.

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity
by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson
Published 15 May 2023

Now he was looking for his next big adventure, preferably one that would strike a blow against France’s public enemy number one, the British Empire. Realizing that French naval forces were too weak to support an invasion of Britain itself, Napoleon proposed instead to undermine British interests in the Middle East and open new trade routes to Asia. Besides, as he put it to a colleague, “We must go to the Orient; all great glory has always been acquired there.” The “Orient” was a stage upon which the European ambitions could be played out. Invading Egypt would, in Napoleon’s condescending view, help Egyptians modernize (or at the very least, this provided a good excuse).

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Armed with their statements of support, Lesseps paid one of his regular visits to the prime minister, Lord Palmerston. Disappointingly, however, Palmerston was consistently not well disposed to the canal, which he saw as continuing the Napoleonic tradition of trying to cut Britain out of lucrative global trade routes. The British government remained deeply skeptical and worked hard to throw up obstacles in Cairo, Constantinople, and anywhere else it had influence. Undeterred, in October 1858, after two years of intense publicity, Lesseps was finally ready to sell stock. Lesseps resolved to get as many investors as possible directly involved, bypassing all intermediaries.

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But this seems strange as a general proposition, given that England and other parts of the British Isles were an economic backwater at least until the sixteenth century. For thousands of years, most European prosperity remained concentrated around the Mediterranean basin. Even when the Age of Discovery opened trade routes through the Atlantic, Britain remained significantly behind Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands in benefiting from new colonial opportunities. As we discussed in Chapter 4, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the early 1500s, England was a feudal system. The king was strong, and the barons were periodically troublesome, particularly when control of the throne was in question.

The Richest Man in Babylon
by George S. Clason
Published 10 Jun 2019

One naturally pictures such a wealthy city as located in a suitable setting of tropical luxury, surrounded by rich natural resources of forests, and mines. Such was not the case. It was located beside the Euphrates River, in a flat, arid valley. It had no forests, no mines — not even stone for building. It was not even located upon a natural trade-route. The rainfall was insufficient to raise crops. Babylon is an outstanding example of man’s ability to achieve great objectives, using whatever means are at his disposal. All of the resources supporting this large city were man-developed. All of its riches were man-made. Babylon possessed just two natural resources — a fertile soil and water in the river.

Austin Like a Local
by DK

g ARTS & CULTURE g Contents A day exploring Six Square As part of the now-infamous 1928 city plan, African Americans were relocated to “Six Square”– the six square miles east of what is now the I-35. Today, the name has been reclaimed by the Black artists and entrepreneurs who have lived in this area for generations and are proud to call it home. Here, cooks barbecue on pits their grandparents once used, artists create politically motivated works, and craftspeople continue the family trade. Route map n Double-tap image to read the labels 1. Listen and learn at the AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL AND HERITAGE FACILITY 912 East 11th Street, Central East Austin; (512) 974-2424 ///repaid.highways.monitors What was once the home of Thomas Dedrick, a prominent member of Austin’s African American community in the late 19th century, is now an African American cultural center.

The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World
by Steven Radelet
Published 10 Nov 2015

Over this border, “shipping” does not happen by ships, trucks, carts, or even donkeys. Most of it happens on the backs of Sherpas. Distance is measured in the number of days walked. When I arrived at the river, the bridge had been washed out, so people were crossing by jumping from one rock to the next. It was a busy—if tiny—international trade route. A continuous stream of Sherpas appeared out of nowhere on the Tibet side with huge loads of consumer goods on their backs—shoes, clothing, soap, matches—all manufactured in China, transported across the country and through Tibet, and carried by foot into Nepal. As the Sherpas made their way across the rocks, they had to take care to not bump into the Sherpas coming the other way, carrying loads of rice, vegetables, and other foodstuffs from Nepal into Tibet.

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It’s so hot in some areas that raindrops evaporate before they reach the ground. It’s pretty hard to grow much on the edges of the desert, even under the best of circumstances. Indeed, countries like Niger are doubly disadvantaged: most of the country is desert or semiarid, and it is also landlocked and isolated from major trade routes. Since agriculture and trade are so foundational to development, it’s hard to get started when there are obstacles to both. It’s all about options and opportunities: the good people of Niger have far fewer options for productive investment, job creation, and economic growth than the people of Indonesia.

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
by Angus Deaton
Published 15 Mar 2013

Globalization has affected health in many ways: directly through the spread of disease, information, and treatment, and indirectly through economic forces, particularly increased trade and higher economic growth. There have been many periods of globalization in history—sometimes through war, conquest, and imperialist expansion, sometimes through new trade routes, bringing new products and new riches. Disease usually came along for the ride, with consequences that reshaped the world. The historian Ian Morris has described how increased trade around the second century CE merged previously separate disease pools that, since the beginning of agriculture, had evolved in the West, South Asia, and East Asia, “as if they were on different planets.”

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The historian Ian Morris has described how increased trade around the second century CE merged previously separate disease pools that, since the beginning of agriculture, had evolved in the West, South Asia, and East Asia, “as if they were on different planets.” Catastrophic plagues broke out in China and in the eastern outposts of the Roman Empire.25 The Columbian exchange after 1492 is an even better-known example.26 Many historical epidemics started from new trade routes or new conquests. The plague of Athens in 430 BCE was attributed to trade, and bubonic plague was brought to Europe in 1347 by rats aboard trading ships. The cholera epidemic of the nineteenth century is thought to have come from Asia thanks to the activities of the British in India, and its subsequent spread through Europe and North America was speeded by the new railways.

The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
by Katharina Pistor
Published 27 May 2019

It had commerce written all over it, but also the sovereign’s claim to monopolize the trade route to East Asia, by force if necessary. To achieve these conflicting goals, the company needed a sound capital base and therefore forced shareholders to commit their contributions for a ten-year period. When the time came for the shareholders of the VOC to redeem their shares, the political elites feared that a massive outflow of funds would undermine the viability of the company just when Portugal mounted a serious challenge to Dutch dominance over the highly lucrative trade routes by sea to the Far East.41 A charter change forced shareholders to leave their initial contribution with the company for good.

A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories)
by Barbara D. Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf
Published 27 Sep 2006

Arabic-speaking Muslims had been present much earlier in the subcontinent, establishing a kingdom in Sind in the lower Indus valley in 711 as part of the expansion of the Umayyad dynasty based in Damascus. They were also found by the eighth century as traders along the Malabar coast of the south-west, where they settled, intermarried, and sustained distinctive cultural forms forged from their Arab ties and local setting, and in so doing helped link ‘al-Hind’ to seaborne trade routes. In the years from roughly 1200 to 1500, the movement of goods and peoples through Indian Ocean ports, as well as overland through the Persian-speaking lands, was such that Janet Abu-Lughod has characterized this period as an ‘Islamic world system’ of economic and political interaction. In this system, the Indian subcontinent played a significant part.

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Nationalists found in this overseas migration both a heightened image of imperial exploitation that brought shame to India, and, at the same time, as Indians took up residence around the globe, a vision of ‘Greater India’, a nation beyond its borders, that recalled images of ancient glory. Engagement with the plight of diaspora Indians, as we shall see with Gandhi, was a critical stimulus to Indian nationalism. The Indian Army, in similar fashion, was deployed, at the cost of the Indian tax-payer, to protect trade routes and secure imperial interests from China, most notably during the 1900 Boxer rebellion, to East Africa, and to the Middle East. British officials themselves, along with Indian police and secretarial staff, especially technical personnel in such areas as forestry and public works, whose skills were honed in India, found employment in other areas of the Empire.

Value of Everything: An Antidote to Chaos The
by Mariana Mazzucato
Published 25 Apr 2018

In the fourth century BC, Aristotle distinguished a variety of more or less virtuous jobs, depending on the class (citizen or slave) of the ancient Greek polis dweller.1 In the New Testament, the apostle Matthew reported that Jesus said it was ‘easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God'.2 During the Middle Ages, the Church disparaged and even denounced moneylenders and merchants who ‘bought cheap and sold dear';3 while they may not have been lazy, they were considered unproductive and vile. Pre-modern definitions of what work was or was not useful were never clear-cut. With the onset of colonialism in the sixteenth century these definitions became even more blurred. European colonial conquest and the protection of trade routes with newly annexed lands were expensive. Governments had to find the money for armies, bureaucracies and the purchase of exotic merchandise. But help seemed to be at hand: extraordinary amounts of gold and silver were discovered in the Americas, and a vast treasure poured into Europe. As these precious metals represented wealth and prosperity, it seemed that whoever bought, owned and controlled the supply of them and the currencies minted from them was engaged in productive activities.

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In his influential book England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, Mun summed up the mercantilist doctrine: we must, he said, ‘sell more to strangers yearly than wee consume of theirs in value'.4 Mercantilists also defended the growth of national government as necessary to fund wars and expeditions to keep trade routes open and to control colonial markets. In England, Holland and France, mercantilists advocated shipping Acts, such as England's Navigation Act of 1651, which forced their countries' and colonies' trade exclusively into ships flying the national flag. As mercantilist thinking developed, and people started to conceive of wealth production in national terms, the first estimates of national income - the total amount everyone in the country earned - started to appear.

Europe: A History
by Norman Davies
Published 1 Jan 1996

In ancient times it was variously known as Scythia or Sarmatia, after the peoples who dominated the Pontic steppes long before the arrival of the Slavs, [CHERSONESOS] It occupies the largest sector of the southern European plain, between the Volga crossing and the Carpathian narrows; and it carries the principal overland pathway between Asia and Europe. Its modern, Slavonic name means ‘On the Edge’, a close counterpart to the American concept of ‘the Frontier’. Its focal point at the rapids of the Dnieper, where the steppe pathway crosses the river trade-route, was fiercely contested by all comers, for it provided the point of transition between the settled lands to the West and the open steppes to the East. Ukraine is rich in mineral resources—such as the coal of the ‘Donbass’ and the iron of Krivoi Roh. The loess of its famous ‘black earth’ underlies Europe’s richest agricultural lands, which in the years prior to 1914 were to become the Continent’s leading exporter of grain.

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Hence, whilst advanced civilizations akin to those of the Middle East were developing in the Aegean, the peoples of the north-west were passing through the transition from Neolithic to Bronze, [SAMPHIRE] However, talk of ‘advanced’ or ‘backward’ cultures might well be inhibited by the skills of the engineers of Stonehenge, who contrived to transport eighty blue-stones weighing over fifty tons apiece from the distant Presceliy Mountains of South Wales, and to erect them with such precision that awestruck observers have imagined them to be the working parts of a sun-computer.16 Indeed, carvings at Stonehenge of axes and daggers resembling objects found in the shaft-graves at Mycenae gave rise once again to speculation about direct contacts with the Mediterranean. Interregional trade, especially in minerals, is one of the important features of Bronze Age Europe. The Peninsula’s mineral resources were rich and varied, but their distribution was uneven; and a widespread network of trade-routes grew up in response to the imbalances. Salt had been sought from the earliest times, either by mining rock-salt or by evaporating brine from seaside salt-pans. Huge rock-salt mountains occur naturally in several locations, from Cardona in Catalonia to the Salzkammergut in Austria or Wieliczka in Poland.

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Melos yielded obsidian; Paros yielded pure white marble; Kythnos yielded copper; Siphnos, and Laurion on the coast of Attica, yielded silver and lead. The wealth and power of Crete, and later of Mycenae, was clearly connected with the command of these Aegean resources and with their role as the termini of the transcontinental trade routes. They were the focus of what has been called the ‘international spirit’ of the Bronze Age. DASA APOPULAR history of mathematics states that the advance of the Beaker Folk into neolithic Europe was accompanied by the spread both of the Indo-European languages and of the decimal system. The statement is supported by lists of number words from a selection of Indo-European languages which use the Base-10 or decimal method of numeration.

Moon Portugal
by Carrie-Marie Bratley
Published 15 Mar 2021

The sturdy little tower’s ornate stonework incorporates figures related to the Age of Exploration, such as exotic animals, ropes and knots, and a statue of Our Lady of Safe Homecoming, a symbol of protection for sailors on their voyages. The navigators who set sail from Belém, in study wooden caravels and nau ships built in shipyards in Lisbon and the Algarve, laid the blueprints for Portugal’s colonial empire. Setting up Atlantic trade routes brought Portugal considerable wealth and established Lisbon as Europe’s main trading center for spices, silk, and precious gems like pearls and diamonds. It also brought historic tragedies, namely the damage inflicted to Indigenous peoples by colonialism, and the country’s role in the Atlantic slave trade.

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Here you will find the medieval Tavira Castle, the local town hall, and many churches. Straddling the Gilão River in the heart of Tavira is the old Roman Bridge, a symbol of the city. The current seven-arch version was built in the 17th century in place of an older, late-12th-century bridge that connected Faro to an important trade route. Such was the bridge’s importance at the time that it had protective towers at either end. Tavira Castle (Castelo de Tavira) Urbanização Tavira Garden; daily 10am-7pm; free The medieval Tavira Castle, in the southwest part of Tavira near the water tower, overlooks the town and its jumble of bright red roofs and ornate chimneys.

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But what really catapulted Portugal to stratospheric wealth and power was the exploration and claiming of Brazil by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. These discoveries elevated Portugal from a tumultuous territory to a leading global power, along with the imperial peers of England, France, and Spain, in terms of economic, political, and cultural clout. Colonialism Portuguese explorers continued to establish profitable trading routes around the globe and set up a string of trading colonies, forts, and factories throughout the world as they went; the spice, gold, and slave trades were among the most lucrative. By 1571, a series of naval outposts connected Lisbon to places as far-flung as Nagasaki, along the coasts of Africa, the Middle East, India, and South Asia.

The scramble for Africa, 1876-1912
by Thomas Pakenham
Published 19 Nov 1991

To the uncircumcised, son of the uncircumcised, Colonel Desbordes, may God confound and bring ruin on your friends…. No one is more of a malefactor, no one more of a traitor, no one more wicked than you. You say that you only wish to open up a road for trade. This is false and contrary to sense and reason. Your desire is to destroy the country, to close the trade routes and make war on Believers … Muntaga ended: The day when we meet, the birds of the air will not need to look elsewhere for their food.8 Two years earlier, when Gallieni had been at Nango, negotiating the treaty, the news of Desbordes’s advance to Kita and a provocative attack on Goubanko had reached Ahmadu at Segu.

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The nut, one of the few stimulants allowed by Islam, was served as a luxury thoughout Islamic Africa, and the Middle East. To organize this demanding trade came the Dyula, Muslim immigrants from the coast. The Dyula metropolis was Kankan, a teeming village of mud huts on the banks of the river Milo. The lines of trade pushed out and became more sophisticated. The arterial trade routes designed for the delicate and perishable kola nut – fair markets, dry storehouses, trustworthy guards, able porters – could also supply delicate girl slaves from the forests. In return back came ingots of salt from the Sahara and the luxuries of North Africa that the caravans had brought from still further away: fine cloth from Morocco, pottery from Tunis, horses from Arabia.

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Emin’s difficulty was Britain’s opportunity. So was Mackay’s difficulty. One of the main objects would be the relief of the British missionaries from the tyranny of King Mwanga and the opening up of Uganda to the ‘3 CS’. However, it now turned out that Stanley was not prepared to lead the expedition if it was to take the regular Arab trading route from the east coast by way of Uganda. Stanley wanted to break new ground. His employer was King Leopold. The King insisted that it would be a great sacrifice to release Stanley at all. He could only permit it if Stanley took the longer route from the west coast, by way of the Congo. Perhaps he could return by way of East Africa.

Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, From the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
by Frank Trentmann
Published 1 Dec 2015

. (© Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by DACS, London/VAGA, New York 2015) Images reproduced with the kind permission of the owners, institutions, licence-holders and identifiable copyright owners. No reproduction without permission. List of Figures The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your ebook reader. Ming China, 1600: Internal and external trade routes 45 Possessions among rural households in Leeuwarderadeel, Friesland, 1566–1686 56 Selected possessions in English households, 1675–1725 61 Selected possessions in town and country, England, 1675–1725 62 The divergence in the standard of living 72 The imperial flow of goods and slaves in 1770 82 The requirements of a fair standard of clothing, Philadelphia, 1919 150 Coffee consumption in the world in 1913 164 Thirsty cities: water consumption, 1870–1904 187 Customers of a department store in Germany in 1900 200 Standards of comfort in American owner- and tenant-occupied homes with kitchens, 1950–52 244 United States advertising expenditure, 1920–2005 318 Advertising expenditure per capita in 1980 320 Household saving ratio, 1970–2014 421 Household debt as a percentage of net disposable income, 1995–2013 425 Income share of richest 1% 436 Income share of richest 10% 437 Average weekly hours of work and leisure for all people aged 14+ years in the United States, 1900–2005 446 Average weekly hours of leisure for men by age group in the United States, 1900–2005 446 Average weekly hours of leisure for women by age group in the United States, 1900–2005 447 Percentage of time spent on activities in the United States and France, 2005 454 Misery U-index, by activity, United States and France, 2005 454 Free-time activities of men aged 20 to 74 in Europe, 1998–2002 458 Free-time activities of women aged 20 to 74 in Europe, 1998–2002 459 Leisure cultures by educational background, France, 1997 467 Public social spending in selected OECD countries, in percentage of GDP, 1960–2014 537 Annual fairtrade consumption per capita in 2007, in euros 564 Number of world shops/fair trade shops, 2007 564 Use of remittances by recipient households in selected African countries, by source of remittances, 2009 592 Household access to information and communication technology in selected African countries, by source of remittances, 2009 594 Kilograms of residential waste discarded per capita/annually in New York City in the 20th century 625 United States: total and per capita municipal solid waste generation and recovery, 1960–2012 641 Household waste generation in selected countries, 1980–2005 643 Municipal waste generated and recycled: the three waste regions of Europe, 1995–2013 645 Products in use, in storage and at end of life in the United States, 2009 663 Global development of material use, material intensity, population and GDP, 1900–2009 667 Introduction We live surrounded by things.

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Stern, eds., Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire (Oxford, 2013). 2. Peter M. Solar, ‘Opening to the East: Shipping between Europe and Asia, 1770–1830’, Journal of Economic History 73, no. 3, 2013: 625–61. For a visual illustration of the European empires’ changing trade routes between the 1750s and 1820s, drawing on a thousand ship logs, see the maps created by the EU CLIWOC project at: http://pendientedemigracion.ucm.es/info/cliwoc/Cliwoc_final_report.pdf. 3. Pomeranz, Great Divergence; Parthasarathi, ‘The Great Divergence’; P. H. H. Vries, ‘Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial?’

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L. 240 Menger, Carl 3, 151 Mennonites 574 mental health/illness 305, 434, 487, 511, 555 mercantilism 91, 92, 120, 131; mercantilist empire 91, 92, 161, 163, 164; unfitness for mass consumption 162 merchants 25, 69, 103, 109, 129, 130–31, 145, 146; as agents of peace 158; as ambassadors of fashion and taste 38, 81–4; Chinese 24–5, 44, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52–3; merchant houses 49; Renaissance 30, 35; salt 49, 52–3 Mercure 70 Mesopotamia 68 methane 666 Methodism 612 see also Wesleyans Mexico 64, 79, 208–9, 591, 596, 643; Mexican migrants to the US 588–9, 590, 591 Meyer-Ehlers, Grete 250–51 miasma theory of disease 630 microwaves 14, 260, 588 Middle Ages 1, 38, 58 middle classes: American 412, 431; approach to money and goods 342; in Asia 140, 142, 143, 373–5, 380, 392, 519; aspiring 79, 142, 224, 341; borrowing 416; bourgeoisie see bourgeoisie; in Brazil 374; British ‘middling sort’ and 65, 73; and the British state 548; conspicuous consumption 228; consumer culture and a burgeoning middle class 340; and credit 412; cultural poaching 347; and domestic technologies 259; domestic water use 184; English 65; as first to embrace luxuries 117; furniture choice 226–7; garage contents 1, 661–2; homes 224, 246, 247, 341; intimate domesticity 489; mass culture versus educated taste 304; Muslim women 620; and the Ottoman touch 251–2; and thrift 412, 416; unchaperoned middle-class women 196–7; women and ethical consumerism 155 middling sort 65, 73, 374, 398 Midland Bank 416 migration 588–605 see also displacement; mobility; Africa Migration Project 589, 592, 593–5, 594; American deportation of Chinese immigrants 128; within Asia 356, 595; and diffusion of tastes and products 78–9, 165, 214–15, 589, 596–602; economic migrants 379, 588–96 see also remittances, migrant worker; and homogenization 219–20, 527; and ideas of ageing 519; Irish diaspora 599–600; Jewish migrants 86, 598, 600, 615; migrant communities 208, 214, 596–7; migrant food cultures 596–602, 603–5; migrant labour/workers 58, 64, 334, 383, 512; and possessions 596; and property-owning democracy 239, 240; and remittances see remittances, migrant worker; and spread of coffee houses 86; and state regulation of ethnic cuisine 603–4; triangular 596; and tribal culture and identity 347–8; to the US, 1860–1920 598 Migros 349 Milan 35, 310, 348–9 Milka 172 Mill, John Stuart 151 Millar, John 110 Miller, Henry 341 millionaires 434, 439 Mills, C. Wright 435 MIND 555 Ming dynasty 4, 10, 22, 24–5, 43–53, 57, 69, 80, 95, 96, 678; trade routes 45 minimum wage 156, 157, 287 mining towns 524 Mintz, Sidney: Sweetness and Power 79, 162 Mirabeau, Victor de Riqueti, Marquis de 100, 116 mirrors 37, 49, 55, 56, 61, 93, 130, 138, 192, 212, 222, 294, 359, 360 misery U-index 454, 454 missionaries: in Africa 125–6, 133–5, 614–15; as ambassadors of taste 81–4; and Benedict’s rule 134; Catholic 79, 80, 81–4; and the demotion of the consumer 134; England as missionary nation 126; going native 125–6; and Karo women 142; and mission stations as islands of Western lifestyle 126; Moravian Mission 133; wages paid by 133 Mittag, Günter 336 Mitterand, François 552 Miyazawa Kiichi 384, 545 mobile phones 387, 464–5, 470, 471, 482, 493, 591, 594, 622, 658, 664, 681, 686 mobility 94, 216, 301, 496, 528, 661 see also displacement; migration; travel; America’s cycle of freedom, social mobility and democracy 237; and elderly people 498–9, 509, 511–15; and the firm’s loss of control over leisure 528–9; labour/work 76, 661; and leisure activities 458–9, 460; physical 458–60, 469; upward 341, 614 Mobro 642 Mocca 79 modernity 95, 96, 138, 198, 204, 209; Americanization as tool of modernization 378 see also Americanization; in Asia 358, 368, 378, 379–82; childhood seen as invention of bourgeois modernity 486; combined with the traditional 362, 373–87; and disenchantment see disenchantment; metropolitan 208, 220–21; modern living and the home 245–63; modern things as ticket out of extended family/community 260; modern utilities 175–6, 180, 181, 183, 188–9, 220, 248, 249; the ‘modern woman’ 254, 359; modernist artists 199, 319; modernist homes 222; nationalism and consumerist modernity 298; and religion 606; and the separation of man, things and nature 95–7, 230–31 Modigliani, Franco 420–21 Mods and Rockers 498 Modugno, Domenico 351 Moffat, Robert 126 Moldova 590 Mombasans 125 Monboddo, James Burnett, Lord 104 moneylenders 408, 410, 412, 415, 432 see also banks; credit; loan sharks 361, 367, 412, 440 monopolies 49, 89, 120, 133, 139, 161, 162, 182, 183, 388, 549–50; elite 345; healthcare 555; and mini-democracies 287; natural 152, 176, 391 Monopoly (game) 281 Montelupo 30 Montesquieu 100 Montevideo 80 Moody, Dwight 608–9, 612 mopeds 6, 272, 311, 333, 496 moral economy 278, 563, 571, 578, 581 morality see also ethics; fairness: conflict over possible negative effects of increasing goods 279; conspicuous consumption as moral threat 380; ‘consumerism’ and moral failure 677; and credit/debt 405–7; department stores, shopping and moral/sexual anxieties 196, 197; as a framing force 7; and leisure 216; and Marxist/Freudian materialism 284; moral anarchy 305; moral boundaries to Renaissance possessions 34–5; moral defence of private recreation 261; moral geography 573, 583–4; moral panic about young consumers 313; moral pollution 490; moral restraints 143 see also restraint; trade and Renaissance morals 35; and waste 623, 634, 651 Moravia 133, 525, 527 Morelia, Mexico 208–9 Morga, Antonia de 25 Moritz, Karl Philipp 63 Mormons 608, 609–10 Morrisons 568 mortgages 12, 239, 242–3, 244, 405, 409, 413–14, 420, 427, 432, 440; Australian 423, 522; British 242, 420; Danish debt 425; Dutch debt 425; flexible 427, 428; German debt 425; illegal mortgage clauses 558; mortgage packets 532; mortgage relief 540; second 427; sub-prime 426; subsidized 681 Moscow 192–3, 194, 204, 293, 295, 310, 329 Moser, Ameli 117–18 Motivational Research (MR) 315–16 motorways 290 MP3 players 464 Mrs Beeton’s Household Management 598 Mughal empire 137, 138, 142 Muir and Mirrielees 192–3, 194, 204, 295 multi-tasking 471, 689 Mummery, A.

Tyler Cowen - Stubborn Attachments A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
by Meg Patrick

The Greek city-states and the Roman Empire benefited from maritime trade across the Mediterranean; those regions in turn spread growth-enhancing institutions around Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. The commercial revolution of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance reopened many of the trade routes of antiquity and eventually human beings started to climb out of the Malthusian trap of very low per capita incomes at subsistence. The wealth of the West helped enable the export miracles of the East Asian economies. Today most poor countries seek greater access to wealthier Western and Asian markets and flourish if they can achieve it.12 For all the recent increases in inequality within individual nations, global inequality has declined over the last few decades, in large part because of growth in China and India.

The Word for World Is Forest
by Ursula K. le Guin
Published 1 Mar 1972

There were more languages than lands, and each with a different dialect for every town that spoke it; there were infinite ramifications of manners, morals, customs, crafts; physical types differed on each of the five Great Lands. The people of Sornol were tall, and pale, and great traders; the people of Rieshwel were short, and many had black fur, and they ate monkeys, and so on and on. But the climate varied little, and the forest little, and sea not at all. Curiosity, regular trade-routes, and the necessity of finding a husband or wife of the proper Tree, kept up an easy movement of people among the towns and between the lands, and so there were certain likenesses among all but the remotest extremes, the half-rumored barbarian isles of the Far East and South. In all the Forty Lands, women ran the cities and towns, and almost every town toad a Men's Lodge.

Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals
by Tyler Cowen
Published 15 Oct 2018

The Greek city-states and the Roman Empire benefited from maritime trade across the Mediterranean; those regions in turn spread growth-enhancing institutions around Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. The commercial revolution of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance reopened many of the trade routes of antiquity, and eventually human beings started to climb out of the Malthusian trap of very low per capita incomes at subsistence. The wealth of the West helped to enable the export miracles of the East Asian economies. Today, most poor countries seek greater access to wealthier Western and Asian markets, and flourish if they can achieve it.12 For all the recent increases in inequality within individual nations, global inequality has declined over the last few decades, in large part because of growth in China and India.

A United Ireland: Why Unification Is Inevitable and How It Will Come About
by Kevin Meagher
Published 15 Nov 2016

Their very bureaucratic utility is a mark not of how peripheral unity is, but how banal. Again, it is small, incremental steps that will see Irish unity become a reality. After all a state, like a human body, is held together by its constituent parts – bone, flesh and a central nervous system – each playing a role in the overall design. So it is with an economy, with trade routes, investment and shared infrastructure each contributing to a bigger whole. (Like the proposed 138km, £200 million north–south electricity grid interconnector project that stretches across the border, linking together power grids across the island of Ireland.) Formal cross-border cooperation is also happening under the aegis of the North–South Ministerial Council, one of the bodies established by the Good Friday Agreement.

The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It
by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
Published 1 Sep 2020

In the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), Germany alone lost around a third of its population before the Treaty of Westphalia allowed local rulers to dictate their peoples’ religion (“cuius regio eius religio”).9 But conflict also drove innovation: “War made the state and the state made war,” as one historian puts it.10 Desperate to discover soldiers who understood artillery and supply chains, monarchs recruited new men to supplement the old officer class.11 Desperate to fill their treasuries, they handed out charters to merchants to forge trading routes. Thus, tiny Portugal ended up ruling Brazil, while Holland gained control of Indonesia. Britain was very much at the center of all this tumultuous state-building. Oliver Cromwell (a distant relation of Thomas) led a revolution that established a commonwealth in 1649–60, with parliament declaring kingship to be “unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety and public interest of the people.” 12 Britain’s oligarchs welcomed science and ideas.

How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
by Mehrsa Baradaran
Published 5 Oct 2015

.… I do not think that in the most enlightened rural districts of France there is intellectual movement either so rapid or on such a scale as in this wilderness.”5 Before the telegraph, telephone, car, or railroad was a possibility, rural constituents in every corner of America knew what their congressional representatives were doing and were able to communicate with them. Before the financial giants of America made shipping canals, railroads, highways, and wires that created the most productive and efficient economy in the world, the United States had nationwide trading routes unparalleled in the contemporary world—all made possible by the United States’ postal system. The post office, the primary facilitator of commercial trade, “provided merchants with the only reliable means for transmitting information, bills of exchange, and money.”6 Historian Richard John explained that it was only after the post office created a national marketplace that private entrepreneurs could compete with each other outside local markets.

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The founders had not anticipated that ordinary Americans would be able “to actively participate in a truly open-ended national discussion on the leading events of the day, rather than merely to receive periodic broadcasts from the seat of power, as Washington had envisioned, or to engage in carefully structured two-way consultations with their elected representatives, as Madison had hoped.”18 And unfortunately, the same platform that eased informational exchange and enabled national trade routes also helped drive people apart as it forced those with political and cultural differences to deal—and often clash—with each other. This broad public engagement was even beyond the imagination of the great proponents of local control, such as James Madison, whose Federalist essays of 1787 and 1788 only envisioned interactions with representatives during periodic home visits—not the regular contact that the post quickly enabled.19 The continuous conversations between congressional representatives and their constituents augmented even Madison’s vision of public participation in lawmaking.

Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World
by Thomas Feiling
Published 20 Jul 2010

In writing this book, I didn’t want to get swept up in the all-too-familiar mix of nosiness, envy and sanctimony that masquerades as the ‘public interest’, or the ritual inflation and deflation of mediocrity that passes for ‘celebrity news’. I have not sought the opinions of commentators, politicians or the drug-taking anecdotes of high-rollers. Instead, I wanted to hear from those who work day to day on the cocaine trade routes that run from London and New York via Miami, Kingston and Tijuana to Colombia. I wanted to see the impact of the war on drugs on the consumers, traders and producers of cocaine, and the impact they have on the soldiers, police officers, customs officials and doctors charged with prosecuting the war.

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Over 2,400 Mexicans were killed in drug-related violence in 2007. By December 2008, a further 5,600 people had been killed and the death toll looks set to go still higher in 2009.4 Luis Rodriguez, the former gang member I had met in Los Angeles, told me how Mexico had become so important to the traffickers. ‘The DEA made big efforts to destroy the trade routes through Florida, and the Colombians started to think, “Well, let’s go through Mexico.” At first, the Colombians didn’t want to go through Mexico, because it had some of the oldest smuggling organizations on the continent, and they’d have to pay all these old drug lords who had been there for a long time.

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
by Chrystia Freeland
Published 11 Oct 2012

Venice was an imperial power—the republic financed the Fourth Crusade and established suzerainty over the fertile plains to the north, reaching Lake Garda and the river Adda to the north and west, along the Dalmatian coast deep into what is today Croatia, into the Mediterranean, where it controlled Cyprus, and into the Aegean, where it ruled Crete. La Serenissima’s true power and vocation was commerce. At the republic’s zenith, it dispatched thirty-six thousand sailors and thirty-three hundred ships into the world’s maritime trade routes. Venice dominated the salt business—the oil of that era—and trade with Byzantium and the Near East. A Venetian merchant, Marco Polo played a central role in introducing China to western Europe, with his pioneering account of his visit to the Middle Kingdom; his father, also a trader, had done business with the Golden Horde of the Tatars.

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The commenda, the legal innovation that had made Venice (and other Italian city-states) rich, was banned. La Serenissima’s reigning elite were acting in their own immediate self-interest—shutting out the entrepreneurial upstarts meant the vested interests could enjoy sole control over the city’s lucrative trade routes. But in the longer term, La Serrata was the beginning of the end for the city’s oligarchs, as well as for Venetian prosperity more generally. By 1500, the population of Venice was smaller than it had been in 1330. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as the rest of Europe grew, the city that had once been its richest continued to shrink.

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth
by Tom Burgis
Published 24 Mar 2015

Physical cargoes of African oil and ore go hither and thither, mainly to North America, Europe and, increasingly, China, but by and large the continent’s natural resources flow to a global market in which traders based in London, New York and Hong Kong set prices. If South Africa exports less gold, Nigeria less oil, or Congo less copper, the price goes up for everyone. Trade routes change: the increasing production of shale gas in the United States has reduced imports of Nigerian oil in recent years, for example, with the crude heading to Asia instead. But based on the proportion of total worldwide supply it accounts for, if you fill up your car fourteen times, one of those tanks will have been refined from African crude.11 Likewise, there is a sliver of tantalum from the badlands of eastern Congo in one in five mobile phones.

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Obasanjo dispatched Nasir El-Rufai, a northern-born minister with a reputation as a reformer, to try to get Mangal to clean up his act.10 El-Rufai told me he reached an agreement with Yar’Adua, the beneficiary of Mangal’s generous campaign funding and his political protector, and the smuggler would endeavour to transform himself into a legitimate businessman. El-Rufai recalled that Mangal asked him, ‘Why does Obasanjo call me a smuggler? I just do logistics. I don’t buy any of the goods that are smuggled. I’m just providing a service.’ Mangal told El-Rufai that he had a fleet of six hundred trucks plying the trade routes. He promised to switch into refined petroleum products, another time-honoured money spinner for Nigeria’s politically connected trading barons. But the illicit textile trade continued, and Mangal’s operations remained under scrutiny. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, traditionally nothing more than a vehicle for settling political scores, had gained some teeth and a degree of independence under an energetic fraud-buster called Nuhu Ribadu.

World Cities and Nation States
by Greg Clark and Tim Moonen
Published 19 Dec 2016

Cities such as Baghdad, Damascus and Samarkand were advanced intellectual and production centres. Other places along the Silk Road, such as Merv in modern‐day Turkmenistan, Bukhara in modern‐day Uzbekistan and Rayy in Persia, were viewed as beautiful trading cities (Frankopan, 2015). In 13th and 14th century Europe, the biggest concentrations of power and control over trade routes were found in cities. Dozens of dense urban centres in modern‐day Italy, Germany, Switzerland and France became autonomous from aristocratic rule, and many acquired budgets larger than any neighbouring kingdom. Sovereign kings and princes often granted rights and privileges to towns in order to protect urban residents from lords.

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History of Tokyo’s relationship with central government Tokyo has been the centre of Japanese political and military power for over a century. The Meiji era (1868–1912) radically transformed the country’s urban structure as feudalism was dismantled, social and physical mobility increased and industrialisation took off. Coastal cities, and Tokyo in particular, benefited from a booming export sector and their position along trade routes. Japan’s process of industrialisation was deliberately State‐driven, as the central government was anxious to shore up the country’s capacity to resist Western economic and military might. As a result, firms that could be trusted – that is, with close links to government – were privileged, assisted and protected.

Extreme Economies: Survival, Failure, Future – Lessons From the World’s Limits
by Richard Davies
Published 4 Sep 2019

This maritime place has ships, trade and warfare at its core, with the ancient port of Banda Aceh boasting the world’s first female admiral, Laksamana Malahayati. Appointed to lead the sultan’s fleet in the late 1500s, she successfully defended the Malacca Strait, hunting down and killing enemy captains, and building a reputation so strong that she negotiated directly with Queen Elizabeth I about British access to the trade route. She was killed in action against the Portuguese. Today the region’s main commercial port carries Malahayati’s name. While the admiral’s legend is strong, Cut Nyak Dhien is an even greater military hero. Born to an aristocratic family, she rose to lead the Acehnese resistance against the Dutch in the 1890s.

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. ———— (2013), World Drug Report 2013, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (United Nations: New York). US Bureau of Justice Statistics (2018), available at www.bjs.gov. US Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables, www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html. Vansina, J. (1962), ‘Long-distance Trade Routes in Central Africa’, Journal of African History, 3 (3), 375–90. VOTE (2018), ‘Advancing Justice in Louisiana: Policy Priorities’, Voice of the Experienced, accessed December 2018. CHAPTER 4: DARIEN NOTES The Gap, history, people and famous crossings Burton (1973) discusses the native tribes of Darien, the vegetation and bird life, and the risk to them posed by the Pan-American Highway.

Lonely Planet Amsterdam
by Lonely Planet

Best Places to Eat A Wolf Atelier A Mossel En Gin A Balthazar's Keuken A Marius A REM Eiland Best Places to Drink A 't Smalle A Monks Coffee Roasters A Brouwerij Troost Westergas A Westergasterras A Café Papeneiland A Cafe Soundgarden Best Places to Shop A Moooi Gallery A Het Oud-Hollandsch Snoepwinkeltje A Lindengracht Market A Robins Hood A Concrete Matter 1Sights 1Jordaan HaarlemmerpoortGATE ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; Haarlemmerplein; j3 Haarlemmerplein) Once a defensive gateway to the city, the Haarlemmerpoort marked the start of the journey to Haarlem, which was a major trading route. The neoclassical structure, with Roman temple–styled Corinthian pillars, was finished just in time for King William II's staged entry for his 1840 investiture, hence its little-known official name of Willemspoort (see the plaque inside). Traffic stopped running through the gate when a bypass was built over the Westerkanaal.

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Golden Age (1580–1700) In 1588, Den Haag was established as the seat of the Dutch Republic, but Amsterdam grew rapidly to become the largest and most influential city in the Netherlands. By 1600 Dutch ships controlled the sea trade between England, France, Spain and the Baltic, and had a virtual monopoly on North Sea fishing and Arctic whaling. Jewish refugees taught Dutch mariners about trade routes, giving rise to the legendary Dutch East India and Dutch West India Companies. For a while, the Dutch ran rings around the fleets of great powers, which were too slow or cumbersome to react. In the absence of an overriding religion, ethnic background or political entity, money reigned supreme.

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
by Suzanne Simard
Published 3 May 2021

Barb and I carried more tents farther down the slope to the remaining triplets. I was taking a risk with this experiment, since underground networks were not yet known to form in forests, never mind between trees of different species. Even more far-fetched was the idea that the networks might serve as avenues for collaboration and trade routes for sugar. But I’d absorbed the merits of synergy from growing up in the forest. From hiking the heavily treed slopes up Simard Mountain. From climbing trees and building shelters with Kelly. The sugar train in my imagination didn’t stop at the roots. I’d read that the photosynthate was unloaded from the root tips into the mycorrhizal fungal partners, like freight unloaded off boxcars onto trucks.

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Hannah, age twenty-one, working in the bush and eating huckleberries, July 2019 I crossed the Columbia River at Castlegar, only half an hour from home, anxious to see Hannah and Nava, grateful that Mary had made the trip north for the Canadian Thanksgiving. The river was low, the natural flow controlled by the Mica, Revelstoke, and Hugh Keenleyside Dams upstream—three of the sixty in the Columbia watershed. These dams meant the loss of salmon from the Arrow Lakes and the flooding of the villages, burial grounds, and trade routes of the Sinixt Nation, whose ancestral territory spans from the Monashee Mountains east to the Purcells and from the Columbia headwaters to Washington State. I wondered what this land looked like before the Canadian government declared the Sinixt Nation extinct, then dammed, clear-cut, and mined their landscape.

The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
by H. W. Brands
Published 1 Jan 2000

The contest had roots in the struggles of the rising nation-states of Europe for control of the new discoveries across the seas. Portugal and Spain were the early leaders, with the Portuguese monopolizing the trade routes to the East via the South (that is, around Africa) and the Spanish capitalizing on their conquests in the Americas, encountered accidentally while searching for trade routes to the East via the West. The English and French were slower to exploit the opportunities of expansion overseas, but after sorting out the squabbles surrounding the Reformation of the sixteenth century—a sorting that left France in the Catholic camp but put England among the Protestants—these northerners launched their own imperial ventures.

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Boston may have begun life as a religious refuge for nonconformists, but by the beginning of the eighteenth century it was looking like any number of secular seaports that dotted both shores of the North Atlantic. It was by far the busiest port in English America. More than a thousand ships were registered with Boston’s harbormaster—these in addition to the many more that were registered elsewhere but made Boston a regular stop on the trade routes between the New World and the Old. This merchant armada brought cargoes of silk and spices from the Orient, slaves from West Africa, rum and molasses from the West Indies, manufactured goods from Britain, and foodstuffs and other raw and partially processed materials from elsewhere in North America.

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Needless to say, Franklin believed that America’s defensive war against Britain had been just; it was this that excused America’s resort to privateers. But every war entailed injustice on one side or the other, and Franklin judged that the greater justice dictated abolition of this evil practice. He appreciated that America would be giving up more than other countries by such a ban. The rich trade routes of the European powers to the West Indies ran right by American shores, making the merchant vessels of those powers tempting targets for American craft. But privateering under any flag was a heinous business, starting with theft and ending with murder. “It is high time, for the sake of humanity, that a stop be put to this enormity.”

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
by David Fromkin
Published 2 Jan 1989

According to a German staff officer attached to the Ottoman armed forces, the grand duke's offensive would "have led to a complete victory and perhaps driven Turkey out of the war in the summer of 1917."1 Yet years later, Lloyd George told the House of Commons that "the collapse of Russia was almbst entirely due" to the Ottoman Empire.2 The basis of Lloyd George's opinion was that by closing off most of Russia's imports and exports, the Young Turk masters of Constantinople had deprived her of armaments and revenues. Those who disagree with Lloyd George's assessment are able to argue that even if the Constantinople trade route had remained open, wartime Russia, with her peasant farmers away in the army, produced less than the normal amount of food and so had less to export, and her Allies had little ammunition to send her. But either observation points to the paradoxical truth that Russia's military successes on the Caucasus front were in a sense irrelevant: the real war had become an economic and social survival contest.

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Russia was a country naturally rich in agriculture: the peasantry made up 80 percent of the population, and cereals alone constituted half of her exports.s With the export trade cut off at Constantinople, all the food formerly sent out of the country was available to be consumed at home; and though there was a fall in the production of agricultural estates caused by the loss of labor to the army, more than enough food was produced to feed the country.6 The shortages resulted instead from disruption of transportation and distribution, due in part to bottlenecks and breakdowns, but due also to deliberate maneuvers: speculation, profiteering, and hoarding. The Czar's government recklessly ignored the need to crack down on the profiteers who accentuated the consequences of Turkey's stranglehold on Russia's trade route to the West. Widespread indus-trial strikes and the onset of financial chaos failed to move the government to act. By 1917 current interest and sinking fund payments due on its public debt were greater than the total revenues of the state in 1916, a national insolvency with which the government dealt by printing paper money, so that prices during wartime years rose by 1,000 percent.7 An obvious way out of the crisis was to bring the war to an end.

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Germany urgently needed the agricultural and mineral wealth and the railroad system of Georgia, and even more so the oil wells of Azerbaijan, to sustain her war effort. Thinking ahead to the postwar world, German leaders also intended to use Transcaucasia as a spearhead into the markets of the Middle East. The Ottoman leaders also looked to the commercial uses of the provinces across their frontier. They thought in terms of restoring the old trade route with Iran, and of reviving their Black Sea and Crimean commerce. Enver, above all, aimed at the creation of a new Turkish empire that stretched into Central Asia, to which Transcaucasia would be the link. Convinced that Germany had disregarded Turkish interests when she negotiated the terms of the armistice with Russia, Enver proceeded to disregard German interests in Transcaucasia, and sent the flower of his remaining armies across the frontier to conquer Georgia and Armenia and to march on Azerbaijan.

Lonely Planet Norway (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet and Donna Wheeler
Published 1 Apr 2015

Hiking Routes The list of possibilities for hiking in Norway is almost endless, but if we had to list our top 10, it would be the following: AJotunheimen National Park The doyen of Norwegian hiking destinations, with countless routes and incomparable high country. ARondane National Park Less-crowded trails than those of Jotunheimen, but arguably as beautiful. AHardangervidda Plateau Trails criss-cross this magnificent plateau, the home of reindeer. AAurlandsdalen Historic four-day hike following ancient trading routes from Geiteryggen to Aurland. ATrollstigen Some wonderful treks through the dramatic Trollstigen range. ADovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park Wildlife- and bird-rich park with the Knutshøene massif as a centrepiece. AStabbursdalen National Park Roadless park with tracks through glacial canyons and the world's northernmost pine forest.

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Until 1919 and the construction of the coast road, it was the only means of land communication between the two villages. Allow around three hours. Geiteryggen to Aurland HikeHIKE The classic trek down Aurlandsdalen from Geiteryggen to Aurland follows a stream from source to sea as you tramp one of the oldest trading routes between eastern and western Norway. From mid-July, you can start this four-day walk in Finse, on the Oslo–Bergen rail line, with overnight stops at Geiterygghytta, Steinbergdalen and Østerbø. The final section, usually open between early June and late September, from Østerbø (820m) to Vassbygdi (95m) is the most scenic and makes for a hugely enjoyable day hike (allow six to seven hours).

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Three daily car ferries run to/from Gudvangen (car and driver/passenger Nkr620/265, three hours) via Kaupanger (Nkr605/245). WORTH A TRIP BORGUND STAVE CHURCH Borgund Stave ChurchCHURCH (adult/child Nkr80/60; h8am-8pm May-Sep, 10am-5pm Oct-Apr) Some 30km southeast of Lærdalsøyri along the E16, the 12th-century stave church was raised beside one of the major trade routes between eastern and western Norway. Dedicated to St Andrew, it's one of the best known, most photographed and certainly the best preserved of Norway's stave churches. Its simple, inky interior and sublimely rustic alter are deeply moving. Beside it is the only free-standing medieval wooden bell tower remaining in Norway.

The Extreme Centre: A Warning
by Tariq Ali
Published 22 Jan 2015

Chinese military doctrine, according to Martin Jacques, is rooted in Sun Zi’s writings: it sets much greater store on seeking to weaken and isolate the enemy than on actually fighting him. Thus China relies exclusively on trade to expand its influence. Despite its vast economic investments, it has yet to acquire a single foreign base (although it is investing in maritime facilities in Pakistan and Myanmar, in case trade routes in the South China Sea become blocked). Many have argued that the US went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq to seize the region’s energy resources, or to secure pipelines. However, the real beneficiary of both wars has been China. It has not only obtained some of the biggest contracts in Iraq, it recently also won a $3.4bn contract – the largest in Afghan history – to mine copper in Logar province.

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by Marc Levinson
Published 1 Jan 2006

Ports, railroads, governments, and trade unions around the world spent those years studying the ways that containerization had shaken freight transportation in the United States. They knew that the container had killed off thousands of jobs on the docks, rendered entire ports obsolete, and fundamentally altered decisions about business location. Even so, the speed with which the container conquered global trade routes took almost everyone by surprise. Some of the world’s great port cities soon saw their ports all but disappear, while insignificant towns on little-known harbors found themselves among the great centers of maritime commerce.23 Nowhere was the transformation more tumultuous than in Britain. London and Liverpool were by far Britain’s biggest ports in the early 1960s, but their business was remarkably close to home.

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From whiskey distillers in Scotland to apple growers in Australia, major users of international shipping abandoned breakbulk freight as soon as regular container service was able to meet their needs. They had no reason to make this switch unless they found container shipping advantageous. Shippers’ overwhelming choice—in economic terms, their “revealed preference”—is very strong evidence that containerization on a trade route lowered the cost of shipping. The willingness of ship lines to share revenues through arrangements such as the North Atlantic Pool in 1971 indicates their desperation as freight rates tumbled.8 Then came the oil crisis. The dramatic oil-price rises that began in 1972 and accelerated after the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 had a disproportionate impact on all transportation industries.

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 1 Jun 2009

While there’s some evidence of what we could call branded imagery as far back as the Bronze Age, the modern idea of branding might best be credited to King Louis XIV’s famed finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. The Dutch, English, and Portuguese had invested heavily in navies and protecting their trade routes, but the French of this era were still heavily committed to regional ground armies and inexperienced in sea battles. They lost their bounties to pirates and their land claims to colonial rivals. France just couldn’t keep up with the heavy competition for resources in the New World, and began to run a trade deficit.

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The florin began as an illegal “people’s” money, first minted in 1235 as a silver coin and then in gold in 1252, in a flagrant assumption of power by the people of Florence against Emperor Frederick II. Local municipalities had long been issuing their own currencies, but never in gold and never for long-distance transactions. Now, a comparatively regional power had established the ability to generate a currency that would retain its value over distance and time. Florence, located on major trade routes, was already an economic center. Royals there, like all monarchs, worked to ensure their stay in power—but they did so by broadening the social base of government. Instead of chartering corporations, Florentine nobles gave merchants a role in legislation, and supported the development of guilds.

The Rough Guide to Prague
by Humphreys, Rob

STARÉ M Ě S TO Celetná, whose name comes from the bakers who used to bake a particular type of small loaf (calty) here in the Middle Ages, leads east from Staroměstské náměstí direct to the Prašná brána, one of the original gateways of the old town. It’s one of the oldest streets in Prague, lying along the former trade route from the old town market square, as well as on the králová cesta. Its buildings were smartly refaced in the Baroque period, and their pastel plasterwork is now crisply maintained. Dive down one of the covered passages to the left and into the backstreets, however, and you’ll soon lose the crowds. 93 Anežský klášter STARÉ M Ě S TO | Anežský klášter • Stavovské divadlo Further north from sv Jakub through the backstreets, the Anežský klášter (Convent of St Agnes), Prague’s oldest surviving Gothic building, stands within a stone’s throw of the river as it loops around to the east.

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With Emperor Frederick II preoccupied with Mediterranean affairs and dynastic problems, and the Hungarians and Poles busy trying to repulse the Mongol invasions from 1220 onwards, the Přemyslids were able to assert their independence. In 1212, Otakar I (1192–1230) managed to extract a “Golden Bull” (formal edict) from the emperor, securing the royal title for himself and his descendants (who thereafter became kings of Bohemia). Prague prospered, too, benefiting from its position on the central European trade routes. Czechs, Germans, Jews and merchants from all over Europe settled there, and in 1234 the first of Prague’s historic five towns, Staré Město, was founded to accommodate them. As a rule, the Přemyslids welcomed German colonization, none more so than King Otakar II (1253–78), the most distinguished of the Přemyslid rulers, who systematically encouraged German craftsmen to settle in the kingdom.

City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age
by P. D. Smith
Published 19 Jun 2012

Trading centres, like Venice, often had colonies of different nationalities where merchants could find inns and lodgings among their own language communities. Indeed, the ancient forerunners of today’s hotels are the caravanserais, where merchants and their heavily laden camels spent the night. Generally these were large, square enclosures, located along trade routes every twenty or so miles (a day’s journey). In cities they were often near the main gate, and the merchants would wait there while the tax on their goods was calculated. The Iranian caravanserai next to the Madrassa Madir-I-Shah, on Isfahan’s Naghsh-e Jahan Square, dates from the eighteenth century.

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The Spanish were awestruck when they arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1519 and were particularly impressed by the market with its astonishing display of goods rivalling anything in Europe: an agora of the New World. They calculated that the city needed fifty-five tons of grain, beans and other produce a day, most of which had to be transported in dugout canoes. Tenochtitlán was at the centre of a network of trade routes spread out across what is now Mexico. Tributes and levies of food, raw materials, tropical bird feathers and craft goods were sent to the city, which was the focus of imperial power. By the 1850s, London was the largest city the planet had yet seen, a teeming metropolis of more than one and a half million people.

Ukraine
by Lonely Planet

Eastern European filmmakers love to use this massive fort overlooking the Dnister River as a location; recently refurbished, it served as Warsaw Castle in the highly controversial Russian-language 2009 blockbuster movie Taras Bulba. With walls up to 40m high and 6m thick, today’s stone fortress was built in the 15th-century, replacing an earlier wooden structure. Its location safeguarded river trade routes making it a sought-after prize. The defining moment in its history came in 1621, with a threatened Turkish invasion. The incumbent Poles enlisted the help of 40,000 Cossacks and managed to rout a 250,000-strong Turkish army. This improbable victory made a hero of Cossack leader Petro Sahaydachny, whose huge statue greets you near the fortress’ entrance.

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Named after its Moscow equivalent, pr Lenina runs from Avtozaz, the birthplace of the Zaporizhets – USSR’s most ridiculed car model – to the Soviet industrial icon, Dniproges power station. Neither of which are the reason people come here on holiday. The reason is Khortytsya – a rocky forested island where Cossacks set up their all-male free-rule republic, which prospered from raids on neighbouring empires and duties levied on anyone who used the river trade route. Today, it is the place to learn about Cossack culture and history, admire beautiful river vistas and spend a day hiking or bicycling. Sights Khortytsya Island Cossack Stronghold The Zaporizhska Sich on Khortytsya Island was the most important cradle of Ukrainian Cossackdom, where hetman (leader) Dmytro Baida united disparate groups of Cossacks in the construction of a sich (fort) in 1553–54.

How I Became a Quant: Insights From 25 of Wall Street's Elite
by Richard R. Lindsey and Barry Schachter
Published 30 Jun 2007

I used to tell people that great mathematicians are like the great explorers. Explorers want to discover something new—a new trade route, a new land, gold—by venturing into the unknown. They do so with no guarantees of success. Great explorers are characterized by their courage and their desire to discover something new. Consider Christopher Columbus. His great passion was to find a westward route to the Indies. He doggedly pursued funding for his expedition, first from Portugal and finally from Spain, offering a new trade route in exchange for being named governor of any new lands he discovered and the title of “Great Admiral of the Ocean.”

Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World
by Oliver Morton
Published 15 Feb 2003

At its foot sits the old naval college, where generations of Britannia’s officers, my late father included, learned to rule the waves. Through it all the Thames runs softly, looping around the Isle of Dogs, a local feature leading, as Conrad says in Heart of Darkness, “to the uttermost ends of the Earth.” Little sails down this umbilicus of empire now—but above it the new trade routes of the sky are sketched out by aircraft arriving and departing from London’s four airports, carving their way through the air we all breathe and the stratosphere we shelter under. To the west the Thames beneath them is still daytime blue; to the east it is already evening dark. Dawn may feel like an intervention by the sun, rising above a stationary Earth; sunset reveals the truth of the Earth’s turning, a slipping away into night.

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The various threads that I see tying our world together when I look down the Thames from Greenwich Park were already being woven when Queen Elizabeth I looked out from the same heights: Ships sailed down the Thames and around the world (just), trade prospered across oceans, manufacturing was becoming newly dependent on capital, information was beginning to flow more freely thanks to the printing press. But no one then could have seen where those potentialities would lead: the squat bulk of Reuters, the towers of the banks, the trade routes revealed by the landing lights on aircraft. Though it flows from the present, the distant future is another world. We cannot know the future for what it is, because as yet it isn’t; we cannot know it for what it will be, because by the time it is, we won’t be. It is connected to us—its seeds are in us—but we are not connected to it.

Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation
by Serhii Plokhy
Published 9 Oct 2017

A small principality at the time of the Mongol invasion of northeastern Rus’ in 1238, Moscow did not have even a princely family of its own. It acquired one only under the Mongols. The princes of Moscow belonged to a junior line of the Rurikids, but thanks to the location of their principality at the crossroads of various trade routes and to their political skills, they became the most powerful princely house in northeastern Rus’. In 1317, the prince of Moscow married a sister of the khan of the Golden Horde, thereby gaining the title of grand prince of Vladimir and the power inherent in the post of the khan’s representative in Rus’.

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In 1552, he defeated and annexed the Khanate of Kazan. The city’s inhabitants were resettled and replaced by subjects of the tsar—the policy applied earlier in Novgorod and Smolensk. In 1556, Ivan’s troops defeated another successor to the Horde, the Khanate of Astrakhan, and Muscovy took control of the all-important Volga trade route. In ideological terms, the tsar of Muscovy had defeated two Tatar rulers to whom the Muscovite chronicles referred consistently as “tsars.” Ivan’s authority was enhanced when he added their tsardoms to his. In his diplomatic correspondence, he would count separately the years of his rule over the Muscovite, Kazan, and Astrakhan tsardoms.

Water: A Biography
by Giulio Boccaletti
Published 13 Sep 2021

During the second millennium BCE, a vast commercial and diplomatic network developed between the territorial states of the eastern Mediterranean: Mitanni, Assyria, and Ebla in northern Mesopotamia; Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia; Elam in Iran; Ugarit on the Syrian coast; Mycenae around the Peloponnese and the Greek islands; the Hittites in Anatolia; Egypt. Tin and copper, the main ingredients of bronze metallurgy, pushed people to search for sources wherever deposits were and to trade over long distances. Reconstructing these trade routes is difficult. Mesopotamia may have sourced its tin from Anatolia, Afghanistan, or central Asia, supplied either by land, through the northern mountain ranges or Elam to the east, or by sea, from the Indus Valley and into the Gulf. This system of trade went well beyond metal. Written records from Ugarit, in modern-day Syria, describe vessels carrying four or five hundred tons of cargo.

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The problem was that tsarist Russia had had relatively limited experience of infrastructure development. It oversaw a highly controlled, centralized, and inefficient agrarian economy. Towards the end of the nineteenth century it focused its modernization efforts on the Volga, which had been a critical northwest-to-southeast trade route since the eleventh century. But pursuing industrialization would have required unprecedented investments, far greater than what the tsarist regime had been able or willing to pursue. The relative stasis of the regime, surrounded by the economic and social ebullience of the second half of the nineteenth century, created the space for radical dreams.

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
by Michael Shellenberger
Published 28 Jun 2020

Plastics Production: Energy First, Feedstocks Later,” Environmental Research Letters 12, no. 3 (December 2017), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa60a7. 88. Christine Figgener (sea turtle biologist) in conversation with the author, November 6, 2019. 89. Marydele Donnelly, “Trade Routes for Tortoiseshell,” State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT), Report Volume 3, February 1, 2008, https://www.seaturtlestatus.org/articles/2008/trade-routes-for-tortoiseshell. Associated Press, “Japan Agrees to End Endangered Hawksbill Turtle Imports After ’92,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1991, https://www.latimes.com. 90. Tina Deines, “Endangered hawksbill turtle shell trade is much bigger than scientists ever suspected,” National Geographic, March 27, 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com. 91.

Open: The Story of Human Progress
by Johan Norberg
Published 14 Sep 2020

‘Profit rather than plunder was their policy.’38 Around 1200 bc nearly all the major cities of the ancient world were sacked and destroyed by the ‘sea peoples’, a motley assortment of pirates who probably came from various places in the Mediterranean. There is a lack of consensus among academics, but these pirates probably wreaked so much havoc because of a combination of drought, earthquakes, the plague and new, deadlier swords and javelins. This so-called ‘Late Bronze-Age Collapse’ destroyed the old trade routes and took a horrible human toll. It resulted in a small dark age in Greece and many other places, but it also opened up opportunities for groups that would otherwise have been stifled by powerful emperors and temples. The Phoenicians would take advantage and end up ruling the waves for a thousand years.

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Gutenberg’s printing press spread the word about new ideas and discoveries. In 1500, some ten million books were in circulation and a growing share of the population was literate. After 1500, the European mind was opened up even more because of the great voyages of discovery, prompted by attempts to find trade routes with Asia. ‘In that hemisphere I saw things incompatible with the opinions of philosophers,’ wrote Amerigo Vespucci about the continent that would be named after him. Europeans found new insights, strange plants and unknown creatures.34 After contact with India and China was established, startled sailors and traders brought home more advanced science, novel products and techniques.

England: Seven Myths That Changed a Country – and How to Set Them Straight
by Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears
Published 24 Apr 2024

The pope and the King of Spain are depicted plotting with the Devil.33 It is a tradition that continues with the macabre English tradition of children celebrating 5 November with explosive fireworks and the burning of an effigy called ‘Guy’. England’s attitude to what has been called ‘piratical imperialism’ evolved further in the century after Drake’s death. The country was emerging as a significant sea power and its navy could no longer tolerate rogue ships roaming the oceans when there were overseas settlements, trade routes, investments and valuable cargoes of slaves that needed to be protected.34 By the start of the eighteenth century, men with names that shiver with legend like Captain William Kidd, Edmund Teach – better known as ‘Blackbeard’ − and ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, most of whom had at one point or another been licensed privateers, were being killed or captured by the navy.

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Life for the early settlers was precarious and they would have been unable to survive without what has been described as ‘an act of sharing that is almost unimaginable in its generosity’. The indigenous Americans not only gave ‘the needy newcomers’ their food, but also taught them hunting and agricultural techniques, knowledge of trade routes and local geography. There were treaties in which settlers promised in return to share the land with the people who had been there long before them.38 In Plymouth, the new colony the Mayflower Pilgrims founded in what is now Massachusetts, the fifty settlers who had survived until the harvest of 1621 celebrated their first ‘Thanksgiving’ alongside ninety Wampanoag guests.

Narcotopia
by Patrick Winn
Published 30 Jan 2024

From these clans rose the infamous warlords, the very three that Saw Lu hoped to meet. These warlords were vital opium suppliers. Under the Exiles’ guidance, each Wa warlord grew organized enough to consistently supply premium opium—and well armed enough to guarantee the caravans’ safe travel into their lands. By the mid-1960s, the Exiles ran vast trade routes snaking through Burma’s upcountry, an area larger than Portugal. The Wa peaks, luxuriant with poppies, marked the far end of their supply chain. Pang Wai, where Saw Lu watched Exiles collect opium near the fortress gates, was one of the northernmost collection points. The caravan he witnessed would have also picked up opium from the Wa warlords, then traveled south to load up in various Shan villages, before lugging it all back to the Exiles’ headquarters—a network of camps some two hundred miles south of Wa country, located along Burma’s border with Thailand.

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US House of Representatives, “Drug Trade and the Terror Network: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, October 3, 2001” (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2002). 2. Chin, The Golden Triangle. 3. Smuggling Southeast Asian heroin to Europe was not a favorable option. Heroin trade routes to Europe are traditionally dominated by syndicates sourcing from the Golden Crescent: Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. WHISKEY ALPHA 1. The more than fifty-billion-pills figure is based on seizure data compiled by the UNODC as well as Thailand’s Office of the Narcotics Control Board. Since 2000 at least six billion ya-ba pills have been seized by authorities in East and Southeast Asia.

Greece
by Korina Miller
Published 1 Mar 2010

The work is considered to be the first narrative of historical events ever written. * * * Return to beginning of chapter WAR & CONQUEST The Persian Wars Athens’ rapid growth as a major city-state also meant heavy reliance on food imports from the Black Sea; and Persia’s imperial expansion westward threatened strategic coastal trade routes across Asia Minor. Athens’ support for a rebellion in the Persian colonies of Asia Minor sparked the Persian drive to destroy the city. Persian emperor Darius spent five years suppressing the revolt and remained determined to succeed. A 25,000-strong Persian army reached Attica in 490 BC, but was defeated when an Athenian force of 10,000 outmanoeuvred it at the Battle of Marathon.

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This was a prize coveted by the newly formed Balkan countries of Serbia and Bulgaria, as well as by Greece, and led to the outbreak of the Balkan Wars (1912 and 1913). The outcome was the Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913), which greatly expanded Greek territory (and with it its fertile agricultural resources). Its borders now took in the southern part of Macedonia (which included Thessaloniki, the vital cultural centre strategically positioned on the Balkan trade routes), part of Thrace, another chunk of Epiros, and the northeastern Aegean Islands, as well as recognising the union with Crete. WWI & Smyrna In March 1913 a lunatic assassinated King George, and his son Constantine became the monarch. King Constantine, who was married to the sister of the German emperor, insisted that Greece remain neutral when WWI broke out in August 1914.

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Alexander and his generals spread the Greek culture and language widely, creating a Hellenistic society that would be absorbed by the Romans. Later, after the empire split into eastern and western halves in the 4th century AD, the society emerged as the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire. Thessaloniki became Byzantium’s second city, a vital commercial, cultural and strategic centre on the crossroads of Balkan trade routes. However, 6th- and 7th-century-AD Slavic migrations brought new populations, and challenges for the empire, which was frequently at war with the medieval Bulgarian kingdom from the 9th century to the 11th century. In 1018, Emperor Basil II finally defeated Bulgarian Tsar Samuel, who had ruled much of the southern Balkans from his capital on western Macedonia’s Mikri Prespa Lake.

Saveur New American Comfort Food
by James Oseland
Published 20 Apr 2011

At SAVEUR, we’ve always been interested in where these foods come from, and we’ve trekked to the places where they’re produced. We’ve marveled at the producers’ ingenuity: the gristmills that grind wheat into flour, the aging rooms where cheeses develop their flavors. We’ve come to understand the historical and cultural contexts that shape a cuisine’s character: the trade routes, the agricultural traditions, the ways people obtain their food. We’ve learned to use cooking tools like seasoned woks for making Chinese stir-fries and clay tagines for Moroccan stews, and we’ve embraced techniques for everything from extracting the flavor from lemongrass to evenly slicing carrots.

The Accidental Theorist: And Other Dispatches From the Dismal Science
by Paul Krugman
Published 18 Feb 2010

In particular, the most important discipline for understanding long swings in preindustrial population and real wages is not macroeconomics but microbe economics. Now and then devastating new diseases would appear (often, as McNeill showed in Plagues and Peoples, as a result either of conquests or of the opening of new trade routes, both of which tended to bring formerly separated populations, and the germs that they harbored, into contact). Initially the population would plunge and real wages would soar. As microbes and humans coevolved into a new equilibrium, population and pressure on resources would rise again, and the increasingly malnourished masses would become vulnerable to the next plague.

The Internet of Money
by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
Published 28 Aug 2016

In that final stage, the only people who still believe it’s grand are grandparents. In the grand arc of technology, what started out as a masterpiece is now only consumed by those in the last stages of their lives. The first checks written out were used by royalty to fund great ventures like the East India Company to open the spice roads and trade routes to the East. In those days, only royals had checkbooks. Today, if you go into a supermarket and the grandmother, bless her heart, in front of you in the line opens up her purse and pulls out the checkbook, 15 people in line are going to groan audibly as they realize it’s going to take 15 minutes to write out that transaction.

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis
by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
Published 25 Feb 2020

Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire, and tornadoes. This makes the food supply in general highly unpredictable. One thing hasn’t changed, though—if you have money, you have access. Global trade has slowed as countries such as China stop exporting and seek to hold on to their own resources. Disasters and wars rage, choking off trade routes. The tyranny of supply and demand is now unforgiving; because of its increasing scarcity, food can now be wildly expensive. Income inequality has always existed, but it has never been this stark or this dangerous. Entire regions suffer from epidemics of stunting and malnutrition. Reproduction has slowed overall, but most acutely in those countries where food scarcity is dire.

Around the World in 80 Trees
by Jonathan Drori
Published 28 May 2018

It was prescribed for serious conditions and was also a reassuringly expensive ingredient in love potions and breath-fresheners. Now we know that the resin contains antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory compounds, and it is still used locally as a mouthwash and to treat rashes and sores. Why dragon’s blood, though? Socotra was an important stop on trading routes between India, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and the origin probably lies with Indian merchants who brought the resin to market along with their Hindu myths. One of these involved a legendary fight, on Socotran soil, between an elephant and a dragon, in which the dragon gulped the elephant’s blood before being squashed in the mêlée, spilling the blood of both animals.

Pocket Rough Guide Berlin (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 16 Oct 2019

So overwhelming is Berlin’s twentieth-century history and its twenty-first century grab for the future, that it’s easy to forget that the city has a longer and more illustrious history. Originally two cities – Cölln, an island in the middle of the city, now the site of the Museum Island, and Alt Berlin, formerly a fishing village – Berlin was formed in 1237. Located at the intersection of significant trade routes, it quickly prospered, rising to power as the seat of the Hohenzollern dynasty following the Thirty Years’ War. During the eighteenth century, Frederick the Great (1712–86) established Berlin – and neighbouring Potsdam, with its magnificent summer palace Sanssouci – as a grand capital for the Prussian monarchy; it was during this time that many of the buildings on Unter den Linden were constructed.

The Years of Rice and Salt
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Published 2 Jun 2003

Now it is clear that I was right to argue for your life, as word comes to us of your many activities, and wonderful investigations.' Khalid looked up at him to see if he were being mocked, and Nadir lifted a palm to show his sincerity. Khalid looked down again. 'But I came here to remind you that all these fascinating trials take place in a dangerous world. The khanate lies at the centre of all the trade routes in the world, with armies in all directions. The Khan is concerned to protect his subjects from attack, and yet we hear of cannon that would reduce our cities' walls in a week or less. The Khan wishes you to help him with this problem. He is sure you will be happy to bring him some small part of the fruits of your learning, to help him to defend the khanate.'

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Very likely there were some underlying economic reasons for this phenomenon; Islam, perhaps by chance but perhaps not, appeared in the 'centre of the world', the area sometimes called the Isthmus Region, bounded by the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. All the trade routes necessarily knotted here, like dragon arteries in a feng shui analysis. So it is not particularly surprising that for a time Islam provided the world with a general currency, the dinar, and a generally used language, Arabic. But it was also a religion, indeed it became almost the universal religion, and we must understand that its appeal as a religion arose partly from the fact that in a world of growing inequalities, Islam spoke of a realm in which all were equal – all equal before God no matter their age, gender, occupation, race or nationality.

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So, added to the subjugation of farmers, women, and the family, was this fourth inequality, of race or group, leading to the subjugation of the most powerless peoples to slavery. And the unequal accumulation of wealth by the elites continued. The discovery of the New World has only accelerated these processes, providing both more wealth and more slaves. The trade routes themselves have moved substantially from land to sea, and Islam no longer controls the crossroads as it did for a thousand years. The main centre of accumulation has shifted to China; indeed, China may have been the centre all along. It has always had the most people; and from ancient times people everywhere else have traded for Chinese goods.

China: A History
by John Keay
Published 5 Oct 2009

But farther to the south-west their progress was halted in the vicinity of the Lancang (upper Mekong) River. The perpendicular terrain, as much as the population, would in fact keep the silk-and-cane trail shrouded in mystery for centuries. Only with the construction of the Burma Road in the run-up to the Second World War would a serviceable trade route finally link China and India over the dripping passes at this extremity of the eastern Himalaya. Meanwhile Han operations against the Xiongnu had continued. In 121 BC they had been rewarded with the surrender of one of the shanyu’s subordinate kings, who brought with him 40,000 men and control of the Gansu corridor.

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At the time the Buddha seems to have been revered, along with Laozi, as a co-opted member of the Daoist pantheon rather than as the embodiment of an alternative doctrinal ‘Way’. There is no mention of the enormous body of literature – devotional, metaphysical and organisational – that 500 years of Buddhism in south Asia had generated. And Pengcheng being on a trade route that leads to Luoyang not from central Asia but from the China coast, it is possible that the cult had reached the Later Han empire by sea. Buddhist communities were already established in south-east Asia; and the Buddhist symbols (lotus flowers, elephants, etc.) found among the second-century relief carvings at Kongwangshan on the seaboard of Jiangsu appear to substantiate this routing.

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The Russians may not have appreciated that Jurchen tribesmen encountered on the Amur were the ‘wild’ brethren of Beijing’s Manchu emperors; and the Manchus seem not at first to have realised that their adversaries in the far north-east were subjects of an empire from which several merchant-diplomats had reached China via more conventional trade routes. A Russian mission of 1618 to the Ming court had in fact pipped the Portuguese and the Dutch to become the first ever from a European power to reach Beijing and return safely. Unfortunately it took no Chinese interpreter back with it; a letter from the Wanli emperor inviting further ‘tribute’ missions thus languished unread for nearly sixty years.

Lonely Planet Norway
by Lonely Planet

Hiking Routes The list of possibilities for hiking in Norway is almost endless, but if we had to list our top 10, it would be the following: AJotunheimen National Park The doyen of Norwegian hiking destinations, with countless routes and incomparable high country. ARondane National Park Less-crowded trails than those of Jotunheimen, but arguably as beautiful. AHardangervidda plateau Trails criss-cross this magnificent plateau, the home of reindeer. AAurlandsdalen Historic four-day hike following ancient trading routes from Geiteryggen to Aurland. ATrollstigen Some wonderful treks through the dramatic Trollstigen range. ADovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park Wildlife- and bird-rich park with the Knutshøene massif as a centrepiece. AStabbursdalen National Park Roadless park with tracks through glacial canyons and the world's northernmost pine forest.

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There's a comprehensive guide to the area at www.sognefjord.no. 1Sights oBorgund Stave ChurchCHURCH (www.stavechurch.com/en/borgund; Borgund; adult/child 90/70kr; h8am-8pm May-Sep, 10am-5pm Oct-Apr) Some 30km southeast of Lærdalsøyri along the E16, this 12th-century stave church was raised beside one of the major trade routes between eastern and western Norway. Dedicated to St Andrew, it's one of the best known, most photographed and certainly the best preserved of Norway's stave churches. It's simple, inky interior and sublimely rustic altar are deeply moving. Beside it is the only free-standing medieval wooden bell tower remaining in Norway. 8Getting There & Away Boat Norled (www.norled.no) operates a daily boat from Bergen to Flåm (adult/child 825/415kr, 5½ hours), stopping along the way at several small towns including Vik, Balestrand and Sogndal.

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It can be reached via the footpath between Flåm and Aurland. 2Activities The Aurland and Lærdal tourist offices have produced six walker-friendly sheets of local walks, where the route is mapped upon an aerial photo. Geiteryggen to Aurland HikeHIKING The classic trek down Aurlandsdalen from Geiteryggen to Aurland follows a stream from source to sea as you tramp one of the oldest trading routes between eastern and western Norway. From mid-July, you can start this four-day walk in Finse, on the Oslo–Bergen rail line, with overnight stops at Geiterygghytta, Steinbergdalen and Østerbø. The final section from Østerbø (820m) to Vassbygdi (95m) is the most scenic and makes for a hugely enjoyable day hike (allow six to seven hours); it's usually open between early June and late September.

Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World
by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg
Published 15 Nov 2010

We will find that auctions represent a basic kind of economic interaction that can be 1.2. CENTRAL THEMES AND TOPICS 19 Figure 1.9: In some settings, such as this map of Medieval trade routes, phys- ical networks constrain the patterns of interaction, giving certain participants an intrinsic economic advantage based on their network position. (Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Late Medieval Trade Routes.jpg.) directly generalized to more complex patterns of interactions on networks. As a general part of our investigation of game theory, we will abstract such situations with inter-dependent behavior into a common framework, where a collection of individuals must each commit to a strategy, thereby receiving a payoff that depends on the strategies chosen by everyone.

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In other cases, they also reflect fundamental underlying constraints in the market that limit the access of certain participants to each other. In modern markets, these constraints could be institutional restrictions based on regulations; in other settings, they could be based on physical constraints like geography. For example, Figure 1.9 shows a map of trade routes in medieval Europe: when the physical movement of goods is costly and difficult, the economic outcome for different cities can depend significantly on where they are located in the underlying transportation network. In all these settings, then, the network structure encodes a lot about the pattern of trade, with the success levels of different participants affected by their positions in the network.

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However, it turns out that traders can make zero profit for reasons based more on the global structure of the network, rather than on direct competition with any one trader. The network in Figure 11.9 illustrates how this can arise. In this trading network there is no direct competition for any one “trade route” from a seller to a buyer. However, in any equilibrium, all bid and ask prices take on some common value x between 0 and 1, and the goods flow from the sellers to the buyers. So all traders again make zero profit. It is easy to see that this is an equilibrium: we can simply check that each trader is using a best response to all the other traders’ strategies.

Southwest USA Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

Call ahead or check the website for current accessibility. CROSSING THE BORDER For more information on crossing the Mexican border, check out Click here. South of Tucson From Tucson, the I-19 is a straight 60-mile shot south through the Santa Cruz River Valley to Nogales on the Mexican border. A historical trading route since pre-Hispanic times, the highway is unique in the US because distances are posted in kilometers – when it was built there was a strong push to go metric. Speed limits, however, are posted in miles! Though not terribly scenic, I-19 is a ribbon of superb cultural sights with a bit of shopping thrown in the mix.

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You’ll need a couple of hours to drive the desert dirt road to get here and to hike around a bit, but it’s well worth it. Take I-25 exit 264; follow Hwy 16 west to Hwy 22, then right onto Tribal Rte 92. At the time of research, dogs were banned from Tent Rocks. Turquoise Trail The Turquoise Trail has been a major trade route since at least 2000 BC, when local artisans began trading Cerrillos turquoise with communities in present-dayMexico. Today it’s the scenic back road between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, lined with quirky communities and other diversions. For info, see www.turquoisetrail.org. CEDAR CREST Located northeast of Albuquerque, on the eastern side of the Sandia Mountains, and just a bit up Sandia Crest Rd (NM 165) from Cedar Crest, the Tinkertown Museum (www.tinkertown.com; 121 Sandia Crest Rd; adult/child $3/1; 9am-5:30pm Apr-Nov; ) is one of the weirdest museums in New Mexico.

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An alternative to the bigger and more visited sites like Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Mesa Verde National Park, the 27-acre Aztec Ruins National Monument (www.nps.gov/azru; admission $5; 8am-5pm Sep-May, to 6pm Jun-Aug) features the largest reconstructed kiva in the country, with an internal diameter of almost 50ft, originally built around AD 1100. Let your imagination wander as you sit inside the Great Kiva. Rangers give early-afternoon talks about ancient architecture, trade routes and astronomy during the summer months. The small but excellent Aztec Museum & Pioneer Village (www.aztecmuseum.org; 125 N Main Ave; admission free; 10am-4pm Tue-Sat) features an eclectic collection of historical objects, including telephones, barbershop chairs and a great display of late-19th-century regional photographs.

The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War
by Robert D. Kaplan
Published 1 Jan 1994

While Pakistan has grown weaker as a state, with near anarchy pre­ vailing in Karachi, its regional power has grown, thanks to the I SI. The Taliban religious movement in Afghanistan, for in- 110 / THE COMING ANARCHY stance, in its recent sudden rise received help from the IS I, which wanted to resurrect trade routes through Afghanistan to Iran. This kind of influence may sound frightening, but it is ef­ ficient compared with what we have now. Ever since the ancient soothsayers of the Delphic oracle there have been intelligence agencies of one sort or another. Spying is as old as war itself. Moses sent spies into Canaan.

Team Human
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 22 Jan 2019

If anything, capitalism as it’s currently being executed is the enemy of commerce, extracting value from marketplaces and delivering it to remote shareholders. The very purpose of the capitalist operating system is to prevent widespread prosperity. What we now think of as capitalism was born in the late Middle Ages, in the midst of a period of organic economic growth. Soldiers had just returned from the Crusades, having opened up new trade routes and bringing back innovations from foreign lands. One of them, from the Moorish bazaar, was the concept of “market money.” Until this point, European markets operated mostly through barter, the direct exchange of goods. Gold coins, like the florin, were just too scarce and valuable to be spent on bread.

Pocket Rough Guide Barcelona (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 1 Mar 2019

Beginning of the end of Catalan influence in the Mediterranean. 1469 Marriage of Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabel of Castile. 1479 Ferdinand succeeds to Catalan-Aragón crown, and ­Catalunya’s fortunes decline. Inquisition introduced to Barcelona, leading to forced flight of the Jews. 1493 Christopher Columbus received in Barcelona after his triumphant return from New World. The shifting of trade routes away from Mediterranean and across the Atlantic further impoverishes the city. 1516 Spanish crown passes to Habsburgs and Madrid is established as capital of Spanish empire. 1640–52 The uprising known as the “Wars of the Reapers” declares Catalunya an independent republic. Barcelona is besieged and eventually surrenders to the Spanish army. 1714 After War of Spanish Succession, throne passes to Bourbons.

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
by Michio Kaku
Published 15 Mar 2011

Science was not just an academic exercise but a way to create new weapons and new avenues of wealth. Soon, the rise of science and technology in Europe began to weaken the power of China and the Ottoman Empire. The Muslim civilization, which had prospered for centuries as a gateway for trade between the East and the West, faltered as European sailors forged trade routes to the New World and the East—especially around Africa, bypassing the Middle East. And China found itself being carved up by European gunboats that ironically exploited two pivotal Chinese inventions, gunpowder and the compass. The answer to the question “What happened?” is clear. Science and technology happened.

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Exotic delicacies from around the world are now routinely sold in supermarkets. The falling of commodity prices is due to a variety of factors, such as better mass production, containerization, shipping, communication, and competition. (For example, today’s high school students have a hard time understanding why Columbus risked life and limb to find a shorter trade route to the spices of the East. Why couldn’t he simply go to the supermarket, they ask, and get some oregano? But in the days of Columbus, spices and herbs were extremely expensive. They were prized because they could mask the taste of rotting food, since there were no refrigerators in those days. At times, even kings and emperors had to eat rotten food at dinner.

In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan
by Seth G. Jones
Published 12 Apr 2009

“Ambushes, assassinations, attacks on supply convoys, bridges, pipelines, and airfields, with the avoidance of set piece battles; these are history’s proven techniques for the guerrilla,” wrote Mohammad Yousaf, who ran Pakistan’s ISI operations in Afghanistan during the Soviet War.32 Indeed, Afghanistan’s rich history serves as a springboard for understanding the American experience in a country that since antiquity has been called a graveyard of empires. IN THE GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES FIGURE 1.1 Map of Afghanistan CHAPTER ONE Descent into Violence AFGHANISTAN’S STRATEGIC LOCATION, wedged between Persia, the weathered steppes of Central Asia, and the trade routes of the Indian Subcontinent, has long made it alluring to great powers. When Alexander the Great began his march into Afghanistan around 330 BC, locals witnessed a forbidding sight. Riding ahead of the invading force were scouts armed with sarisas—pikes up to twenty feet long, weighted at the base and projecting fifteen feet in front of the mounted cavalry.

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Behind his thick, six-foot frame was a charming, almost unassuming, personality. But Khalilzad could also be an imposing figure. He exuded an extraordinary sense of confidence and authority when he walked into a room, but his true métier was the face-to-face meeting. Herat, in the fertile Hari River Valley, lies seventy miles from the Iranian border, along the ancient trade routes that linked Europe with the Middle East, India, and China. The city was later used by the British, Soviet, and Taliban armies, each of whom conquered the city and constructed key military installations. Ismail Khan had been a staple figure in Herat for several decades, participating in the Soviet War in the 1980s and the Afghan civil war in the early 1990s, until he was captured by the Taliban later in the decade.

Sugar: A Bittersweet History
by Elizabeth Abbott
Published 14 Sep 2011

It is likely, on the other hand, that the more complex techniques required to crystallize sugar originated from a single source but, as historical geographer Jock Galloway notes in The Sugar Cane Industry, evidence that might trace its history is lacking. What we do know is that these techniques developed in northern India, from where they were introduced throughout the trade routes to the Far East and, through Persia, to the West and ultimately to the New World. Sugarcane spread steadily across continents and oceans and, over time, rivaled and often replaced honey as the sweetener of choice. Honey’s distinctive taste may be too strong for some food and drink, and until improved refining processes developed in the nineteenth century, it usually contained discernible, and perhaps disagreeable, amounts of beeswax.

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American environmentalist Kirkpatrick Sale rightly sees the nature of Columbus’s encounters with the natives as instrumental in the development of “everything of importance in the succeeding 500 years”: “the triumph of capitalism, … the establishment of a global monoculture, the genocide of the indigenes, the slavery of people of color, the colonization of the world, the destruction of primal environments.”25 To this list should be added: the creation of major trade routes, notably the famous triangular trade between the sugar lands, Europe, Africa and North America; the creation of new Creole societies; the redefinition of taste standards and the addiction of millions of people to sweetness and to unhealthy, disease-causing diets; the development of the language of human rights; and fatal damage to the planet’s flora and fauna.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
by Yuval Noah Harari
Published 1 Mar 2015

Instead of changing their stories to fit reality, they can change reality to fit their stories. In the end, external reality matches their bureaucratic fantasies, but only because they forced reality to do so. For example, the borders of many African countries disregard river lines, mountain ranges and trade routes, split historical and economic zones unnecessarily, and ignore local ethnic and religious identities. The same tribe may find itself riven between several countries, whereas one country may incorporate splinters of numerous rival clans. Such problems bedevil countries all over the world, but in Africa they are particularly acute because modern African borders don’t reflect the wishes and struggles of local nations.

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Princes, priests and peasants assumed that human production was more or less stable, that one person could enrich himself only by pilfering somebody else and that their grandchildren were unlikely to enjoy a better standard of living. This stagnation resulted to a large extent from the difficulties involved in financing new projects. Without proper funding, it wasn’t easy to drain swamps, construct bridges and build ports – not to mention engineer new wheat strains, discover new energy sources or open new trade routes. Funds were scarce because there was little credit in those days; there was little credit because people had no belief in growth; and people didn’t believe in growth because the economy was stagnant. Stagnation thereby perpetuated itself. Suppose you live in a medieval town that suffers from annual outbreaks of dysentery.

Lonely Planet Cancun, Cozumel & the Yucatan (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet , John Hecht and Sandra Bao
Published 31 Jul 2013

Tulum Activities, Courses & Tours 1 Community Tours Sian Ka'an B4 2 I Bike Tulum C2 3 Xibalba Dive Center D3 Sleeping 4 Cabañas Playa Condesa F4 5 El Paraíso F3 6 Kin-Ha Suites C4 7 La Vita è Bella F4 8 L'Hotelito C3 9 Teetotum C2 10 Weary Traveler A4 11 Zazil-kin F3 Eating 12 Cetli C3 13 Charlie's B4 14 El Mariachi Loco C3 15 La Nave C3 16 Súper San Francisco de Asis C1 Drinking & Nightlife 17 Curandero B3 History Most archaeologists believe that Tulum was occupied during the late post-Classic period (AD 1200–1521) and that it was an important port town during its heyday. The Maya sailed up and down this coast, maintaining trading routes all the way down into Belize. When Juan de Grijalva sailed past in 1518, he was amazed by the sight of the walled city, its buildings painted a gleaming red, blue and yellow and a ceremonial fire flaming atop its seaside watchtower. The ramparts that surround three sides of Tulum (the fourth side being the sea) leave little question as to its strategic function as a fortress.

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Community Tours Sian Ka’an (Click here) runs tours out of Tulum that include pick-up in the Zona Hotelera. Tours include a guided walk of the interpretive trail at the Muyil archaeological site south of Tulum, and a boat trip or float trip (M$1287) through Lagunas Muyil, Chunyaxché and Boca Paila via an ancient Maya trade route along a natural channel. On the way you can see abundant birdlife and visit little-known Maya temples. It also offers snorkeling (M$975), birding, and fly-fishing trips (M$7150) further into the reserve. If you’re with young ones, ask about discounts for children under 12. Community Tours Sian Ka’an is a sustainable tourism project run by locals from Maya communities.

More: The 10,000-Year Rise of the World Economy
by Philip Coggan
Published 6 Feb 2020

They encouraged arts and crafts in the cities they conquered, kept taxes low and were relaxed in matters of religion.33 They also had a highly efficient postal service, with messengers able to travel 250 to 300 miles a day with the help of fresh horses. Thanks to their fearsome reputation, banditry was much reduced; and a series of posting houses monitored the arrival and departure of trade caravans. A chronicler of the day boasted that “a maiden bearing a nugget of gold on her head could wander safely throughout the realm”.34 The trading routes of the era may have helped to spread the Black Death from Asia to Europe in remarkably quick time. The first signs of the disease are now thought to have occurred in Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea in 1346. By the following year, it had hit Constantinople, and the rest of Europe was ravaged in 1348 and 1349.35 The route of the disease may have been via a Mongol siege of Kaffa in the Crimea, a base for Italian merchants – the merchants fled back home, taking it with them.

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The medieval spice trade was quite closely controlled by guilds in modern Sri Lanka, and the Malabar coast of India.45 From there the spices were shipped via the Middle East, where further costs were added and middlemen took another cut. The Turks captured Constantinople, ending the 1,000-year-old Byzantine empire in 1453, which seems to have cut off, for a while, one of those trading routes. So there was a big incentive for anyone who could find a sea passage to Asia. Bartolomeu Dias managed to round the southern tip of Africa in 1488, which he called the “Cape of Storms”, later renamed, in a classic example of the power of advertising, the “Cape of Good Hope”. Europe’s exploration drive was made possible by various improvements in shipping that occurred in the Middle Ages, including, as has already been noted, the lateen or triangular sail, taken from the Islamic world, and the sternpost rudder and the compass, which improved steering and navigation and were taken from the Chinese.

The Rough Guide to Cape Town, Winelands & Garden Route
by Rough Guides , James Bembridge and Barbara McCrea
Published 4 Jan 2018

European explorers called the headland the Cape of Storms for its treacherous weather; its ferocity also explains False Bay’s name, given by mariners who confused it with Table Bay and realised they still had to round the stormy peninsula. The altogether sunnier title, Cape of Good Hope, came after Vasco Da Gama made it past in 1497, opening up a new trade route from Europe to India and the Far East. If you don’t bring food, you can take in the view while you eat at Two Oceans. Flora, fauna and furry felons The majority of visitors to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve make a beeline for Cape Point and take in the rest of the reserve through a vehicle window, but walking is the best way to appreciate indigenous Cape flora.

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There is nothing pretty along the shoreline, the Castle is peculiar, the houses resemble prisons”, and “one sees here peculiar people who live in strange ways”. Dutch global influence began to wane in the 1700s, but at the same time the Cape settlement began to develop an independent identity and a little prosperity, based on its pivotal position on the European–Far East trade route. People began referring to it as “Kaapstad” (Cape Town) rather than “the Cape settlement”, and by 1750 it had a thousand buildings, with over three thousand diverse inhabitants. Some of these were indigenous Khoikhoi people, but the largest number were VOC employees, dominated by an elite of high-ranking Dutch-born officials.

Apollo 13
by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger
Published 14 Jun 2000

The business of exploring space may have appeared to have become dull and clumsy, stripped of the crapshoot exuberance that made it the grand adventure it once was, but it was still the business of exploring space. Put enough engineers at enough drafting tables in enough NASA facilities, and someone is almost certain to dream up something extraordinary. Quietly, in the late 1980s, extraordinary things indeed started happening. Even as the shuttles were plying their cautious trade routes from Canaveral to orbit and back to Earth again, other ships—unmanned ships—were accomplishing much more, much farther away. Within NASA, the manned and unmanned space programs had long operated side by side, but the unmanned program had always been thought of as sort of a poor institutional relation.

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They were the ones who monitored the internal organs of the ship, who kept its juices and gases bubbling and flowing, and who, in the end, were responsible for keeping the mechanical organism alive in a place that it really had no business being. Over the first year and a half of the manned Apollo program, the people who worked the Mission Control consoles accomplished remarkable things, learning to ply the translunar highway like a familiar old trading route. Four times they had sent crews to the moon—twice, on Apollos 11 and 12, they had set them down on the moon—and four times they had brought them safely home. Liebergot, like most of the other people in the room, had worked all of those flights, and had begun to feel that there was little he and his colleagues couldn’t anticipate, from liftoff to moonwalk to splashdown, and little they couldn’t handle.

Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities
by Vaclav Smil
Published 23 Sep 2019

A similarly virulent infestation returned to Europe eight centuries later as the Black Death, the description referring to dying black skin and flesh. In the spring of 1346, plague, endemic in the steppe region of southern Russia, reached the shores of the Black Sea, and then it was carried by maritime trade routes via Constantinople to Sicily by October 1346 and then to the western Mediterranean, reaching Marseilles and Genoa by the end of 1347 (Kelly 2006). Flea-infested rats on trade ships carried the plague to coastal cities, where it was transmitted to local rat populations but subsequent continental diffusion was mainly by direct pneumonic transmission.

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Controls exercised at many imperial margins ranged from defended natural or man-made barriers (major rivers and mountain ranges, Chinese and Roman stone or earthen walls) to porous zones of uncertain dominance. And in many cases, imperial control was deliberately exercised only over towns and cities connected by major trade routes rather than over their trackless hinterlands, be they in the African or Central Asian interiors. Roman borders offer excellent illustrations of these uncertainties. Examples of ephemeral maximum conquests are common in both ancient and modern history. Perhaps the best known and much-admired ancient case was the lightning foray of Alexander’s armies all the way to Punjab followed by the retreat to Persia.

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Even the straight-line distance is nearly 5,000 km from the Macedonian base of his Argead dynasty, more than twice as far as the direct line from Berlin to Stalingrad, where Hitler’s army met its defining defeat. The most obvious medieval example is the Mongol expansion: maps of its greatest extent in 1279 show contiguous area from the Pacific coast of Siberia to the Baltic Sea, but we can only guess what share of this vast territory beyond several core areas and main communication and trade routes was actually governed by Genghis Khan’s heirs. The best modern example is the ephemeral reach of the Japanese empire following its attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Japan occupied Manchuria between 1933 and 1945, large parts of eastern China between 1937 and 1945, and today’s Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and nearly all Indonesia between different months of 1942 and September 1945, but its northeastern foray was particularly short-lived.

Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea
by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
Published 4 Mar 2003

Two decades earlier, a group of London merchants had dispatched a fleet in a predictably disastrous attempt to find a northern passage to the East Indies; one boat got as far as Archangel—and attracted the notice of the czar, Ivan IV, who was keen to increase trade with England. Under the Muscovy charter, eventually won by a consortium including the famous navigator Sebastian Cabot (1483–1557), the Company was given a temporary monopoly over trade routes to the Russian port (and also encouraged to continue the search for a northeast passage). The company was able to raise enough money to finance the long journey to Russia by selling tradable shares. The Muscovy Company faded from view after about 1630, but it spawned a host of imitators seeking other monopolies.

Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science
by Dani Rodrik
Published 12 Oct 2015

Moreover, the diseases that killed the Westerners were generally different from those that affected the native population. These assumptions allowed the authors to use settler mortality rates as an exogenous source of variation in the quality of institutions, independent of other determinants, such as proximity to trade routes, that may have affected long-term development paths. †† This is the “possibilism” that the great economist and social scientist Albert Hirschman advocated throughout his life. He rejected the deterministic approaches, common to social sciences, that view outcomes as being rigidly pinned down by “structural” conditions, and instead argued for the power of ideas and small actions to have decisive effects.

Germany
by Andrea Schulte-Peevers
Published 17 Oct 2010

* * * * * * THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE The origins of the Hanseatic League go back to various guilds and associations established from about the mid-12th century by out-of-town merchants to protect their interests. After Hamburg and Lübeck signed an agreement in 1241 to protect their ships and trading routes, they were joined in their league by Lüneburg, Kiel and a string of Baltic Sea cities east to Greifswald. By 1356 this had grown into the Hanseatic League, encompassing half a dozen other large alliances of cities, with Lübeck playing the lead role. At its zenith, the league had about 200 member cities.

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In return he is crowned Kaiser by the pope and under him the Frankish Reich grows in power and extent. 911 Louis the Child dies heirless at the age of 18 and Frankish dukes in the eastern Reich by-pass Charles the Simple in favour of their own monarch, electing the first truly German ruler. 919–1125 Saxon and Salian emperors rule Germany, creating the Holy Roman Empire in 962 when Otto I is crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the pope, reaffirming the precedent established by Charlemagne. 1165 Friedrich I Barbarossa is crowned in Aachen; he canonises Charlemagne and later drowns while bathing in a river in present-day Turkey while co-leading the Third Crusade. 1241 Hamburg and Lübeck sign an agreement to protect their ships and trading routes, creating the basis for the powerful Hanseatic League, which dominates politics and trade across much of Europe. 1245–73 The chaotic period of the Great Interregnum begins when Pope Innocent IV deposes Friedrich II and a string of anti-kings are elected. Local bishops and dukes grab more power, weakening central rule. 1273 The Great Interregnum ends when the House of Habsburg takes over the reins of the Reich and begins its rise to become Europe’s most powerful dynasty. 1338 The Declaration of Rhense ends the need for the pope to confirm the Reich’s elected Kaiser, abolishing the dependence whereby the pope crowned the Kaiser in exchange for loyalty and protection. 1348–50 The plague wipes out 25% of Europe’s population.

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There’s free parking at Unter den Hagen, a five-minute walk south of Stadtplatz. Return to beginning of chapter PASSAU 0851 / pop 51,000 Gathered around the confluence of three rivers, the Danube, Inn and Ilz, Passau was predestined to become a powerful trading post. The waterways and major trade routes that converged here brought wealth, especially from ‘white gold’ (salt), and Christianity brought prestige as the city evolved into the largest bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire. The handsome old centre has a distinctly Italian look, with a maze of winding medieval cobbled lanes, underpasses and archways away from the main thoroughfares.

The Rough Guide to England
by Rough Guides
Published 29 Mar 2018

Large numbers of earthwork forts were also built in this period, suggesting endemic tribal warfare, a situation further complicated by the appearance of bands of Celts, who arrived in numbers from central Europe around 600 BC, though some historians have disputed the whole notion of a Celtic migration, preferring instead the idea of cultural diffusion along well-established trade routes. The Iron Age By 500 BC, the Britons – with or without a significant Celtic infusion – had established a sophisticated farming economy and a social hierarchy that was dominated by a druidic priesthood. Familiar with Mediterranean artefacts through their far-flung trade routes, they developed better methods of metalworking, ones that favoured iron rather than bronze, from which they forged not just weapons but also coins and ornamental works, thus creating the first recognizable English art.

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< Back to Oxfordshire, the Cotswolds and around Gloucester and around For centuries life was good for GLOUCESTER, ten miles west of Cheltenham. The Romans chose this spot for a garrison to guard the River Severn, while in Saxon and Norman times the Severn developed into one of Europe’s busiest trade routes. The city became a major religious centre too, but from the fifteenth century onwards a combination of fire, plague, civil war and increasing competition from rival towns sent Gloucester into a decline from which it never recovered – even the opening of a new canal in 1827 between Gloucester and Sharpness failed to revive the town’s dwindling fortunes.

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The Bronze Age The transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age began around 2500 BC with the importation from northern Europe of artefacts attributed to the Beaker Culture – named for the distinctive cups found at many burial sites. In England as elsewhere, the spread of the Beaker Culture along European trade routes helped stimulate the development of a comparatively well-organized social structure with an established aristocracy. Many of England’s stone circles were completed at this time, including Avebury and Stonehenge in Wiltshire, while many others belong entirely to the Bronze Age – for example, the Hurlers and the Nine Maidens on Cornwall’s Bodmin Moor.

Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet , Carolyn McCarthy and Kevin Raub
Published 19 Oct 2015

Top this off with some kick-ass surf breaks and a cool cliff-top War of the Pacific battlefield at El Morro, and you may just stay another day or two before you head up to nearby Parque Nacional Lauca or take an afternoon off from ‘beach duty’ to visit the Azapa Valley, home to some of the world’s oldest known mummies. History Pre-Hispanic peoples have roamed this area for millennia. Arica itself was the terminus of an important trade route where coastal peoples exchanged fish, cotton and maize for the potatoes, wool and charqui (jerky) from the people of the precordillera and altiplano. With the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century Arica became the port for the bonanza silver mine at Potosí, located in present-day Bolivia.

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Geometrical designs include intriguing ladders, circles and arrows, and depictions of humans include vivid scenes of hunting in canoes and women giving birth. Animal and alienlike figures also roam the hillsides, which have a 2km trail skirting their base; walk or drive it to scan the figures. These enigmatic geoglyphs are thought to have served as signposts to nomadic peoples: marking trade routes and meeting points, indicating the presence of water, identifying ethnic groups and expressing religious meaning. Most date from between AD 500 and AD 1450. A derelict nitrate rail yard of ruined buildings and rusting rolling stock, Pintados lies 4.5km west of the Panamericana via a gravel road, nearly opposite the eastward turnoff to Pica.

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However, the town has an addictively relaxed atmosphere and an enormous array of tours that can hook travelers for weeks. And at the end of every trip, there’s the comfort of a creamy cappuccino, a posh meal and a soft bed waiting in San Pedro. History San Pedro was once a pre-Columbian pit stop on the trading route from the highlands to the coast. It was visited by Pedro de Valdivia in 1540, and the town later became a major stop on early-20th-century cattle drives from Argentina to the nitrate oficinas of the desert. Locals, the Atacameño people, still practice irrigated farming in the ayllus (a- ee -oos; small indigenous communities).

Western USA
by Lonely Planet

For oohs and ahhs, don’t miss Multnomah Falls, Oregon’s tallest waterfall at 642ft. MORE SCENIC DRIVES Hungry for more road trips? Check the destination chapters and the list below for a few more good ones. Turquoise Trail, NM This back route between Tijeras, near Albuquerque and Santa Fe, was a major trade route for several thousand years. Today it rolls past art galleries, shops (with turquoise jewelry), and a mining museum. From I-40, follow Hwy 14 north to I-25. Also see www.turquoisetrail.org, Apache Trail, AZ This isn’t your grandmother’s Sunday afternoon drive - unless your grandmother likes 45 miles of rabid road.

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It’s a vivid contrast to the valley, with wildflower fields, azure lakes, ragged granite peaks and domes, and cooler temperatures. Hikers and climbers will find a paradise of options; swimming and picnicking by lakes are also popular. Access is via scenic Tioga Rd (Hwy 120), which follows a 19th-century wagon road and older Native American trading route. West of the meadows and Tenaya Lake, stop at Olmsted Point for epic vistas of Half Dome. IMPASSABLE TIOGA PASS Hwy 120 is the only road connecting Yosemite National Park with the Eastern Sierra, climbing through Tioga Pass (9945ft). Most California maps mark this road ‘closed in winter,’ which, while literally true, is also misleading.

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Fourteen miles northeast of Farmington, the 27-acre Aztec Ruins National Monument (www.nps.gov/azru; adult/under 16yr $5/free; 8am-5pm Sep-May, 8am-6pm Jun-Aug) features the largest reconstructed kiva in the country, with an internal diameter of almost 50ft. A few steps away, let your imagination wander as you stoop through low doorways and dark rooms inside the West Ruin. In summer, rangers give early-afternoon talks at the c-1100 site about ancient architecture, trade routes and astronomy. About 35 miles south of Farmington along Hwy 371, the undeveloped Bisti Badlands & De-Na-Zin Wilderness is a trippy, surreal landscape of strange, colorful rock formations, especially spectacular in the hours before sunset; desert enthusiasts shouldn’t miss it. The Farmington BLM office ( 505-599-8900; www.nm.blm.gov; 1235 La Plata Hwy; 8am-4:30pm Mon-Fri) has information.

Red Storm Rising
by Tom Clancy
Published 2 Jan 1986

"On the other hand, if you persuade STAVKA to give us the resources to execute Operation Polar Glory, we can seize the combat initiative and dictate the nature of operations in the North Atlantic on our chosen terms." He held up a closed fist."By doing this we can, first"--he raised a finger--"prevent an American naval attack against the Rodina; second"--another finger--" use the majority of our submarine forces in the North Atlantic basin where the trade routes are, instead of keeping them on passive defense; and, third"--a final finger--"make maximum use of our naval aviation assets. At one stroke this operation makes our fleet an offensive rather than a defensive weapon." "And to accomplish this you need only one of our Guards Air Rifle divisions?

…

The pilot didn't know much about the SIGINT activities, but SOSUS, the oceanic Sonar Surveillance System, was the principal means of detecting targets for the P-3C Orion crews to pounce on. This station covered the gaps from Greenland to Iceland, and from Iceland to the Faroe Islands. The main picketline needed to keep Russian subs out of the trade routes was about to go permanently off the air. Great. They were over Keflavik a minute after that. Seven or eight aircraft had not gotten off the ground. All were burning. The pilot examined the runways through binoculars and was horrified to see that it was uncratered. "Tacco, you got a Sentry on the line?"

…

He held a dispatch saying that Orions out of Lajes had prosecuted and probably killed an Echo-class missile submarine in their path. Some good news, but intelligence reported indications of two more. The loss of Iceland was a disaster whose dimensions were only now becoming apparent. The Soviet bombers had a clear lane to reach into the trade route. Their submarines were racing through the Denmark Strait even as the NATO navies were trying to position their submarines to re-form the barrier they had lost--the barrier upon which the convoys depended. The Air Force and Navy would soon try to rearrange fighter coverage to harass the Backfires, but those measures were all stopgaps.

The Rough Guide to Wales
by Rough Guides
Published 24 Mar 2010

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The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends That Will Disrupt the World
by Shaun Rein
Published 27 Mar 2012

As a result, they often overestimate China’s military capabilities. One retired senior politician from America told me, “If China is increasing its trade volumes around the world, shouldn’t it be securing its own shipping lanes?” He was irritated because he felt China was freeloading on the U.S. Navy’s protection of maritime trade routes, but was taking an increasingly muscular stand in the South China Sea, causing anger in Vietnam and the Philippines. AMERICA On a trip to the United States in early 2011 to give a speech at the Wharton School of Business, I took my three-year-old son, Tom, to New York to see Times Square.

The Participation Revolution: How to Ride the Waves of Change in a Terrifyingly Turbulent World
by Neil Gibb
Published 15 Feb 2018

Together “To be isolated from your band, and, especially when young, to be isolated from your particular caretaker is fraught with the greatest danger. Can we wonder then that each animal is equipped with an instinctive disposition to avoid isolation and to maintain proximity?” John Bowlby, developmental psychologist Kunming in southwest China is a thriving city of three million people. It sits at the nexus of the trade routes to Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos, so it is an important regional commercial hub. It also has a strong manufacturing sector and is working hard to turn itself into a tourist destination. It’s a city that very much represents 21st-century China – energetic, ambitious, and modernising fast. Young people in skinny jeans and big sunglasses browse the stores, seemingly constantly in touch with someone on their smartphones.

Shadows of Empire: The Anglosphere in British Politics
by Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce
Published 5 Jun 2018

Nearly 200,000 Britons migrated to New Zealand in the 1950s, most of them English and Scottish by birth. ‘Right up to the 1960s’, writes Belich, ‘Britain was still the major source of imports, export receipts, investment, technology, culture and immigrants. The cars in the street were British, as were the postage stamps and the governor-general.’14 Defence of the Suez imperial trade route was critical for New Zealand, and, when it came to the ceasefire resolution on the crisis at the United Nations General Assembly in 1956, Australia and New Zealand alone voted with Britain, France and Israel. The position was different in Canada. Its economic and geo-political coordinates had shifted during the war as a result of its dependency on the USA for bilateral aid.

Fewer, Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects
by Glenn Adamson
Published 6 Aug 2018

One reason this is such a promising direction is that objects—being visual and material rather than linguistic in nature—can cross cultural barriers. They may require interpretation, but not translation. Interestingly, this is only the latest spin on a millennia-old dynamic. From the days of the Silk Road, the overland trading route by which textiles and other goods traveled between the Mediterranean and the Far East, to the glory days of the China trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when porcelains from Asia flooded into Europe, to today’s online web browsers, objects are ideal global emissaries. Needless to say, there is a big difference between handling an object and seeing a picture of it on-screen.

The Great Economists Ten Economists whose thinking changed the way we live-FT Publishing International (2014)
by Phil Thornton
Published 7 May 2014

Businesses, as we saw earlier, can source raw materials and parts from countries that can produce them more cheaply than they could at home and sell to consumers across the world. Pharmaceuticals, software, aerospace parts and luxury goods made in the UK are bought across the world. The expansion of free trade has undoubtedly exceeded Adam Smith’s wildest dreams. Decades of negotiation between countries to open up trade routes and establish systems to ensure free trade that led to the creation of the World Trade Organization can be traced back to Smith. But it was in the 1930s that the original battle Chapter 1 • Adam Smith23 between mercantilism and free-market trade, which inspired The Wealth of Nations, was put to the test.

A Short History of Humanity: How Migration Made Us Who We Are
by Johannes Krause and Thomas Trappe
Published 8 Apr 2021

Africa: changing landscape of, 45–46, 60 genetic diversity in, 222–23 languages in, 38, 135 migration from, 41–43, 48, 197 “Out of Africa” theory, 35–37, 222 population of, 222 TB in, 196–97 agriculture: and community, 217 development of, 71 in Europe, 79, 89, 115, 219 and migration, 131, 133, 213 in Neolithic period, 71–72 see also farmers Akkadian Empire, 149 Alaska: horses in, 110 theory of migration through, 99, 100, 196 Albanian language, 121, 135 Altai Mountains, Siberia, 16, 38, 107, 133, 134, 169 amoeba, genes in, 13 amylase gene, 68 Anatolia: and Balkan DNA, 52–53, 77–79 farmers in, x, 71–72, 84–85, 86, 101, 133 Göbekli Tepe excavation, 69–70, 69 Hittites in, 124, 141, 152 hunter-gatherers in, 52, 71–73, 84–85 and languages, 121, 132, 134 migrants to Europe from, 53, 73, 107, 114, 128, 130, 219 Neolithic genes from, 105, 126 vegetarian diet in, 74–75 ancestors, common, 19–20 ancestry, 224–25, 245–46 fairy tales of, 19, 20 Anglo-Saxons, 21 animals: bovine tuberculosis, 195, 196, 197 butchered for meat, 93, 94 cattle, 114–15 chimpanzees, 12, 35–37, 39, 45–46 diseases passed from humans to, 196 diseases passed to humans from, 93–94, 171, 206 domesticated, 67–68, 70–71, 84, 93, 206 horses, 107–12 monkeys, 204 seals, 197 Anthropocene period, 62 antibiotics, 164, 185, 205–6 antibodies, 182 archeogenetics: birth of, 4–5 roles of, viii, ix, 10, 21, 22, 155–56, 207, 218 Ardipithecus, 35 Arendt, Hannah, 227 Armenian language, 135 Asia: Denisovans in, 28, 29, 36 leprosy in, 190 migration to, 28, 41–43 and Peking Man, 35, 36 plague from, 184–85 Assyrian Empire, 152 Aurignacian period, 43–45, 48–52, 247, 248 Australia: Denisovans in, 223 language in, 135 skin cancer in, 74, 75 Australopithecus, 35 Azerbaijan, language in, 134 Babylon, city of, 141, 150 bacteria, 23, 163–64 and antibiotics, 164, 185, 205–6 drug-resistant, 205–6 effects on humans, 169 evolving, 169, 205 genetic blueprint of, 13 Baikal region, 101, 169, 198 Balkan region, 52–53, 77–79 Balto-Slavic languages, 121, 135 barley, 70 barrows, 91, 102, 103, 106 Basques, 126–27, 128 bats, 163 Battle Axe culture, 108, 109, 218 Bell Beaker culture, 96–97, 108–9, 114, 118, 135, 140, 142 Black Death, 158–59, 160–63, 166, 167, 174, 177, 180, 182–85 Blätterhöhle cave site, Germany, 82, 84, 87 blue eyes, 75–76 boat building, 92 Böcklin, Arnold, The Plague, 173 Botai culture, 110, 111 bovine tuberculosis, 195, 196, 197 brain, development of, 46–47 Bronze Age, 104, 118, 140–51 consumerism in, 144–46 fresco from, 127 languages in, 133 male dominance in, 112–14 mass production in, 146 migrations in, 21, 155, 214, 217, 218, 219 mining in, 140–42, 144–45 onset of, vii, 136, 140–42, 144 populations in, 151 weapons in, 146–49, 153 buboes, 175 bubonic plague, 159, 165, 166–67, 171, 174, 175, 176, 180, 183, 184–85 Canaan, 152, 153, 154 carbon dating, 10, 244 Cardial Ware culture, 78 CCR5 receptor, 194, 234 cell nuclei, 13 Celtic languages, 120, 135 Celts, mtDNA of, 18–19 ceramics, 78, 90, 108–9, 144 Charlemagne, 19 Charpentier, Emmenuelle, 233 Chauvet Cave, France, cave paintings in, 49 chimpanzees: humans different from, 12, 45–46 human split from, 35–37, 39 skin color of, 77 China: language in, 133 and plague, 184–85 China National GeneBank, 232 civilizations: development of, 217 first, 141 climate change, 58, 60–62 climbing, by apes vs. humans, 45, 46 Clinton, Bill, 6 clones, 183 cocoliztli epidemic, 199–201, 200 Columbus, Christopher, 196, 197, 201, 206, 217 common ancestors, 19–20 Balkan migrants, 53 Homo erectus, 25 matrilineal, 27 Copper Age, 104, 140–41 Corded Ware culture, 96–97, 108, 113, 114, 116, 118, 140, 142 Covid 19 virus (coronavirus), viii–ix, x–xi, 23, 41, 205 Crick, Francis, 7 CRISPR/Cas9 system, 233–35, 248 cultural suppression, 213 dead, disposal of: burial in cemeteries, 142–44, 167, 179, 200 burial in monastery, 203 burning, 91, 169 and grave goods, 144, 244 in mass graves, 88 in megalith tombs, 91, 102 Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Algorithm Challenge, 167–68 de’Mussis, Gabriele, 178 Denisova Cave, Siberian Altai Mountains, 16, 24, 25 Denisova hominin, finger bone of, 6, 7, 11, 16, 24–27, 29–30 Denisovans: discovery of, 11, 30 evolution from Homo erectus, 35–36 inbreeding of, 246 Neanderthal split from, 28, 30 as separate species, 40 Derevyanko, Anatoly, 24, 28 “designer babies,” 235 diet: changes in, 68 of hunter-gatherers, 65–66, 85, 215–16 inadequate mineralization in, 86 meat consumption, 71, 84, 85, 93, 94 milk in, 94, 115–17 and skin pigmentation, 74–75 Stone Age, 64–65, 66, 216 and stress, 85–88 and teeth, 64–65, 142–43 vegetarian, 74–75, 84, 85 diseases, 160–86, 179 of affluence, 206 airborne infection of, 179 animal-human transmission of, 93–94, 163, 171, 206 and biowarfare, 177 common ancestors of, 196 DNA sequencing of, 168 human-animal transmission of, 196 human-human transmission of, 93, 171, 206–7 and immune system, 180–82 and migration, viii–ix, x, 22–23, 156, 158–59, 171, 175–76, 188–89, 212–15, 217 and pandemics, see pandemics and quarantine, 178–79 and tourism, 184–85, 206 see also specific diseases DNA: age of, 17–18 algorithm of, 168 analysis of, 9, 21, 25, 144, 156 as blueprint of life, 7, 13, 244 contamination of, 9, 15, 16, 18 decoding, 6, 7, 8, 10, 22 extraction from fossils, 9, 10, 24–25, 167 and Human Genome Project, 6, 7, 8 mitochondrial (mtDNA), 17, 27, 28–30, 244–45 mutations of, 11–12, 29 nuclear, 1, 27, 28–30, 244 sequencing of, 7, 8, 15–16, 168, 218 similarity among humans, 21, 225–26 structure of, 7 dogs, 67–68 Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic, 50 Doudna, Jennifer, 233 Dravidian languages, 132 Duden dictionary, 136 Ebola virus, 23, 162 Egypt: in battle, 150 leprosy in, 190, 192 migration from, 154–55 New Kingdom of, 152 pharaohs of, 141 sea peoples’ attack on, 150, 152–55 emmer (wheat ancestor), 70 England, see Great Britain enteric fever, 199 ethnicity, 220–22, 225–29 Etruscans, 126, 128 Europe: agriculture in, 79, 89, 115, 219 Anatolians in, 53, 73, 77–79, 84–85, 107, 114, 128, 130, 219 Aurignacians in, 49–52 Bell Beaker culture in, 108–9 Bronze Age in, 140–42, 144–46 and climate change, 48–49 genetic foundations of, 20–22, 53, 106–7, 114, 155, 214 hunter-gatherers in, 73, 219 languages in, 127–29, 131, 135–36 life extinguished in, 51–53 Mal’ta boy’s genes in, 100 migration across, 35, 41–43, 73, 106–7 migration to, x, 20, 23, 28, 43, 53, 73, 101–2, 105, 128–29, 156, 213–14, 217, 219–20 Neanderthals in, 29, 35, 36, 38, 48, 155 Neolithic Revolution in, 72, 73–77, 90, 213–14 pathogens from Americas to, 198–201, 202 plague in, 158, 160, 169, 171–80, 182–86, 198 syphilis in, 201–4, 206 typhoid in, 201 evolution: adaptation in, 45–46, 59, 65, 68 description of, 13 and gene editing technology, 233–35 extinction, 48–49 eye pigmentation, 75–76 farmers: in Anatolia, x, 71–72, 84–85, 86, 101, 133 competition for land, 88–89 consumer society of, 145 developing practices of, 71 diets of, 71, 85 DNA of, 107 domesticated animals of, 93, 206 extended families of, 87 good soil needed by, 87–88, 115 hunter-gatherers displaced by, x, 71, 114, 215 mass graves of, 88 in Neolithic age, 145 never-ending work of, 85–87 patriarchal system of, 148 Fertile Crescent: agriculture in, 131, 133, 219 Bronze Age in, 149–51 languages in, 131 livestock raised in, 70–71 finger bone of Denisovan girl, 6, 7, 11, 16, 24–27, 29–30 Finno-Ugric languages, 127 flagella, 181 fleas, 93, 165–66, 170, 174, 175 flu virus, 162, 182, 183, 199, 204 food: competition for, 66 cultivation of crops, 70 fermented, 117 sources of, 143 storage of, 93, 217 see also diet 4.2-kiloyear event, 149, 152 FOXP2 gene, 39, 247 France: Bell Beaker culture in, 108 genetic material in, 107 language of, 135 Franklin, Rosalind, 7 Fuhlrott, Johann Carl, 30 Funnel Beaker culture, 90–91, 92 gene editing, 233–35 genes, 13–15 “intelligence gene,” 229–32 “Jewish gene,” 227–29 teamwork of, 13 genetic engineering, 70, 233–35 “genetic fossils,” 92 genetic research, developments in, 232–35 genetics, 6, 230–31 genetic sequencing, 218 genetic tests, 18, 20, 225, 232 genome: human, 8, 13–15, 225, 233, 243 Neanderthal, 11 nuclear, 19 Germanic languages, 120, 136, 218 Germany: Bell Beaker culture in, 108 Nazis in, 108, 109, 218, 219, 226, 227 refugee crisis in (2015), viii global melting pot, 206–7, 210–11, 226 Göbekli Tepe excavation, Anatolia, 69–70, 69 Golden Horde Empire, 177, 184 Goliath, 152–53 Goths, 21 gradient principle, 220–22 Gravettian period, 49–51, 247–48 Gray, Russell, 130 Great Britain: Bell Beaker culture in, 108, 109, 135 genetic structure in, 106, 107 leprosy in, 191 migration to, 106, 107, 129, 155–56 syphilis in, 204 Greek language, 121, 124–26, 130, 135 Grotte des Pigeons, Morocco, 248 Guatemala, cocoliztli epidemic in, 199–201, 200 Gulf Stream, 59, 89 haplogroups, 113–14 He Jiankui, 234 heredity, misunderstandings about, 18 Hittite Empire, 141, 152, 190 Hittite languages, 121, 124, 130 Hittite plague, 174 HIV, 194, 205, 206, 234 Hohle Fels, Germany, cave art in, 42, 44 Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave, Swabian Alps, carving from, 43, 43 Holocene period, 59, 60 Homo erectus, 25, 28, 35–36 Homo ergaster, 36 Homo sapiens, 36 Hong Kong plague, 172, 184 horses, 107–12 mustangs, 111 plague carried by, 171 Przewalski’s horses, 110–12, 111, 171, 172 resistance to plague, 172 households, structures of, 144 Human Genome Project, 6, 7, 8 humans: adaptation of pathogens to, 163, 206 body height of, 230–31 differences between chimpanzees and, 12, 45–46 diseases passed from animals to, 93–94, 171, 206 immunity of, 40–41, 192–94 and language, 39 split from chimpanzees, 35–37, 39 Hungary, language in, 127 hunter-gatherers: in Anatolia, 52, 71–73, 84–85 diets of, 64–66, 85, 215–16 displaced by farmers, x, 71–73, 114, 215 and evolution, 65 languages of, 128 modern interest in lifestyle of, 215–20 movement of, 64 in Scandinavia, 89–90, 92, 93 hunting strategies, 46 Huson, Daniel, 167–68 hyoid bone, 39 Iberian Peninsula: Aurignacians in, 51–52 Bell Beaker culture in, 108–9 migrants in Europe from, 53 Ice Age: Aurignacians in, 48 Balkans and Anatolians in, 77–79 end of, 59 Last Glacial Maximum in, 51–53 mtDNA decoded from, 17, 18, 248 Neanderthals living in, 38–39 new, 59, 61 and Younger Dryas, 59 “Iceman” or “Ötzi” (human remains), 100 immigrants, see migration immune system, 164, 180–82, 191–94 immunity gene, 40–41 immunization, 164 India: languages of, 132, 135 migration to, 133 steppe genes in, 132 Indo-European languages, 122–24, 126–27 common ancestor of, 132 family tree of, 132, 135–36 and Iranian Neolithic, 133 origins of, 129–31 Indo-Iranian language, 121, 135 Iran: languages of, 132–33 migration from, 133 Iranian Neolithic, 132, 133, 134 Iron Age: beginning of, 151 cultures in, 154 Italy: genetic material in, 107 lactose intolerance in, 117 languages of, 134–35 Jews, and anti-Semitism, 178, 227–28 Justinianic plague, 158–59, 160, 166, 167, 174, 175, 177 Kazakh steppes, 101, 110 Kurdish language, 134 Kurds, genetic components of, 53 kurgans, 103 lactase, 115–16 lactose intolerance, 115–17, 118 Lake Bracciano, Italy, oldest boat in, 92 languages, 38–39, 120–21, 122–36 common roots of, 122, 123, 132 hybrid hypothesis of, 129–31, 132, 134 Linear A and B, 124–26 and migration, 118, 122, 124, 134, 135–36 and power, 134–36 see also specific languages language tree, 130, 132 Latin language, 126, 130, 134, 135 law-free zone, 148 Lech River settlements, 142, 143, 144, 147 leprosy, 188–89, 190–92, 194, 195, 204, 206 lice, as source of disease, 93 Linear A and B languages, 124–26 Linear Pottery culture, 78 lion-man carving, 43, 43 London, Black Death in, 167, 180 Longobards, 21 “Lucy,” 35 Luther, Martin, 136 macrophages, 181 Magdeburg Börde, Germany, 88 Maikop culture, 131 malaria, 193–94 Mal’ta boy, 99–101, 198 “Markina Gora,” 48, 247 massacres, 88 measles, 22 Medînet Hâbu temple, Egypt, 150 Mediterranean area: refugees in, 151 sea peoples in, 152–55 megalith tombs, 91 melanin, 75 melanocortin receptors, 75 Mesolithic period, 65–66 Mexico, cocoliztli epidemic in, 199–201, 200 microbes, 168 Middle Ages, plagues in, vii, 176–80, 185 migration, 32–33, 56–57, 210–11 and agriculture, 131, 133, 213 and cultural change, 109, 140, 215, 219 and cultural suppression, 213 and disease, viii–ix, x, 22–23, 156, 158–59, 169, 171, 175–76, 188–89, 212–15, 217 DNA altered by, 20 economic effects of, x, 217, 226 genetic adaptation in, 14–15, 155–56 and global climate, 58, 60–62 global patterns of, 228 and language, 118 of refugees, 151 migration period, 20, 21 milk, 115–17, 195 mining, 140–42, 144–45 Minoans, 124–26, 125, 127, 128, 141 “mitochondrian Eve,” 27 Mittelelbe-Saale region, Germany, 100, 106 molecular clock, 14, 15, 27, 246 molecular switches, 14 Mongolia, Mal’ta boy in, 99–101 mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA), 17 as matrilineal, 27, 85, 113, 244–45 musical instrument, first, 44 mutations, 10, 11–18 definition of, 12 of language, 130 neutral, 15 numbers of, 14 passed to future generations, 12 of pathogens, 165, 183 persistent, 15 purposes of, 12–13 Mycenaeans, 124, 126, 130, 141, 152, 153, 248 Mycobacterium leprae, 190–91 Napoleon, mtDNA shared by, 19 nationalism, 107–9, 220, 227 Natufian culture, 69 Nature, 26 Nazis (Germany), 108, 109, 218, 219, 226, 227 Neanderthals: decoding DNA of, 11, 155, 246 Denisovan split from, 28, 30 discovery of, 30 fossils of, 9, 28–29 and Homo erectus, 25, 28, 35–36 hyoid bones of, 39 in Ice Age, 38–39 intermingling with, 41 modern descendents of, 36, 40, 222–23 name of, 9 reconstruction of, 17 as separate species, 39–41 small gene pool of, 246 as “type of human,” 40 Near East: climatic shift in, 70 consolidation in, 151–52 in Neolithic period, 71 Nebra sky disk, 142, 147 Neolithic period, 59, 145 age of agriculture in, 71–72 diet in, 216 in Europe, 72, 73–77, 90, 213–14, 219 fortifications in, 88, 89, 147 genetic material from, 105 Iranian Neolithic, 133, 134 Late or Final Neolithic, 104 population numbers in, 93 weapons in, 88–89, 147 Neolithic Revolution, 72, 73–77, 109, 123, 128, 140, 155, 213 neurosyphilis, 202 Newman, Paul, 76 nomads, as cattle herders, 114–17 North American indigenous peoples: disease from migrants, 22–23, 169, 217 sources of genetic material in, 101 syphilis originating from, 23 Northern Hemisphere, migration to, 60–61 North Eurasians, genetic material from, 101 Oase Cave, Romania, 41, 247 Obama, Barack, 224 Oberkassel, Germany, dog in grave, 67 “Ötzi” or “Iceman” (human remains), 100 “Out of Africa” theory, 35–37, 222 Pääbo, Svante, 10–11, 15, 24, 25, 28 Paleo-Sardinian, 126, 128 pandemics, 23, 188–89 future, 168 “third epidemiological transition,” 205–7 unhygienic conditions in, 165 see also specific diseases parallel societies, 82–83 paratyphoid, 199–200, 204 Pasteur, Louis, 172 pathogens: adaptation to humans, 163, 206 evolution of, 23 mutation of, 165, 183 reconstruction of, 166, 167 sequencing of, 161–62 spreading of, 22, 169, 175 patriarchal structures, 138–39, 144, 148 Peking Man, 35, 36 Peru, TB in, 196 Philistines, 152–53, 154 plague, 160–86, 161, 206 ancient bacteria of, 23, 184, 204 bubonic, 158–59, 165, 166–67, 171, 174, 175, 176, 180, 183, 184–85 early pathogens discovered, 168–69, 170, 174 immunity from, 180, 182, 183 Justinianic, 158–59, 160, 166, 167, 174, 175, 177 mutation rate of, 183 oldest known, 105, 166 pneumonic, 166, 171, 185 samples collected from graves, 179 “Second Pandemic” of, 182–83 sequencing genomes of, 183 spread of, 170 Stone Age, vii–viii, 158–59, 160, 169, 170, 172, 174 Yersinia bacteria, 162–63, 172 pneumonic plague, 166, 171, 185 polymerase chain reaction, 8, 243 Pontic steppe, 101, 102, 129, 132 and plague, 160, 192 Yamnaya culture of, 102, 103, 104 population, world, 236 prairie dogs, 185 Procopius of Caesarea, 175 Proto-Indo-European languages, 121, 123, 131, 134, 135 Przewalski’s horses, 110–12, 111, 171, 172 quarantine, 178–79 R1a and R1b haplogroups, 113–14 radiocarbon dating, 10, 244 Ramses III, 150, 152 rats, 165, 174, 175, 176, 184–86 redheads, 75 “reservoir,” use of term, 248 ribosomes, 244 Romance languages, 120, 135 Roman Empire: advance of, 135, 136, 174 collapse of, 21, 166, 175, 176 roots, longing for, 216–17 rulers (kings), 148, 149 running, by apes vs. humans, 45–46 Russia: genetic material in, 107 languages in, 127 plague bacteria in, 23 Salmonella enterica paratyphi C, 199 Salzmünde culture, 91 Samara region, 174 Santorini, eruption of, 126, 127 Sardinia: “genetic fossils” in, 92 thalassemia gene in, 193 Sarrazin, Thilo, 228 SARS-CoV-2, see Covid 19 virus Scandinavia: agriculture in, 90–91, 92 Anatolians in, 92 Battle Axe culture in, 108, 109, 218 Funnel Beaker culture in, 90–91, 92 hunter-gatherers in, 89–90, 92, 93 land not suited to agriculture, 89 language in, 127 tools and equipment in, 90 seals, TB bacterium in, 197 sea peoples, 150, 152–55 sexually transmitted disease: HIV, 194, 205, 206 syphilis, 201–4 shaman of Bad Dürrenberg, 63–64, 63, 65, 216 Siberia, genetic material from, 101 sickle cell anemia, 193–94 Sima de los Huesos, Spain, Neanderthal fossil from, 28–29, 35 single young men, 96–97 skeletons, 21, 161, 167 Skhul Cave, Israel, 247 skin pigmentation, 73–77, 223–25 Slavic language, 129 smallpox, 22, 161, 199, 204–5 South and Central American indigenous peoples: diseases moving from Europe to, 217 diseases moving to Europe from, 197–201 South Asia, language in, 135 Southeast Asia, flu from, 162 Spain: Aurignacians in, 51–52 language of, 135, 136 steppe migrants in, 106–7 syphilis in, 201 Spanish flu, 204 species system, invention of, 39–40 Starčevo culture, 77 steppes: areas of, 101 cattle herders from, 114–15 diseases from, 192 DNA from, 101, 105–6, 109, 113, 172 horses in, 107, 171, 172 languages from, 132–34 migration to Europe from, 20, 101–2, 105–7, 109, 128–29, 136, 140, 155, 156, 169, 217, 219–20 weapons of, 108 Stone Age: bones from, 24 carved figures of, 42, 63 diet in, 64–65, 66, 216 hunter-gatherers in, 64, 66 migrations in, 21, 104, 169, 217 reproduction in, 65–66 teeth in, 64–65, 168 violence in, 66–67, 113 Stone Age plague, vii–viii, 158–59, 160, 169, 170, 172, 174 Stonehenge, 106 strontium isotope analysis, 142–43 Sumerian Empire, 150 Swabian farmer, female, 72–73 Switzerland, Corded Ware culture in, 116 syphilis, 23, 188–89, 201–4, 206 teeth: and diet, 64–65, 142–43 and plague pathogens, 168 strontium isotope analysis of, 142–43 thalassemia, 193 Thirty Years’ War, 180 Tocharian language, 132, 133 trade routes: development of, 141, 145, 148 pathogens spread via, 22, 169, 175 transcription factor, 247 true origins, myth of, 18–22 Trump, Donald, 212 tuberculosis (TB), 188–89, 194–98, 204, 205, 206 Turkey: genetic materials in, 53 languages in, 134 typhoid fever, 188–89, 199–201, 206 Unetice culture, 142, 148–49 Upper Paleolithic period, 50 Ur, 141, 150 Ust’-Ishim, Siberia, 41 Uzbekistan, language in, 134 vaccination, 182, 216 Venice, plague in, 178 Venus figurines, 42, 43–44, 51 Venus of Hohle Fels (carving), 42 violence: and male dominance, 112–14 state monopoly on, 148 in Stone Age, 66–67, 113 and weapons, 107–8, 146–49 virulence genes, 165 viruses, 23, 163–64, 169 vitamin D, 74–75 war: biowarfare, 177 fatalities of, 180 and power, 150–51 warriors, and horses, 107–8 Watson, James, 7, 229–30 weapons: in Bronze Age, 146–49, 153 Neolithic, 88–89, 147 production of, 146 and warriors, 107–8 Wolgemut, Michael, Dance of the Skeletons, 161 wolves, 67–68, 93 Yamnaya culture, 105–6, 110, 116, 121, 168, 170 barrows of, 102, 103, 106 migration of, 104, 112, 133, 159 yaws, 203–4 “Y-chromosomal Adam,” 27 Y chromosomes, 112–14 Yersin, Alexandre, 172, 173 Yersinia pestis, 160, 162–63, 172, 177 Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, 163, 181 Younger Dryas, 59 Zagros Mountains, Iran, 69 Zazaki language, 134 zoonotic transmission, 163 THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING Find us online and join the conversation Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/penguinukbooks Like us on Facebook facebook.com/penguinbooks Share the love on Instagram instagram.com/penguinukbooks Watch 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The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea
by Steve Levine
Published 23 Oct 2007

The stories became early cause for suspicion that Pakistani security forces had entered into more than a casual relationship with the Taliban. Each side had something to gain from such an alliance. Pakistan would benefit if the Taliban army were deployed against unruly former mujahideen who were running amok along Bhutto’s hoped-for trade route into Central Asia, and generally flouted Pakistan’s opinion on the conduct of Afghan matters. The Taliban stood to profit if Pakistan’s generals were to provide badly needed supplies, such as fuel and communications equipment. Tribal allegiances that spilled across both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border also encouraged cooperation.

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The pipeline could be routed so as to skirt not only Russia but also Iran, whose policies the American government abhorred. America and its allies could collect a huge energy dividend, assuming that most or all of the pipeline’s oil were funneled to the West. Finally, the Clinton administration thought that the pipeline could be the catalyst to reorder historic north-south trade routes in the region—an outcome that would favor the West and disfavor Russia. Central Asia and the Caucasus traditionally shipped raw material like oil, natural gas, and cotton north to Russia, which sent back finished products in return. Washington imagined that the pipeline and its related network of barges, highways, and railroads could redirect trade along east-west routes, with Turkey playing the role that had once belonged to Russia.

Alcohol: A History
by Rod Phillips
Published 14 Oct 2014

Similarly, the Etruscans of northern Italy seem to have received winemaking knowledge from the Phoenicians, and Etruscan amphoras, the large ceramic jars used for shipping wine, were modeled on the Phoenician form.3 At the time Greeks were introducing vineyards to southern Italy, Etruscans were making wine and exporting it across the Alps as far as Burgundy, in France. Even so, it was the Greeks who established the first major long-distance wine trade routes in the ancient world, and thousands of Greek amphoras—the clay jars used for transporting wine and other products until the first century of the Christian era—can be found throughout Europe. Ungainly looking objects, amphoras came in a variety of shapes and sizes, each typical of a producer or region of production, so that the origins of most can be fairly easily identified.

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Exports declined dramatically when France and England went to war in 1324 and again from the 1330s when the Hundred Years War broke out. Wine from Bordeaux was also exported to other important urban markets in northern Europe and to towns on the Baltic Sea. These population centers were also supplied by a wine trade route than ran down the Rhine to the North Sea and served northern Germany, the Low Countries, England, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Sea area. In eastern Europe, Cracow, a Polish city home to a royal court and a wealthy merchant elite, became not only a good market for wine but also an ideal transshipment point.

Berlin
by Andrea Schulte-Peevers
Published 20 Oct 2010

Return to beginning of chapter BACKGROUND * * * HISTORY MEDIEVAL BERLIN REFORMATION & THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR ROAD TO A KINGDOM THE AGE OF PRUSSIA NAPOLEON & REFORMS REVOLUTION(S) BISMARCK & THE BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE WWI & REVOLUTION (AGAIN) THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC THE ‘GOLDEN’ TWENTIES HITLER’S RISE TO POWER NAZI BERLIN JEWISH PERSECUTION THE FINAL SOLUTION RESISTANCE THE BATTLE OF BERLIN DEFEAT & AFTERMATH OCCUPATION THE BIG CHILL THE TWO GERMAN STATES THE WALL – WHAT GOES UP… STUDENT UNREST & TERRORISM RAPPROCHEMENT REUNIFICATION THE POST-UNIFICATION YEARS BERLIN TODAY ARTS LITERATURE PAINTING & SCULPTURE MUSIC CINEMA THEATRE DANCE ARCHITECTURE MODEST BEGINNINGS GOING FOR BAROQUE THE SCHINKEL TOUCH THE HOBRECHT PLAN THE GRÜNDERZEIT THE BIRTH OF MODERNISM THE WEIMAR YEARS NAZI MONUMENTALISM THE DIVIDED CITY CRITICAL RECONSTRUCTION THE NEW BERLIN THE FUTURE ENVIRONMENT THE LAND GREEN BERLIN GOVERNMENT & POLITICS MEDIA PRINT TELEVISION RADIO WEB LANGUAGE * * * Return to beginning of chapter HISTORY MEDIEVAL BERLIN Berlin is very much an accidental capital, whose birth was a mere blip on the map of history. Some time in the 13th century, itinerant merchants founded a pair of trading posts called Berlin and Cölln on the banks of the Spree River just southwest of today’s Alexanderplatz. It was a profitable spot along a natural east–west trade route, about halfway between the fortified towns of Köpenick to the southeast and Spandau to the northwest, the origins of which date back to the 8th century. The tiny settlements grew in leaps and bounds and, in 1307, merged into a single town for reasons of power and security. As the centre of the March (duchy) of Brandenburg, the twin town continued to assert its political and economic independence and even became a player in the Hanseatic League in 1360.

…

See the Language chapter Click here for useful phrases in German, and check out the dialect guide of Deutsche Welle (www.dw-world.de/dialektatlas, in German) for a few localised pointers. Return to beginning of chapter TIMELINE * * * 1244 Berlin appears for the first time in recorded history, but the city’s birthday is pegged to the first mention of its sister settlement Cölln seven years earlier in 1237. 1348 The Black Plague is brought to Europe via the major trading routes, resulting in the death of about a third of Berlin’s population and unleashing anti-Semitic pogroms. 1360 The twin town of Berlin-Cölln joins the Hanseatic League but never plays a major role in the alliance and quits its membership in 1518. 1415 Friedrich von Hohenzollern’s grip on power solidifies when German King Sigismund promotes him to elector and margrave of Brandenburg at the Council of Constance. 1443 Construction of the Berlin Stadtschloss (City Palace) on the Spree island begins and becomes the electors’ permanent residence in 1486.

The Hunt for Red October
by Tom Clancy
Published 2 Jan 1984

This agreement has been kept—until now. "Now, my military advisers tell me that what is going on looks very much like a war exercise, indeed, could be the precursor to a war. How are we to tell the difference? Your ships are now passing east of Iceland, and will soon be in a position from which they can threaten our trade routes to Europe. This situation is at the least unsettling, and at the most a grave and wholly unwarranted provocation. The scope of this action has not yet been made public. That will change, and when it does, Alex, the American people will demand action on my part." The president paused, expecting a response but getting only a nod.

…

"We're not sure. Looks like they might have a major search and rescue operation. The question is, after what? They have four Alfas doing a max speed run for our coast right now, with a gaggle of Victors and Charlies charging in behind them. At first we were worried that they wanted to block the trade routes, but they blitzed right past those. They're definitely heading for our coast, and whatever they're up to, we're getting tons of information." "What do they have moving?" Tyler asked. "Fifty-eight nuclear subs, and thirty or so surface ships." "Gawd! CINCLANT must be going ape!" "You know it, Skip.

We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
by Adam Winkler
Published 27 Feb 2018

The same concern was raised about the very first English stock corporation, the Muscovy Company of 1555. The company’s innovative approach to raising money through the sale of stock was the brainchild of Sebastian Cabot, who was not a financier but, rather, an explorer. He sought to raise funds to finance an expedition to establish a trade route from England to Russia through the icy northern seas. Unlike Christopher Columbus, who relied upon an “elaborate array of sponsors and patrons” to finance his voyages, Cabot adapted a practice he had witnessed in Italy, where groups of people bought little pieces, or shares, of a business and would divide the profits.

…

Nonetheless, with few other investment options, English merchants and notables bought up the full issue of shares. Cabot still faced hardships, such as when one of his first ships was shipwrecked in Lapland, only to be found a year later with the crewmen’s bodies frozen in place. Yet he established the trade route, and the Muscovy Company gained a monopoly on Russian furs, tallow, and other commodities. The investors who took a chance on Cabot were richly rewarded; the first English stock corporation remained in operation for nearly four hundred years, felled finally by the Russian Revolution of 1917.46 Concern about corporate leaders misusing other people’s money reached a new level of urgency in the years surrounding the Great Wall Street Scandal.

Lonely Planet Sri Lanka
by Lonely Planet

Sigiriya MuseumMUSEUM ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; h8.30am-5.30pm) This decent museum has a fine diorama of the site, providing an excellent overview and explaining Sigiriya's cultural importance beyond the obvious natural beauty. The theory that Sigiriya was a Buddhist monastery is given here, although the established position that it was a palace or fortress prevails. Trade routes are explained, showing Sigiriya's connections with the Gulf, China, India and the Roman Empire. DON'T MISS EXPLORING AROUND SIGIRIYA With a bike or scooter you can explore several spots around Sigiriya. One place not to miss is Pidurangula rock, the temples of which actually predate Sigiriya.

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For many involved in tourism, the new terminal at Bandaranaike International Airport – slated for completion in 2020 – can’t come soon enough. Population 22.3 million Area 65,610 sq km GDP US$80.6 billion Annual Inflation 6.9% Unemployment 4.6% History Sri Lanka's location – near India and along hundreds of ancient trade routes – has for ages made it attractive to immigrants, invaders, missionaries, traders and travellers from India, East Asia and the Middle East. Many stayed on, and over generations they assimilated and intermarried, converted and converted back. Although debates still rage over who was here first and who can claim Sri Lanka as their homeland, the island’s history, like that of its ethnicities, is one of shifting dominance and constant flux.

Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture
by Marvin Harris
Published 1 Dec 1974

Primitive War WARS WAGED by scattered primitive tribes like the Maring raise doubts about the basic sanity of human lifestyles. When modern nation-states go to war we often puzzle over the precise cause, but seldom lack plausible alternative explanations from which to choose. History books brim with details of wars in which the combatants struggled for mastery over trade routes, natural resources, cheap labor, or mass markets. The wars of modern empires may be lamentable, but they are not inscrutable. This distinction is basic to the present-day nuclear détente, which rests on the assumption that wars involve some sort of rational balance of gains and losses. If the United States and the Soviet Union clearly stand to lose more than they can possibly gain by nuclear attack, neither is likely to initiate a war as the solution to its problems.

Foundation
by Isaac Asimov
Published 31 May 2004

The Royal Governor of the Prefect of Anacreon has assumed the title of king.” “Well? What of it?” “It means,” responded Hardin, “that we’re cut off from the inner regions of the Empire. We’ve been expecting it but that doesn’t make it any more comfortable. Anacreon stands square across what was our last remaining trade route to Santanni and to Trantor and to Vega itself. Where is our metal to come from? We haven’t managed to get a steel or aluminum shipment through in six months and now we won’t be able to get any at all, except by grace of the King of Anacreon.” Pirenne tch-tched impatiently. “Get them through him, then.”

Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy
by Jonathan Taplin
Published 17 Apr 2017

Jefferson also observed that the monopoly rents (the extraction of extra profit from a monopoly) the officers of the company enjoyed allowed them to come home to England and establish sprawling estates and businesses and to obtain political power. The company developed a lobby in Parliament that was so powerful that they could write legislation pledging British military might to protect their private trade routes. Jefferson had also read of the Great Bengal Famine of 1770, which resulted in the deaths of ten million people. The British East India Company forced Bengal farmers to grow opium—which the company intended to export to China—instead of food crops, resulting in a shortage of grain for the local inhabitants.

Smart Cities, Digital Nations
by Caspar Herzberg
Published 13 Apr 2017

But Dubai continues to grow in importance as a transportation node and as a destination. It’s easy to conclude that oil—and oil alone—fueled this unprecedented growth in the desert. But Dubai’s role as a trading hub likely predates recorded history, and transport is key to its present success. Of course, evidence of those ancient trade routes is barely perceptible. This is a twenty-first-century city that is the preeminent example of the symbiosis between city function and its transportation network. Dubai is what author and air commerce expert John Kasarda calls an aerotropolis: a city defined by the functionality and attractiveness of its airport and surrounding neighborhoods.

Unfamiliar Fishes
by Sarah Vowell
Published 22 Mar 2011

Poking around spiky lava fields that had dribbled down from the last eruption of the Haleakala volcano, I asked a park ranger who happened by if he could tell me anything about Admiral La Pérouse. “Yes,” he said. “He was French.” Wanting a pinch more detail, I went home and started reading up on the expedition, how Louis XVI had commissioned La Pérouse to sail to the Pacific, fine-tune Captain Cook’s maps, scope out new trade routes, and bring along an astronomer, a geologist, a botanist, and illustrators to collect specimens and record scientific data. I was especially entranced by the name of one of the frigates under the admiral’s command, the Astrolabe. Its namesake is a scientific instrument used to calculate the position of stars—very early Captain Cook.

Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
by Mark Miodownik
Published 5 Jun 2013

Bronze is an alloy of copper, containing small amounts of tin or sometimes arsenic, and is much stronger than copper. So, if you had copper and you knew what you were doing, for very little extra effort you could create weapons and razors ten times stronger and harder than copper. The only problem is that tin and arsenic are extremely rare. Elaborate trade routes evolved in the Bronze Age to bring tin from places such as Cornwall and Afghanistan to the centers of civilization in the Middle East for precisely this reason. Gold alloyed with silver at the atomic scale, showing how the silver atoms replace some of the gold atoms in the crystal. Modern razors are also made from an alloy but, as I explained to Brian, it is a very special sort of alloy, the existence of which puzzled our ancestors for thousands of years.

China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent, and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business
by Edward Tse
Published 13 Jul 2015

From the start, she was determined that her business would take a global view—a mission reflected in its name, which derives its first two initials from Dunhuang, a city in northwest China that was once an important crossroads on the Silk Road. “The Chinese are very proud of the Silk Road and its role as a global trade route when China was at its most powerful. Today, thanks in part to the Internet era, we think China again has a chance of regaining a similar glory,” she says. Closely related to this pride is the second strand in China’s entrepreneurial spirit, ambition, and an increasing desire to aim for the highest goals.

Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the Great Good Places at the Heart of Our Communities
by Ray Oldenburg
Published 30 Nov 2001

Plutarch, for example, writes about how Antony and Cleopatra disguised themselves as “commoners” and snuck into the market in Alexandria so they could interact with normal people. There have been many legendary markets throughout history. The famous ones, like Timbuktu and Samarkand, were always located at the hub of trade routes. Although it may be hard to believe for the average American today, there have been many famous open-air markets in the United States as well. Here is the story of one of the largest of these markets, Maxwell Street, which sat in Chicago, the air, trucking, and train hub of the United States. It was a market that regularly attracted crowds of 20,000 until the mayor, a group of real estate developers, and arrogant university bureaucrats decided to use public funds to build a suburban-style subdivision and some parking lots.

Amazing Train Journeys
by Lonely Planet
Published 30 Sep 2018

Compare and contrast the awe-inspiring architectural splendour of Moscow’s Red Square with Bĕijīng’s Tiān’ānmèn Square, the silver birch forests of Siberia with the arid Gobi Desert where dinosaurs once roamed. A weekly direct service rolls out of Moscow and Bĕijīng, but to fully experience the three countries on the route you’ll need to hop on and off a variety of trains. ❶ RIDING THE RAILS For centuries before the railway was completed in 1956 there was a well-trodden trade route connecting China, Mongolia and Russia, along which tea flowed west, and furs and other commodities flowed east. Commerce remains a prime concern between these nations, so it’s highly likely you’ll encounter native businessmen and women on the train as it veers off the main Russian line at Ulan-Ude and continues to Bĕijīng via Mongolia and its capital Ulaanbaatar.

Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet
Published 30 May 2012

* * * GETTING TO THAILAND: VANG TAO TO CHONG MEK Getting to the border Heading to the busy border (open 5am to 6pm) of Vang Tao (Laos) and Chong Mek (Thailand) is straightforward if catching a sŏrngtăaou from Pakse (10,000Kper person, 75 minutes, 37km), or taxi (per person 20,000K, 45 minutes). At the border This is a busy, well-organised trade route. There are ATMs on the Thai side, a market and restaurants. You have to walk a bit between the two posts but in general it’s hassle free. Thirty-day visas for Laos are granted on arrival for between US$30 and US$40 depending on nationality. Free 15-day visas are granted on arrival in Thailand. Moving on Easier than taking a taxi to the border is the Thai-Lao International bus that leaves from Pakse’s VIP bus station headed to Ubon Ratchathani at 7am, 8.30am, 2.30pm and 3.30pm.

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By the 13th and 14th centuries, what is considered to be the first Thai kingdom – Sukhothai (meaning ‘Rising Happiness’) – emerged and began to chip away at the crumbling Khmer empire. The Sukhothai kingdom is regarded as the cultural and artistic kernel of the modern state. Sukhothai was soon eclipsed by another Thai power, Ayuthaya, established by Prince U Thong in 1350. This new centre developed into a cosmopolitan port on the Asian trade route, courted by various European nations. The small nation managed to thwart foreign takeovers, including one orchestrated by a Thai court official, a Greek man named Constantine Phaulkon, to advance French interests. For 400 years and 34 successive reigns, Ayuthaya dominated Thailand until the Burmese led a successful invasion in 1765, ousting the monarch and destroying the capital.

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Regional kingdoms created distinctive works of art and literature, and joined the international sphere as important ports. The Thais expanded into the dying Khmer empire and exerted control over parts of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Starting around 1331, the Hindu kingdom of Majapahit united the Indonesian archipelago from Sumatra to New Guinea and dominated the trade routes between India and China. The kingdom’s reign continued until the advent of Islamic kingdoms and the emergence of the port town of Melaka on the Malay peninsula in 1402. Melaka’s prosperity soon attracted European interest, and it fell first to the Portuguese in 1511, then the Dutch and finally the English.

The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia
by Peter Hopkirk
Published 2 Jan 1991

In his military report Gordon urged that immediate action be taken to strengthen Britain’s position in the southern approaches to the Baroghil and Ishkaman passes. This could be achieved by building a road northwards from Kashmir to the latter, which would also ensure control of the Baroghil. Officially its purpose would be to serve as a trade route between India and the extreme north. ‘It would attract not only the Eastern Turkistan traders who at present toil over the Karakoram,’ Gordon declared, ‘but also the Badakhshan merchants who trade with Peshawar through Kabul.’ However, its real purpose would be to enable the British to move troops northwards ‘at the shortest notice’ in the event of a Russian incursion across the Oxus towards the Baroghil and Ishkaman passes.

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The only flaw in this argument, Younghusband observed, was that Safdar Ali took most of the proceeds of the raids for himself– just as he would do with any subsidy. Younghusband told the ruler that the British government would never agree to subsidise him for ceasing to rob its caravans. ‘I said that the Queen was not in the habit of paying blackmail,’ Younghusband wrote, ‘that I had left soldiers for the protection of the trade route, and that he might see for himself how much revenue he would get now from a raid.’ To Younghusband’s surprise, Safdar Ali shook with laughter at this, congratulating his visitor on his candour. With the aim of impressing on his Hunza host just how useless his own matchlock-wielding soldiers would be against modern, European-trained infantry, Younghusband decided to lay on a demonstration of his Gurkhas’ fire-power.

On the Trail of Genghis Khan: An Epic Journey Through the Land of the Nomads
by Tim Cope
Published 23 Sep 2013

Many contemporary historians point out how taxes levied by the Mongols during their reign were by and large used to serve the diverse people they ruled. They implemented legal codes, funded public works projects, patronized the arts and religion, and promoted international trade and commerce. Under their stewardship, trade routes and communication lines across Eurasia were perhaps safer and more efficient than they had ever been, enabling the first direct relations between China and Europe. It is remarkable to think that at the zenith of Mongol power nomad herders of the little-known steppes of East Asia ruled an empire that included some of the most populous cities on earth and stretched from Korea in the east to Hungary in the west, the tropics of South East Asia in the south—the Mongols even campaigned in Java, Indonesia—and the sub-Arctic in the north.

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When the moon rose, and my caravan cast dim shadows across the frosted grass, my transition to an older world felt complete. I slowed to a walk, snuggled deep into my winter coat, and opened the bell on Taskonir’s neck—something I always did at night in case the horses broke free (so I would be able to hear where they had gone) and in this case, also because it as was an old steppe tradition along courier and trading routes to have a horsebell to warn rest stations of the approach of a horseman. After traveling nearly 25 miles into the cold of evening, I was beginning to worry I had missed the hut, but around 11:00 P.M. three dark shapes emerged from the moonlit steppe. From one came the faint flicker of an oil lamp.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders
by Joshua Foer , Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton
Published 19 Sep 2016

Basilica Cisterns of Istanbul Beneath Istanbul are hundreds of Byzantine cisterns—underground reservoirs built during the 5th and 6th centuries to store rainwater. The cathedral-like structures have an elegance that belies their utilitarian nature, and contain decorated arches, marble columns, and carvings of Medusa’s head. Antwerp Ruien Antwerp’s many natural ditches served as fortifications, trade routes, and open sewers from the 11th to 16th centuries. When the smell became too much to bear, the city asked each citizen to take responsibility for covering the ditches, or ruien, on their land. It took citizens 300 years to cover the ditches in a diverse range of materials that reflected their wealth, taste, and competence as builders.

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Tash Rabat AT-BASHI, NARYN During the 15th century, the stone structure of Tash Rabat was a caravansary—a travelers’ inn providing refuge for those journeying along the Silk Road. Protected by the high walls of the rectangular courtyard, human and animal travelers took shelter in its stalls to wash, rest, and prepare for the next leg of a long trip. This desolate part of the trading route was particularly treacherous. Snow covers the ground for eight months of the year, and the area is subject to landslides, flooding, and earthquakes. The difficult conditions persist, which is why, for maximum safety and comfort, you should visit in summer and hire a local guide to drive you. For a fleeting insight into the Silk Road experience, camp in a yurt overnight at Tash Rabat.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
by Nancy Isenberg
Published 20 Jun 2016

Only New Englanders, in their low-bottomed boats, could navigate the shallow, shoal-filled inlets of the Outer Banks. Without a major harbor, and facing burdensome taxes if they shipped their goods through Virginia, many Carolinians turned to smuggling. Hidden inlets made North Carolina attractive to pirates. Along trade routes from the West Indies to the North American continent, piracy flourished in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Several of Albermarle’s governors were accused of sheltering these high-seas thieves and personally profiting from the illicit trade. The notorious Blackbeard (a.k.a.

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He set up shop there in 1750, the very year slavery was made legal, and his numerous slaves entitled him to large tracts of lands. But to build his empire he had to pull the strings of Georgia’s Executive Council, whose chief duty was distributing land. A long tenure on the council ensured that he acquired the most fertile land, conveniently situated along major trade routes. By 1760, only 5 percent of white Georgians owned even a single slave, while a handful of families possessed them in the hundreds. Jonathan Bryan was the perfect embodiment of the “Slave Merchants” who Oglethorpe had warned would dominate the colony.59 Oglethorpe’s ideas did not entirely disappear.

The Rough Guide to Jamaica
by Thomas, Polly,Henzell, Laura.,Coates, Rob.,Vaitilingam, Adam.

You can see it all on the Panorama Walk (preferably accompanied by one of the gardeners – leave a tip), which takes you through a tunnel-like thicket of Holland bamboo and eventually back to the main house, an ancient oblong of stone that still contains most of its original fittings. Other guided trails are also available, among the most rewarding the sweaty six-mile hike down to Mavis Bank, the four-mile hike to Catherine’s Peak, and the historic, ten-mile Vinegar Hill Trail to Buff Bay, an old Maroon trading route that the British used to transport supplies from Kingston to the north coast. Though now largely impenetrable, it is still possible to navigate with a good guide. Mavis Bank Heading east from Guava Ridge, the next settlement along is MAVIS BANK, picturesquely nestled in the Yallahs River valley.

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Bear in mind that outside the hotel you may well be accosted by a group of aggressive hustlers offering to take you to the open-air spring at the hotel’s rear; while this hot and cold “Sulphur River” is a pleasant spot (water from the two springs is diverted to the spa inside and mixed to provide a bath of a more even temperature), the unofficial “guides” most certainly are not, and their amateur massages are inevitably exorbitantly priced. Hiking trails lead from the hotel for miles across the Blue Mountains; the best is a recently reopened Maroon trading route through the John Crow range to Bowden Pen (see p.129) – for a guide contact the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust or Sun Venture Tours (see p.98). The far southeastern corner of the island, beyond Bath and Port Morant, is a seamless feast of banana, sugar and coconut plantations, the least developed yet one of the most picturesque corners of Jamaica.

1491
by Charles C. Mann
Published 8 Aug 2005

The new rulers of Mutal had aggressively thrown their weight around and by Sky Witness’s time controlled as much as eight thousand square miles. (Mutal city itself had an estimated population of sixty thousand, plus many more in its hinterland.) Particularly important, the Teotihuacan-backed dynasty took over several outposts on the Usumacinta River system, Yucatán’s most important trade route. Shipments of luxury goods from faraway regions usually had to travel up or down the Usumacinta; Mutal’s ability to tax and supervise the trade must have been terribly vexing, even if it had little practical import. Sky Witness may have thought that Mutal was becoming a dangerous neighbor and decided to take preemptive action.

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Martin’s comparison of the Maya to the Greeks comes from interviews and email. Sky Witness: Martin and Grube 2000:90–92, 102–04. Mutal size and population: Adams and Jones 1981:318–19; Culbert et al. 1990 (arguing for 425,000 as total size). Possible motives for Kaan-Mutal war: Fahsen 2003 (trade routes); Harrison 1999:121 (commerce, dynasty); Grube, pers. comm. (ideology). Landscape alteration: The literature is vast. Examples include Darch 1988; Dunning et al. 2002; Fedick and Ford 1990; Gunn et al. 2002 (“geochemically hostile,” 313); Scarborough and Gallopin 1991; Sluyter 1994. See also, Scarborough 2003.

Lonely Planet Kenya
by Lonely Planet

Modern Mombasa traces its heritage back to the Thenashara Taifa (Twelve Nations), a Swahili clan that maintains an unbroken chain of traditions and customs stretching from the city’s founding to this day. The date when those customs began – ie when Mombasa was born – is a little muddy, although it was already a thriving port by the 12th century. Early in its life, Mombasa became a key link on Indian Ocean trade routes. In 1498 Vasco da Gama became Mombasa's first Portuguese visitor. Two years later his countrymen returned and sacked the town, a habit they repeated in 1505 and 1528, when Nuno da Cunha captured Mombasa using what would become a time-honoured tactic: slick ‘em up with diplomacy (offering to act as an ally in disputes with Malindi, Pemba and Zanzibar) then slap ‘em down by force.

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Coastal Kenya Swahili Although the people of the coast do not have a common heritage, they do have a linguistic link: Kiswahili (commonly referred to as Swahili), a Bantu-based language that evolved as a means of communication between Africans and the Arabs, Persians and Portuguese who colonised the East African coast; the word swahili is a derivative of the Arabic word for coast – sawahil. The cultural origins of the Swahili, who make up 0.6% of the population, come from intermarriage between the Arabs and Persians with African slaves from the 7th century onwards. In fact, many anthropologists consider the Swahili a cultural tribe brought together by trade routes rather than a tribe of distinct biological lineage. A largely urban tribe, they occupy coastal cities like Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu and Stone Town (Zanzibar); and given the historical Arab influence, the Swahili largely practise Islam. Daily Life It can be hard work being Kenyan. While most are proud to be Kenyan, national identity is only one way among many in which Kenyans understand their world.

Moon Oregon Trail Road Trip: Historic Sites, Small Towns, and Scenic Landscapes Along the Legendary Westward Route
by Katrina Emery and Moon Travel Guides
Published 27 Jul 2020

Or you can more easily get to the next stop by heading south 0.6 mile (1 km) on Lone Elm Road and turning right onto West 175th Street, which becomes U.S. 56. Follow it for 7 miles (11.3 km) through Gardner, then turn right onto West 183rd Street. The drive takes 10 minutes. The Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 900-mile (1,450 km) major trade route that predated the Oregon Trail; it was in use 1821-1880. It had several jumping-off points in Missouri, including Independence. The outfitters and general stores that sprang up in the town to serve the Santa Fe-bound wagons were a major reason that Oregon Trail pioneers also set off from Independence.

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Guided tours are available daily in summer. Festivals and Events The tradition of the Mountain Man Rendezvous goes back to 1825, when a fur-trading company left a cache of supplies near the Green River in southern Wyoming and declared they’d meet there in July the next year. Word traveled along the trade routes, and the event became a huge gathering of trappers and traders, a time to share tall tales, show off skills, trade goods, and shore up trading relationships. It was a brilliant move—instead of hauling furs all the way back to St. Louis to sell, they could trade and restock their supplies right there.

Sweden Travel Guide
by Lonely Planet

Best Places to Eat A Kryp In A Rosendals Trädgårdskafe A Hermans Trädgårdscafé A Grands Verandan A Woodstockholm Best Places to Stay A Rival Hotel A Vandrarhem af Chapman & Skeppsholmen A Långholmen Hotell & Vandrarhem A Hobo Hotel A Grand Hôtel Stockholm Stockholm & Around Highlights 1 Vasamuseet Studying a shipwreck and Swedish history. 2 Gamla Stan Wandering around the atmospheric old town. 3 Skansen Visiting Sweden in miniature at this open-air museum. 4 Nordiska Museet Exploring Swedish culture, art and daily life. 5 Moderna Museet Admiring cutting-edge international artwork. 6 Biblioteksgatan Shopping at big name boutiques. 7 Södermalm Bar-hopping with lively locals and wayfarers. 8 Utö Taking a boat to sample the Stockholm archipelago. History Rising land drove Stockholm’s early destiny, forcing the centre of Swedish Viking political power to move from northern lake Mälaren to the lake’s outlet for better trade routes. The town charter dates from 1250. Stockholm’s official founder, Birger Jarl, commissioned the original royal castle, Tre Kronor, in 1252. The Black Death of 1350 wiped out around a third of Sweden’s population; then Danish Queen Margrethe Valdemarsdotter added insult to injury by besieging the city from 1391 to 1395, amalgamating the crowns of Sweden, Norway and Denmark under the unpopular Union of Kalmar in 1397.

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It is used to carve inscriptions onto monumental rune stones (there are around 3000 in Sweden) well into medieval times. 98 The Svea tribe that effectively rules what is now Sweden is first mentioned by Tacitus; they are referred to as Suinoes. c 800 Birka, founded on Björkö (an island in Mälaren lake), becomes a powerful Svea trading centre. Byzantine and Arab coins have been found here, confirming the existence of trade routes. 1008 Sweden’s first Christian king, Olof Skötkonung, is baptised at St Sigfrid’s Well in Husaby, but worship continues in Uppsala’s pagan temple until at least 1090. 1160 King Erik Jedvarsson destroys the last remnants of paganism in Sweden. The pagan temple at Uppsala is replaced with a Christian church. 1252 The city of Stockholm is founded by king’s statesman Birger Jarl, who has been running the country since 1229. 1350s Following the Black Death scourge, St Birgitta (1303–73) founds a nunnery and cathedral in Vadstena, which becomes Sweden’s most important pilgrimage site. 1434 High taxation imposed by the Kalmar Union to fund wars against the Hanseatic League make Erik of Pomerania deeply unpopular; the peasantry rise in the Engelbrekt revolt. 1439–70 Following the short-lived replacement of Erik of Pomerania, succession struggles begin again: two powerful Swedish families, the unionist Oxenstiernas and the nationalist Stures, fight for supremacy. 1520 After granting a full amnesty to Sture followers, Christian II goes back on his word: more than 80 nobles and clergy are arrested, tried and butchered in the ‘Stockholm Bloodbath’. 1523 The Kalmar Union, which united Denmark, Sweden and Norway for more than 130 years, is finally broken up. 1523 Gustav Vasa becomes the first Vasa king after the Kalmar Union between Denmark, Sweden and Norway breaks up; he marches into Stockholm and is crowned on 6 June, now the country’s national day. 1527 Reformation parliament passes a law that transfers the property of the Church to the state and places the Church under the state’s direct control (repealed in 2000). 1563–70 During the Vasa brothers’ reigns, there are wars against Lübeck and Poland, and the Danes try and fail to reassert sovereignty over Sweden in the Northern Seven Years War. 1618–48 Devout Lutheran Gustav II Adolf intervenes in the Thirty Years War between Protestants and Catholics, invading Poland and defeating his cousin King Sigismund III, but dying in battle in 1632. 1628 After a send-off full of pomp and circumstance, the royal warship Vasa sinks on its maiden voyage, having barely made it out of Stockholm’s harbour. 1658 The last remaining parts of southern Sweden still in Danish hands are handed over at the Peace of Roskilde after Swedish troops successfully invade Denmark across the frozen Kattegatt. 1697–1718 Karl XII holds the throne.

Flight of the WASP
by Michael Gross

The next president, James Buchanan, made him collector of the Port of Boston, ensuring that shippers and traders paid import duties, but within a year he was replaced when the Republican Abraham Lincoln became president. He then returned to business as president of a water company and a line of steamships plying the Boston–New York trade route. His last public post was as president of the Massachusetts Democrats’ state convention in 1878. Shortly afterward he collapsed in a street car and died of heart disease. James and Laurinda Whitney’s elder son, Henry, succeeded his father at the steamship company, and later helped organize a street rail line, coal, iron and steel, and gas companies.

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The cruelty of Barbadian plantation owners and the wealth their slaves generated made them “the richest men by far in any British colony in the Western Hemisphere.”18 Slavery, the practice of owning other human beings, had existed since at least the Sumerian civilization of today’s Iraq, thirty-five hundred years before Christ, and was later practiced across the Middle East, in China, India, and Africa, and among indigenous Americans. While it evolved into serfdom in Europe in the Middle Ages, religious wars pitting Christians against Arab Muslims over holy lands around the Mediterranean Sea saw both sides enslaving enemy prisoners. Sugar, first refined in India and carried along trade routes east and west, was an accelerant of the slave trade. Used as medicine in the Middle East and as a luxury product in Egypt, it caught the attention of Venetian merchants, who brought it to Europe. There, during the Crusades, Christians developed a taste for the sweet stuff. The first plantations to mass-produce sugar for its many new markets were established in the Canary Islands in the 1100s, creating an international trade in the slaves who made up the required workforce.

The London Compendium
by Ed Glinert
Published 30 Jun 2004

south side: Fenchurch Street to Gracechurch Street East India House, junction with Lime Street The East India Company, which became the City’s most powerful company, was established here in 1600 to challenge the Dutch–Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade in the Orient, and gained its first foothold in the East some ten years later when it seized control of the nutmeg-producing island of Puloroon, a feat that so impressed James I that, on hearing the news, he styled himself ‘King of England, Scotland, Ireland, France… and Puloroon’. After tussling with the Dutch, Portuguese and French for control of trade routes in the area over the next 100 years, the company began to establish itself as a major force, opening up Hong Kong and Singapore to the West, introducing tea to Britain, spices to the West Indies, opium to China, porcelain to Russia and coffee to Arabia and establishing trading posts in Madras and Calcutta.

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One of the busiest parts of the river during its trading heyday, filled with lighters and barges carrying coal from collier ships, it was rebuilt in the 1980s with a large block of ziggurat-shaped flats. LIMEHOUSE, E14 Limehouse, named after the long-vanished local lime industry, was where Englishmen set off on ocean-going trips to open up new trade routes in the sixteenth century and was home of London’s Chinatown between 1850 and 1950. Ratcliffe Cross Stairs, south of Butcher Row. The point where the Thames met the red cliff (‘ratcliffe’) and the Pool of London became Limehouse Reach was used as a boarding point for those crossing the oceans in late medieval times.

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Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 19,000-ton ship Leviathan - at least four times bigger than any other ship in the world and able to hold 4,000 passengers – was built here between 1853 and 1857 and unsuccessfully launched in November 1857, when the crush caused by the excessive number of people who gathered to watch resulted in one man being killed and the ship getting stuck on its rollers. Another three aborted launches took place and the vessel was not waterborne until the end of January 1858, by which time the owners had gone bankrupt. The ship, which was later renamed The Great Eastern, plied the trade routes between India and Australia and laid telegraphic cables in the Atlantic until 1886, when it came to be used as a showboat for the Lewis’s store of Liverpool, being broken up two years later. Some remains of the timber slipway are still in place. Island Gardens The gardens, laid out by the Commissioners of the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich in the nineteenth century, mark the south-east point of the Isle of Dogs, and it was here that pirates were hanged in chains, often watched by the pensioners of Greenwich Hospital through their spyglasses.

Lonely Planet Greek Islands
by Lonely Planet , Alexis Averbuck , Michael S Clark , Des Hannigan , Victoria Kyriakopoulos and Korina Miller
Published 31 Mar 2012

They built temples to their homeland gods, but Apollo remained the principal deity. The Romans made Delos a free port in 167 BC. This brought even greater prosperity, due largely to a lucrative slave market that sold up to 10,000 people a day. During the following century, as ancient religions lost relevance and trade routes shifted, Delos began a long, painful decline. By the 3rd century AD there was only a small Christian settlement on the island, and in the following centuries the ancient site was looted of many of its antiquities. It was not until the Renaissance that its antiquarian value was recognised. Getting There & Away Boats for Delos (return €17, 30 minutes) leave Hora (Mykonos) around six times a day from about 9am in high season with the last outward boat about 12.50pm.

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CLASSICAL AGE Greece’s Golden Age, from the 6th to 4th centuries BC, saw a renaissance in cultural creativity. As many city-states enjoyed increased economic reform and political prosperity, literature and drama blossomed. Athens’ rapid growth meant heavy reliance on food imports from the Black Sea; and Persia’s imperial expansions threatened coastal trade routes across Asia Minor. Athens’ support for a rebellion in the Persian colonies of Asia Minor sparked the Persian Wars. In 477 BC Athens founded the Delian League, the naval alliance that was based on Delos and was formed to liberate the city-states still occupied by Persia, and to defend against further Persian attack.

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The Balkan Wars The declining Ottomans still retained Macedonia, prompting the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. The outcome was the Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913), which greatly expanded Greek territory to take in the southern part of Macedonia (which included Thessaloniki, the vital cultural centre strategically positioned on the Balkan trade routes), part of Thrace, another chunk of Epiros and the northeastern Aegean Islands; the treaty also recognised the union with Crete. WWI & Smyrna As the Great War dragged on, the Allies (Britain, France and Russia) put increasing pressure on neutral Greece to join forces with them against Germany and Turkey, promising concessions in Asia Minor in return.

Italy
by Damien Simonis
Published 31 Jul 2010

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Venetian territory of Morea (in Greece) in 1499 gave the Turks control over Adriatic Sea access. The Genovese gained the upper hand with Columbus’ discovery of the Americas in 1492, calling dibs on New World trade routes. Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama rounded Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in 1498, opening up new trade routes that bypassed the Mediterranean – and Venetian taxes and duties. As it lost its dominion over the seas, Venice changed tack and began conquering Europe by charm. Venetian art was incredibly daring, bringing sensuous colour and sly social commentary even to religious subjects.

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Gelaterie Alaska (Map; 041 71 52 11; Calle Larga dei Bari, Santa Croce 1159; gelato €1-1.60; 9am-1pm & 3-8pm) Day-trippers in San Marco may settle for vanilla ice milk, but Venetians head to Alaska for outlandish organic gelato: one glorious scoop of Venetian roasted pistachio, or two of vaguely minty carciofi (artichoke) with tangy lemon. Gelateria San Stae (Map; 041 71 06 89; Salizada San Stae, Santa Croce 1910; gelato €1-2; 11am-9pm Tue-Sun) Simple flavours are anything but at San Stae, where signature ingredients cover Venetian trade routes from Piedmont hazelnut to Madagascar vanilla. Da Nico (Map; 041 522 52 93; Zattere, Dorsoduro 922; gelato €2.50-8; 7am-10pm Fri-Wed) Gelato to go is half-price at the bar, but sunny days are meant for lazing away dockside with Da Nico’s gianduiotto, a slab of hazelnut gelato submerged under panna (whipped cream), or panna in ghiaccio, frozen whipped cream sandwiched between cookies.

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Most visitors stay on the touristy north coast, but go inland and you’ll find a rural landscape of chestnut forests, dusty farms and earthy hillside towns. On the tranquil south coast, Sant’Angelo is a blissful blend of twisting laneways, cosy harbour and bubbling beaches. History Ischia was one of the first Greek colonies in the 8th century BC, named Pithekoussai after the pithos (pottery clay) found there. An important stop on the trade route from Greece to northern Italy, it was renamed Aenaria by the Romans. In 1301 an eruption of the now-extinct Monte Arso forced the inhabitants to flee to the mainland, where many stayed permanently. The Spanish took the island in 1495 and ruled until a brief French occupation in the early 19th century.

Wonders of the Universe
by Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen
Published 12 Jul 2011

It also teaches us that the path to enlightenment is not in understanding our own lives and deaths, but in understanding the lives and deaths of the stars The Dunhuang star chart dates back to AD 700 and is the oldest existing star chart. It was named after the place where it was found along the Silk Road trade route in northern China (in the twentieth century) and is now owned by the British Library. It depicts the stars in the sky according to the Chinese constellation tradition. MAPPING THE NIGHT SKY The moment you leave a city and experience a truly dark night sky, it becomes obvious why our ancestors spent a great deal of time looking up at the stars.

Rigged Money: Beating Wall Street at Its Own Game
by Lee Munson
Published 6 Dec 2011

It was this ability to make contracts with laws and enforce them that allowed corporations to open up to the general population of wealthy merchants. In the end it was the rule of law that gave rise to what we think of as economic freedom. It helped that the Dutch had one of the strongest navies in Europe at the time. When the Dutch East India Company started to take control of East Asian trading routes, it was met with strong opposition from Portugal and England. While this is all very interesting, how did the stock do? Investors received an average 25 percent return on their money during the first 15 years.2 Eventually creating monopolies, the company dominated trade with Asia and at one point paid out a 40 percent dividend to shareholders.3 Does this sound like a stock you would like to own?

Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy
by David A. Mindell
Published 12 Oct 2015

We had learned how to digitize the seafloor with ultra-high precision. That would change both what was possible in archaeology and in how we explore human history in the deep sea. We would now learn how to “excavate” an archaeological site without ever touching it. We would now learn how to do a new kind of archaeology focused on the deep water and ancient trade routes that connected civilizations. It would let us ask new questions. But not everyone would welcome the new methods. Robotic exploration would prove troubling to some and exciting to others. Seeking to understand this resistance led me on a journey of research and discovery spanning twenty years.

Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics
by Francis Fukuyama
Published 27 Aug 2007

Although the Islamist element in Indonesia is currently small, it is also worth remembering that small but determined minorities can achieve great success in unstable conditions—the Bolshevik Party in Russia had a membership of only 23,000 at the beginning of 1917. Either of these outcomes would be enormously destabilizing, both to the immediate region and more widely. If one were to superimpose Indonesia on a map of Europe, it would reach from Ireland to Turkey. There are some 13,000 islands. Vital trade routes move through the region. Most of the oil that goes to China and Japan moves through the region, so any disintegration or instability in this area would be a vital concern to both of those countries. Terrorism almost certainly would increase, and the prospect of mass migration would be a serious one for Australians to worry about.

The Inner Lives of Markets: How People Shape Them—And They Shape Us
by Tim Sullivan
Published 6 Jun 2016

In 1297, France’s war with Flanders (the territory of one important group of fair participants) made the trip too dangerous for most merchants. The war also allowed others to take advantage of the Flemish cloth traders without risking repercussion. The series of wars that followed (including the 100 Years War, starting in 1337) only made things worse and helped shift trade routes, making it nearly impossible for the fairs to recover. There’s a lesson there for modern platforms: greed can plant the seeds of your own undoing. There are plenty of modern-day equivalents to the French king’s shortsighted exploitation of the fair’s merchants. Once you hold a critical position between buyer and seller, market makers suffer from an almost inevitable temptation to profit from it.

Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages
by Carlota Pérez
Published 1 Jan 2002

The 30 years from the end of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War to the belle époque synergy, around 1900, constitute a very special type of installation period, with an undeclared triple battle for the core. Britain, whose immense imperial power was underpinned by its control of the Gold Standard, of world finance and of transcontinental trade routes, did not consider investment in the new steel, electrical and chemical technologies a priority for wealth generation. She was the queen of the seas and the City was the financial center to the empire and to most other countries. So British financial capital installed the transcontinental infrastructures – rails, ships and telegraph – and supported the development of mining and agriculture across the world, while neglecting her own build-up of the key industries of the technological revolution.

The Bend of the World: A Novel
by Jacob Bacharach
Published 13 Apr 2014

I realized after he’d dropped me off at home that Johnny and Billy hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even looked at each other, for that entire day. 3 Another Monday. As had been promised, I’d received a call from Karla and gone off to Human Resources, a Strasbourg in Global Solutions’ medieval landscape, a free city at the crossroads of all the trade routes, with its own weird culture and amalgam language. I hadn’t been in HR since I’d first been hired. My colleagues, those who used their health plans and considered their retirements, were up here all the time filling out mysterious forms and pestering about reimbursements or withholdings or the rising cost of a monthly parking pass in the basement garage, but I thought the place was a bit spooky, full of hushed, confidential voices and bowls of candy and women who came and left the office in white tennis shoes.

Tyler Cowen-Discover Your Inner Economist Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist-Plume (2008)
by Unknown
Published 20 Sep 2008

Markets also supported Shakespeare, Haydn, and the modern book superstore. The rise of oil painting, classical music, and print culture were all part of the same broad social and economic developments, namely the rise of capitalism, modern technology, rule of law, arid consumer society. The Renaissance occurred when growing cities and reopened trade routes created enough wealth to stimulate demand for beautiful art. Beethoven gave music lessons and concerts to a rising middle class and later sold them sheet music; his rise required the printing press, the affordable piano, and ready travel around Europe. Markets, of course, also have their uglier side.

The Year Without Pants: Wordpress.com and the Future of Work
by Scott Berkun
Published 9 Sep 2013

We did various A/B test experiments, looking for ways to simplify the design, but we learned that the most important factor in encouraging comments was the blogger's post. There was only so much the user interface itself could do. But even on the first day, 300,000 new comments were published through Highlander, and more every day since. Notes 1 For an understanding of how emergent systems, like colonies or trade routes, work, read Steven Johnson, Emergence (New York: Scribner, 2002). 2 For an overview of Parkinson's law of triviality see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law_of_triviality. 3 It is possible to build a skyscraper one brick at a time, but there has to be a goal, plan, vision, or leader driving those incremental changes toward a big vision. 4 “The Final Countdown” would become our deploy song—the music we played when about to launch a new feature.

In Defense of Global Capitalism
by Johan Norberg
Published 1 Jan 2001

Tremendous growth ensued, with real earnings more than doubling by 1995, at the same time as infant mortality fell from 6 percent to just over 1 percent, and average life expectancy rose from 64 to 73 years. Chileans today have almost a southern European standard of living, in stark contrast to their neighbors. Most important of all, the bloodstained dictatorship has been peacefully superseded by a stable democratic regime—just as the liberal advisers advocated and prophesied.11 On the trade route The possibility of breaking free of dependence on raw materials lies in free trade rather than protectionism. Instead of a shield behind which industry could grow strong, the tariff walls became a shield from competition that made them less efficient and innovative. The developing countries that have switched fastest from exporting raw materials to exporting upgraded products are those that have themselves had the most open economies, above all the Asian countries.

Raw Data Is an Oxymoron
by Lisa Gitelman
Published 25 Jan 2013

Corn, like more and more species then, has thrown its lot in with humans, adapting to the contemporary social world—and especially to industrial agribusiness— with such success that it has pushed nearly all other staple competitors out of business Data Bite Man as a cornerstone of our food supply. Like Britain in its heyday, the sun never sets on the empire of corn. Pollan offers a compelling picture of the trade routes of the corn empire, documenting the production of a raw ear of corn from a farm in Iowa, and then tracing all the steps it takes as it travels to the typical American consumer. We often think of this end product as the “raw” ears of corn that we purchase at the grocery store and imagine that it is shipped to our stores more or less directly from the farmer.

Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt
by Steven Johnson
Published 11 May 2020

In part, their conquest was limited by the natural barrier of the Thar Desert, which today defines the border between Pakistan and India. Trade, however, did manage to establish a constant web of interdependence between the two cultures. Islam created the first truly global integrated trading network in world history, reaching from western Africa all the way to Indonesia, but in that vast network, few trade routes were as lucrative as the one that brought Arabian horses to India in return for spices and cotton. Global trade ultimately made India too wealthy for Islam’s imperial ambitions to resist. From 1 CE to 1500 CE, no region in the world—including China—had a larger share of global GDP. Its copious supply of pearls, diamonds, ivory, ebony, and spices ensured that India ran what amounted to a thousand-year trade surplus.

Silk Road
by Eileen Ormsby
Published 1 Nov 2014

Three key emerging technologies could make this possible: Tor, a program that enabled anonymous web hosting and browsing; PGP encryption, which could scramble communications between users; and bitcoin, a borderless digital currency that existed only in cyberspace, which could be used to transfer funds with no identification of the parties required. After considering and discarding other names, the budding drug czar settled on calling the website ‘Silk Road’ – a nod to the ancient Asian trade route that promoted cultural interaction between the East and the West by linking traders and merchants to buyers. The site’s symbol would be a green camel, camel trains being the common method of transport in trans-Asian trade. The difference between Silk Road and previous online black markets was a system of consumer protection.

12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next
by Jeanette Winterson
Published 15 Mar 2021

This isn’t like predestination or karma – and indeed some of the so-what-let’s-have-a-party-style Hylics might be really enjoying life on earth (think Matrix again) and be happy to continue the illusion forever. Gnosticism isn’t judgemental. If you want to be Forever Oaf, that’s your business. * * * It’s helpful to recall that this period of human history is one where Greek thought and Hebrew thought – plus influences from the East (in particular trade routes to India) were fermenting together to create the new religion that would become Christianity. The Gnostics followed the practical Jewish tradition of the importance of living a responsible and charitable life here on earth – and they welded on Greek ideas of the importance of the self-aware, fully conscious life.

Where Does Money Come From?: A Guide to the UK Monetary & Banking System
by Josh Ryan-Collins , Tony Greenham , Richard Werner and Andrew Jackson
Published 14 Apr 2012

Child & Co is still operating as a private bank today and is owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland. † In sixteenth century Latin Christian Europe, Central Europe and Italy in particular, early forms of privately issued credit money called ‘Bills of Exchange’ or ‘Bills of Trade’ came in to being. Networks of traders, integrated through regular interactions on established trade routes and cities, began to accept these Bills in lieu of payment in the coinage of the period, determined by city-states of the time. In the German lands, these Bills were traded and settled in regular intervals at the major trade fairs (Messe). If one merchant owed another a sum of money which could not be paid in cash until the conclusion of a transaction some months hence, the creditor could draw a bill on the debtor and either use the bill as a means of payment in its own right or obtain cash for it at a discount from a banker willing to act as a broker.64 ‡ Accounts of fractional reserve type activities outside the UK go back much earlier than the goldsmiths however.

Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure
by Alex Honnold and David Roberts
Published 2 Nov 2015

Then we headed to our friend Ken Yager’s house in El Portal, just outside the national park, where we took showers, ate dinner, and crashed for the short night. Lurking Fear and Zodiac were our next two objectives. They seemed pleasant and even easy compared to what we’d already done, and we dispatched them both in exactly five hours and five minutes. As Dave later told Climbing magazine, “It was just grinding out trade routes as fast as we could, getting down to the river to ice our hands and legs, eating and sleeping. Then getting up way too early to do it all again.” On July 8, we faced the last of our seven routes, the Triple Direct. It’s rated 5.9 A1, not too severe, but it’s a long route—3,200 feet of climbing over thirty-five pitches if you tackled it in conventional style.

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
by Simon Sinek
Published 29 Oct 2009

People feared that if they traveled too far they might fall off the edge of the earth. So for the most part they stayed put. It wasn’t until that minor detail was revealed—the world is round—that behaviors changed on a massive scale. Upon this discovery, societies began to traverse the planet. Trade routes were established; spices were traded. New ideas, like mathematics, were shared between societies which unleashed all kinds of innovations and advancements. The correction of a simple false assumption moved the human race forward. Now consider how organizations are formed and how decisions are made.

Great Continental Railway Journeys
by Michael Portillo
Published 21 Oct 2015

Rolling stock had to be imported to Italy when the first rail networks got started THE STEPHENSONS’ LEGACY PERHAPS CURIOUSLY, TURIN’S PORTA NUOVA STATION – originally known as Central Station – bears a plaque honouring George and Robert Stephenson, the British father and son who brought the dream of steam railways to fruition. It’s a measure of how much store Italians set by the power of the railway the two men created, credited in part with unifying Italy. According to the plaque, the Stephensons ‘perfected the locomotive, opening new trade routes to the advantage of the brotherhood of peoples’. That British engineering had substantial influence in Italy is beyond doubt. Robert Stephenson (1803–1859) travelled there in 1839, eventually becoming the supervisor for a new railway between Florence and Pisa. His company also provided locomotives for Italy.

How Boards Work: And How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World
by Dambisa Moyo
Published 3 May 2021

This effort has included the creation of development institutions such as the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. China is also seeking to gain a greater global foothold in trade, capital flows, and investments through the multi-continent Belt and Road Initiative, which includes infrastructure investment across sixty-eight countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East to develop improved trade routes by land and sea. As a result, a growing proportion of the global economy will be guided by China. The 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic initially showcased the power authoritarian governments have over governments that rest on democratic freedom. An authoritarian government could quickly apply the levers it had—such as the ability to restrict freedom of movement and quarantine its population by decree—to control the spread of the disease, while governments in the United States and Europe hesitated before imposing similar restrictions in the hope of preserving individual freedoms, a bedrock principle of democratic capitalism.

The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice
by Fredrik Deboer
Published 3 Aug 2020

A moral case for human equality is about the least likely explanation. Rather, historical events conspired to loosen the grasp of the nobility on power. The Crusades had expanded the horizons of European societies, making travel to the Near East more common, and in doing so spurred commerce. New trade routes emerged, and over time money began to replace land as the fundamental unit of value. Meanwhile the Black Death dramatically reduced Europe’s population, decreasing the supply of available workers and thus increasing the bargaining position of those that remained, strengthening serfs to the detriment of their lords.

On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense
by David Brooks
Published 2 Jun 2004

That’s how they stumbled across Anita Diamant, Paul Auster, and Wally Lamb before they got really popular. If they are not perpetually renovating their properties, inner-ring people are off on allegedly educational vacations improving their minds. When Christopher Columbus returned from the New World, he didn’t go to Queen Isabella and say, “Well, I didn’t find a trade route to India, but I did find myself.” That, however, is exactly what highly educated inner-ring people are looking for in a vacation. They go on personal-growth Greek cruises sponsored by alumni associations, during which university classics professors lecture on the Peloponnesian wars while the former econ majors try to commit adultery with the lifeguards.

The Dark Cloud: How the Digital World Is Costing the Earth
by Guillaume Pitron
Published 14 Jun 2023

Among the cheated investors were the French companies Natixis and Alcatel Submarine Networks. 14 ‘Melting Arctic means new, and faster, subsea cables for high-speed traders’, Bloomberg, 12 September 2019. 15 Including the Japanese company Sojitz Corporation and the Norwegian company Bredbåndsfylket Arctic Link AS. 16 Interview with Juha Saunavaara, assistant professor at the Arctic Research Center, Hokkaido University (Japan), 2020. 17 Ibid. 18 ‘Major step towards a Europe-Asia Arctic cable link’, The Barents Observer, 6 June 2019. 19 ‘Data cables are the new trading routes’, The Barents Observer, 15 June 2017. 20 Interview with Keith Schofield, strategic adviser, Pioneer Consulting, 2020. 21 ‘Arctic Telecom cable initiative takes major step forward’, Cinia, 6 June 2019. 22 ‘Vision and actions on jointly building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road’, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, 28 March 2015. 23 ‘Full text of President Xi’s speech at opening of belt and road forum’, Xinhuanet, 14 May 2017. 24 A section of PEACE will also pass along the eastern side of the African continent up to the Seychelles.

Nashville Like a Local: By the People Who Call It Home
by Dk Eyewitness
Published 28 Sep 2021

The park used to be hunting grounds for regional Native nations, and remnants of old walls can be seen throughout the park. NATCHEZ TRACE PARKWAY 30-minute drive from the city; www.nps.gov Don’t confuse this one with Natchez Trace State Park in Western JACK DANIELS DISTILLERY Tennessee. The parkway – a well-trodden trading route established 1.5-hour drive from the city; www.jackdaniels.com by Native Americans – stretches for some 440 miles (710 km) from Let’s set this straight off the bat: no Music City local drives out to Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi. Picking up the main the Jack Daniels Distillery unless they have an insistent friend stretch in Pasquo, just outside of Nashville, locals love to drive the visiting from out-of-town.

The Gun
by C. J. Chivers
Published 12 Oct 2010

“The Duke of Cambridge said in my presence ‘It was a most powerful and wonderful gun.’”21 And then the Gatling made its British field debut. Troubles broke out on the Gold Coast of West Africa in the 1870s, when the Ashanti, a tribe with ambitions of restoring control of a seaport to keep open trade routes, besieged a British garrison at Elmina, a slave port established by the Portuguese in what is now Ghana. The British had only recently purchased the territory from the Dutch. The fort at Elmina held. But the region remained restive and the English forces present were too thin to do more than defend what they held.

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It fell a few months later to Russia, which had pushed the guns ordered by Colonel Gorloff out into soldiers’ hands, to show what could happen when machine guns were fired at men. In 1873, Czar Alexander II was expanding his empire’s authority over the khanates of Central Asia, trying to bring the defiant hinterlands and overland trade routes under Russian control. His soldiers faced a holdout at the city of Khiva on the banks of the Amu Darya, where the ruling khan, Muhammed Rahim, refused to recognize Russian rule. The khan held a small collection of Russian slaves, which provided the court in Saint Petersburg with all the public-relations material it needed to portray its campaign as a civilizing mission.

Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol
by Iain Gately
Published 30 Jun 2008

The Africans had ivory, gold, slaves, and palm oil to offer, and by a process of trial and error the Portuguese discovered which goods of their own were appealing to their counterparts. In the case of the Wolofs, who occupied what is now Senegal, the best articles of trade were wine, weapons, and horses. The Wolofs were a sophisticated culture, nominally Muslim, who maintained links with other members of their faith through a trans-Saharan land trade route, but who had chosen to disregard the Koranic ban on drinking. They had a number of native beverages, including palm wine and millet beer, and these two drinks were found to be common throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, at every point of the continent where the Portuguese landed, they found alcohol to be present and to have been integrated into the customs and rituals of the peoples with whom they made contact.

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Although the Spanish government latterly attempted to restrict the trade in South American wine, so as to protect the market for its own exports, by the 1570s Peru was sending its vintages to Chile (which was also a producer), Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, and to the Philippines, to which a transpacific trade route had been opened in 1565. While the Spanish were building an empire in Central and South America, the Portuguese had concentrated on trading with the Far East. In 1494, after mediation from Pope Alexander VI, the two maritime powers had divided the globe between them along a north-south meridian, with the Spanish allotted all “new” lands west of longitude 39’ 53‘ and the Portuguese the other half of the world.

The Guns of August
by Barbara W. Tuchman and Robert K. Massie
Published 1 Jan 1962

Holding the fleet together was not enough; it must be got, as Churchill expressed it in capitals, to its “War Station.” The primary duty of a fleet, as Admiral Mahan, the Clausewitz of naval warfare, had decreed, was to remain “a fleet in being.” In the event of war the British fleet, upon which an island nation depended for its life, had to establish and maintain mastery of the ocean trade routes; it had to protect the British Isles from invasion; it had to protect the Channel and the French coasts in fulfillment of the pact with France; it had to keep concentrated in sufficient strength to win any engagement if the German fleet sought battle; and above all it had to guard itself against that new and menacing weapon of unknown potential, the torpedo.

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He said it would be his “feeling” that “if the German fleet came down the Channel and bombarded and battered the undefended coasts of France, we could not stand aside and see this going on practically within sight of our eyes, with our arms folded, looking on dispassionately, doing nothing!” Cheers burst from the Opposition benches, while the Liberals listened, “somberly acquiescent.” To explain his having already committed Britain to defend France’s Channel coasts, Grey entered into an involved argument about “British interests” and British trade routes in the Mediterranean. It was a tangled skein, and he hurried on to the “more serious consideration, becoming more serious every hour,” of Belgian neutrality. To give the subject all its due, Grey, wisely not relying on his own oratory, borrowed Gladstone’s thunder of 1870, “Could this country stand by and witness the direst crime that ever stained the pages of history and thus become participators in the sin?”

Switzerland
by Damien Simonis , Sarah Johnstone and Nicola Williams
Published 31 May 2006

On the 1st floor of the train station is the tourist office (%027 921 60 30; www.brig.ch; h8.30am-6pm Mon-Fri, 9am-1pm Sat Oct-Jun, 8.30am-6pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat, 9am-1pm Sun Jul-Sep). Postal buses leave from outside the train station. Directly ahead is Bahnhofstrasse, leading to the centre of town. Sights STOCKALPERSCHLOSS Kaspar Jodok von Stockalper (1609–91), a man with an eye for business who dominated the Simplon Pass trade routes, did so well that he built this castle caprice in the middle of Brig. He even dubbed himself the ‘Great Stockalper’. Locals didn’t agree and obliged him to hightail it to Italy. However, the castle (%027 921 60 30; Alte Simplonstrasse 28; adult/child/7-16yr Sfr7/free/3; hhourly 50-min guided visit 9.30-11.30am & 1.30-4.30pm Tue-Sun May-Oct), with it’s Eastern-style onion domes, is a suitably three-dimensional memorial to one man’s self-worth.

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Lapped by a scenic lake, surrounded by mountains of myth – a picture of this once small fishing village and its wooden Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge) is enough to connote the very essence of Switzerland. Between the 13th and 19th centuries, Lucerne (Luzern in German, or ‘the city of lights’) made its fortune as an essential stop on the trade route over the Alps. Then its charming medieval centre and its fabulous position began attracting tourists. It’s never looked back. 100 m Mariahilfgasse C To Rotsee (1.5km); SYHA Hostel (1.5km); Sedel (1.5km); Zug (29km) 35 Grend elstr Falkenplatz Sternenplatz Lö pop 57,817 / elevation 435m MONEY 0 36 Reussbrücke LUCERNE ment, Hauptbahnhof; h24hr) Ὀ Ὀ ὈὈ ὈὈὈὈ Ὀ ὈὈ ὈὈ ὈὈ ὈὈὈὈ B u Permanence Medical Center (%041 211 14 44; Base- 1 A 200 m 0.1 miles Ka p MEDICAL SERVICES 0 0 rüc ke 12.30pm & 2.30-6.30pm Mon-Thu, 8.30am-12.30pm Fri, 9am-2pm Sat) LUCERNE llb Jet Wash (%041 240 01 51; Bruchstrasse 28; h8.30am- LU C E R N E 215 pe LAUNDRY www.lonelyplanet.com r alst km Den tr ichs Zür region, is worth having; you should ask for it if your accommodation doesn’t offer it.

Frommer's Egypt
by Matthew Carrington
Published 8 Sep 2008

The enormous courtyard is a reminder that there was once a time when you could build a mosque big enough to hold every man in the surrounding area. See p. 98. 4 The Best Shopping Experiences • Aswan Souk: Even though it’s rapidly becoming more touristy, this rambling, sprawled-out souk retains all the vibrancy you would expect of a millennia-old crossroads on the trading routes between Africa and the Mediterranean world. See p. 253. • Egypt Craft Center (8–27 Yehia Ibrahim St., Zamalek, Cairo; & 02/ 27365123): Here you have low-hassle access to a range of folk crafts from around Egypt. This is a particularly good place to pick up pottery from the Fayum or handmade scarves from Upper Egypt.

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The Fun Fact Traffic Stopper The fountain in the middle of the Nasser Square traffic circle was completed in 3 days by local sculptor Mahmoud Mabrouk. The buxom woman represents Egypt, dragging her reluctant people into the modern world. 13_259290-ch10.qxp 288 7/22/08 12:40 AM Page 288 CHAPTER 10 . THE WESTERN DESERT Darb al Arbein Kharga was once a major stop on one of the most important major trade routes between Sudan and Egypt. Today, the highway south of the city follows almost exactly the route of what was known as Darb al Arbein, or the “Forty-Day Road.” For more than 700 years, this was the conduit of the untold wealth in ostrich feathers, gold, ivory, and slaves that Sudan sent to Egypt in return for weapons, cloth, and metal goods.

Four Battlegrounds
by Paul Scharre
Published 18 Jan 2023

A cornerstone of China’s international engagement is the Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013, which consists of investments in building ports, railways, highways, energy pipelines, and digital infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, and Europe. The effort harkens back to the original Silk Road, the Eurasian trade routes that connected China to the rest of the world from 130 BCE to the fifteenth century. Today’s Belt and Road is similarly aimed at deepening China’s linkages with other economies, as well as extending Beijing’s political influence. Spending estimates vary, but China has likely spent hundreds of billions of dollars in overseas construction and investment.

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Reg. 51596 (August 17, 2020), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/20/2020-18213/addition-of-huawei-non-us-affiliates-to-the-entity-list-the-removal-of-temporary-general-license-and; Jeanne Whalen and Ellen Nakashima, “U.S. Tightens Restrictions on Huawei Yet Again, Underscoring the Difficulty of Closing Trade Routes,” Washington Post, August 17, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/17/us-cracks-down-huawei-again/. 184U.S. industry protested the expansive ban: “SIA Statement on Export Control Rule Changes,” Semiconductor Industry Association, August 17, 2020, https://www.semiconductors.org/sia-statement-on-export-control-rule-changes-2/. 184TSMC stated they would no longer ship chips to Huawei: David Shepardson, “U.S.

The Evolution of God
by Robert Wright
Published 8 Jun 2009

As the biblical scholar Bernard Lang has noted, in ancient times, houses of worship sometimes performed “many a task of the modern bank,” and there is evidence that Phoenician traders used Baal’s temple as their headquarters. 6 In this scenario, the tension between Ahab’s and Elijah’s constituencies boils down to political and economic self-interest. From Ahab’s perspective, alliance with Phoenicia made sense. It not only kept Mediterranean markets open to Israel via Phoenician ports, but also steered east-west commerce through Israel, creating trade routes that Ahab could profitably control. What’s more, the alliance gave Israel a strong friend in the event of military conflict with one of the region’s great powers. If the price for all this was tolerating Baal and letting some Phoenician traders make money, so be it. The relationship with Phoenicia was win-win, and Ahab’s theology expanded accordingly.

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After Jesus’s death, there was good news and bad news for anyone who would set out to carry the Christian message of salvation across the Roman Empire. Both kinds of news are embodied in little figurines that archaeologists have found in the northern regions of the empire. There, scattered across burial sites, are bronze renditions of a god named Osiris. 3 Exploiting trade routes, this god had traveled all the way to Gaul—what is now France—from his native Egypt. Osiris, who had been a major god in Egypt for millennia, bore a striking resemblance to the Jesus described in the Nicene Creed. He inhabited the afterworld, and there he judged the recently deceased, granting eternal life to those who believed in him and lived by his code.

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
by Mike Dash
Published 10 Feb 2010

From these bases and maybe others, the flower spread quickly from country to country. Its novelty, delicacy, and beauty made it welcome everywhere, and its wide distribution was assisted by the easy portability of its bulbs. The time was now right for the tulip. With the discovery of silver mines in the Americas and trade routes to the Indies, there was more money about in Europe than ever before, and the rich were looking for interesting new ways to spend it. The Renaissance had reawakened interest in science, and printing had made both new discoveries and hoarded stores of older knowledge widely available. One consequence of these developments was that botany and gardening were greatly in fashion among the elite.

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
by Nick Reding
Published 1 Jul 2009

If Oelwein was shaping up to be the face of meth in modern America, and an indicator of life in modern, rural America in general, then in Ottumwa there was a picture of Oelwein’s skeletal forebears. And eventually a picture of Oelwein’s future, though that part of the story was yet to evolve. Like Oelwein, Ottumwa had for most of its history been a very prosperous place. Also like Oelwein, Ottumwa was a kind of economic outpost, a wealthy waypoint on the trade routes running between St. Louis, Chicago, and Omaha. Thanks to the Des Moines River, which runs right through the middle of Ottumwa, industry and transportation came quickly to the area once it was settled by a land rush in 1843. In 1850, John Morrell and Co. opened a flag-ship, state-of-the-art meat-processing plant in the center of town.

The Middleman Economy: How Brokers, Agents, Dealers, and Everyday Matchmakers Create Value and Profit
by Marina Krakovsky
Published 14 Sep 2015

Think of the way cut flowers move across the world through the Dutch flower market, such that it makes sense for daffodils grown in the United Kingdom to go through a series of middlemen in the Netherlands before returning to retailers and consumers in the United Kingdom. Economies of scale make this roundabout but well-trod trading route more efficient than selling direct. And if each middleman is playing a distinct role, instead of duplicating the effort of other middlemen, then all the links become indispensable. In Euclidean geometry the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but when it comes to time and money, sometimes the shortest path goes through one or more middlemen.19 Yet that’s only true if the middlemen’s value exceeds their cost.

Culture Shock! Costa Rica 30th Anniversary Edition
by Claire Wallerstein
Published 1 Mar 2011

Costa Rica Perhaps the Indian population was almost totally annihilated as a result of warfare, European diseases such as smallpox and flu (to which they had no resistance) and the mass transportation of slaves to other parts of the Empire— such as the notorious gold mines of Peru, from which few emerged alive. The country’s total population would not recover to its pre-Conquest levels until 1930. Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, the country seems to have acted as both a bridge and a filter for cultures from north and south, as well as an important trade route. Linguistic research has bolstered the theory that the Chorotegas who settled in the north of the country had moved down from Mesoamerica (today Mexico), while other groups migrated up from South America. The Chorotegas (the word comes from Choltec which means ‘people who fled’) are thought to have arrived around 800 CE to escape civil strife in their northern homeland.

Drinking in America: Our Secret History
by Susan Cheever
Published 12 Oct 2015

Shrewd Yankee sailors soon saw that they could earn more substantial profits if they stopped in two ports of call rather than one—something that created what came to be known as the infamous triangle trade. The ease of sailing with different winds and currents had already established many thriving trade routes. The voyages took about a year of sailing back and forth across the Atlantic from England and Africa to New England and the Caribbean. For instance on one route, sailors ferried New England rum from England to Africa, where it was traded for slaves captured from villages in West Africa. The slaves were taken to the West Indies over the often-fatal “middle passage” and sold or traded for a cargo of molasses.

In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food
by Stewart Lee Allen
Published 1 Jan 2002

That’s pretty damn hard to prove, but a good indication of the extreme early importance of these senses is that our body has only four genes to govern the sense of sight, but over a thousand devoted to smell/taste. Smelling good has always been particularly important when dealing with the gods. The world’s earliest international trade routes developed to transport perfumes. Egyptians were so concerned about afterlife B.O. that they drowned their mummies in myrrh and frankincense. The first Christmas presents were perfumes, and any number of Catholic saints owe their beatitude to their corpses’ propensity to smell like roses. These are all what Toorn would call “soothing odors,” pleasing to the gods.

Erwin Schrodinger and the Quantum Revolution
by John Gribbin
Published 1 Mar 2012

It would be five years before he made the breakthrough that sealed the success of the second quantum revolution—years in which he gave no hint of what was to come. Zürich was not quite a backwater of science in the 1920s, but it certainly was not a centre of excellence in research, in spite of having two respectable institutes of higher learning. The town’s location on a lake and a river, where north–south and east–west trade routes crossed, meant that there had been a settlement there since pre-Roman times, and by the end of the first millennium A.D. it had become an important centre of trade, politics, and religion. In 1218 Zürich acquired the status of a free city, and in 1351 it joined the Swiss Confederation and was involved in the wars and tribulations that eventually (in 1648) led to Swiss independence from the Habsburg Empire.

A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria's Oil Frontier
by Michael Peel
Published 1 Jan 2009

As Britain grappled for political control, its companies fought for commercial victory. Their main rivals were the French, who were eventually to take charge of many countries across the West Africa region, from Senegal to Cameroon. All the businesses wanted power over the River Niger, an invaluable trading route that rises in Guinea and snakes through the region before emptying into the sea off the southern coast of the Niger Delta. In 1886, the United Africa Company – by now a behemothic agglomeration of British manufacturing and trading interests – found a novel way of gaining extra competitive leverage.

The Burning Shore: How Hitler's U-Boats Brought World War II to America
by Ed Offley
Published 25 Mar 2014

Construction was barely underway on the first three pens—which would comprise the center of the finished bunker—when U-552 tied up to the quay on March 16, 1941.9 The armored bunkers at Saint-Nazaire and the other French ports were an integral part of newly promoted four-star admiral Dönitz’s ongoing plan for a major expansion of the U-boat Force. The forty-nine-year-old admiral was adamant that Germany could only defeat Great Britain by severing the maritime trade routes that brought food, fuel, and other critical supplies to the island nation from overseas. Thus far, however, recurring delays in new construction, bureaucratic struggles with the army and Luftwaffe for steel and aluminum, and occasional personnel shortages in the German shipbuilding industry had hamstrung Dönitz’s efforts to knock Britain out of the fight.

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt
by Michael Lewis
Published 30 Mar 2014

Because the value of the space around the black box was so great, the exchanges expanded to enclose greater amounts of that space so that they might sell it. IEX could function happily inside a space roughly the size of a playhouse. ¶ In 2008, Citadel bought a stake in the online broker E*Trade, which was floundering in the credit crisis. The deal stipulated that E*Trade route some percentage of its customers’ orders to Citadel. At the same time, E*Trade created its own high-frequency trading division, eventually called G1 Execution Services, to exploit the value of those orders for itself. Citadel’s founder and CEO, Kenneth Griffin, pitched a fit, and called out E*Trade publicly for failing to execute its customers’ orders properly. ** Arnuk and Saluzzi, the principals of Themis Trading, have done more than anyone to explain and publicize the predation in the new stock market.

Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity
by Stephen D. King
Published 14 Jun 2010

The Roman Empire had plenty of winners, but the vast number of slaves brought in to build cities and power ships would not count themselves among that happy throng. The Silk Road, sustained by China’s Tang dynasty and then by the Mongols under Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan, proved to be a most effective trading route for silk, spices, Arabic horses and religion (Buddhism found its way from India to China along the Silk Road). It was also a murderous road, with the ruling Mongols and a growing numbers of opportunistic bandits happy to indulge in death and destruction in pursuit of material gains (if the Mongols didn’t kill you off, the bubonic plague served the same purpose).

Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season
by Nick Heil
Published 3 Feb 2009

His fixation on one day climbing Everest began brewing. In 2002, Sharp climbed Cho Oyu, his first 8,000-meter peak. Cho is a rite of passage for many climbers. At 26,906 feet, it is the sixth-highest mountain in the world, but it is widely considered one of the easiest of the fourteen 8,000-meter giants. The trade route, a low-angle slog up the mountain’s northwest ridge, presents few technical challenges beyond one steep ice wall and a few rock bands, generally draped with fixed ropes to help climbers cheat past the hardest parts. Sharp had signed up to climb Cho with Jamie McGuinness’s Project Himalaya. McGuinness ran a low-key outfit for budget-minded clients looking for a Western operator with a positive attitude.

QI: The Third Book of General Ignorance (Qi: Book of General Ignorance)
by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
Published 28 Sep 2015

As Scandinavia adopted Christianity and settled into the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, raiding tailed off. The lucrative trade with the Islamic world had fallen sharply as a result of the rise of the Khazar Empire, which occupied the land between the Black and Caspian seas, cutting off Viking trade routes to Byzantium and Baghdad. But Viking culture didn’t disappear overnight. The Normans were a Viking colony in northern France (the Bayeux tapestry clearly shows they invaded Britain in ‘Viking’ ships). And the king of Norway colonised Scotland until the mid-thirteenth century – and the Western Isles until 1469.

The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age
by Astra Taylor
Published 4 Mar 2014

Cultural equity, for Lomax, was not an isolationist creed or a philosophy aiming to freeze cultures like museum exhibits so the rest of the world can gawk. On the contrary, he recognized that cross-pollination makes culture richer and more robust. The most generative and vibrant creative centers in human history have typically occupied migration crossroads and trade routes, where different types of people intersect and infect each other with new ideas and approaches to life. Exchange is essential—the only reason modern communication systems have posed a threat to local cultures is because they have been too one-sided. Lomax hoped multi-channeled electronic communication would remedy this imbalance.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
by Eric Newby
Published 1 Jan 1957

He himself says that the chief reasons that caused him to invade Kafiristan were the aggravation caused by having a semi-hostile country at his back and also the fear that the Russians might annex it. Besides these statesmanlike considerations there were others. He longed to convert the Kafirs and win an apostle’s reward and also to keep open the Kunar Valley trade route between Jalalabad and Badakshan, which their really intolerable behaviour made extremely difficult. The campaign opened in the winter of 1895, the idea being to avoid the Kafirs escaping to Russian territory and also to keep casualties as low as possible. Whilst irritated by the Kafirs, the Amir seems to have recognized that they would be more use to him alive.

CultureShock! Egypt: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (4th Edition)
by Susan L. Wilson
Published 20 Dec 2011

Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun’s (King Tut’s) tomb filled with treasures still remains one of the most internationally celebrated sites to visit. For Tutankhamun Enthusiasts If Tut is your interest, National Geographic has a fully interactive site featuring the original February 1923 volume at: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/egypt. Aswan Gateway to Africa, frontier city and prosperous market at the crossroads of the ancient caravan trade route, Aswan is undoubtedly one of my favourite places in Egypt. It has a sleepy, almost tranquil atmosphere, in contrast to the rest of Egypt. It is here that the Nile is the most enchanting and magical as it weaves through the mass of boulders and small islands, glistening sparkles dancing off its surface.

Lurking: How a Person Became a User
by Joanne McNeil
Published 25 Feb 2020

A famous and innocuous example of context collapse at scale happened when a woman texting photos of a dress to her daughter initiated a global debate over whether it was white and gold or black and blue. But other examples are less whimsical. Someone tweeting an inside joke, thrust before a wider audience—even the world stage—that doesn’t get it, could be subject to harassment, or, at the very least, an unpleasant measure of attention. If the iPhone was a sharing trade route, Twitter was a shipping container: a transportive enclosure for those barreling thoughts, to disperse and release them. While Twitter predates the iPhone by a year—it had a 140-character constraint because that was just shy of the limit imposed by SMS—the product found its purpose at their conjuncture.

The Autonomous Revolution: Reclaiming the Future We’ve Sold to Machines
by William Davidow and Michael Malone
Published 18 Feb 2020

The Epic of Gilgamesh, the first record of a real-life individual and, as it is often called, “the world’s oldest story,” was inscribed on clay tablets around 2000 BCE, some seven hundred years after its eponymous hero had reigned over Uruk.10 Those cities were dependent for food and fuel on the farmers and woodcutters who lived in their surrounding regions, and so they both protected and controlled them. City-states emerged, which eventually grew into vast empires, such as those of Greece, Rome, and Persia, which built huge militaries and expanded by conquest. Trade routes crossed whole continents. By 900 BCE, the Phoenicians had established themselves as a great trading power throughout the whole Mediterranean region and as far afield as Britain in the north and India in the southeast.11 A continual stream of inventions powered the ongoing revolution. Though the medieval era witnessed much technological backsliding, the principles of crop rotation were discovered during this time.

White City, Black City: Architecture and War in Tel Aviv and Jaffa
by Sharon Rotbard
Published 1 Jan 2005

Similar patterns of expansion had been repeated across other parts of the country on countless occasions, but this was the first time that Jewish settlement had succeeded in smothering a whole region so effectively. Jaffa was doomed. For the first time in its history, it was cut off from its rural hinterland, from its trade routes and from the rest of the country as a whole. The surrounding Hebrew neighbourhoods transformed it into an enclave. This solitary status would be recognized and reinforced in the United Nations Division Plan of 1947 (which designated it as an Arab enclave within the future Jewish state) but even this judgement was rendered irrelevant after the city’s bloody defeat and surrender in 1948.

Cities: The First 6,000 Years
by Monica L. Smith
Published 31 Mar 2019

But deep in our ancestral past, there were places that brought people into groups much larger than the population of any village and that served as the blueprints for the eventual development of urban spaces. Sometimes it was a summer-bright mountain pass that provided seasonal opportunities for people to meet and marry. Sometimes it was a place where rivers met, blending the convenience of trade routes with the potential for bumper crops. And sometimes it was a forbidding cave or sacred forest that drew people together for a journey of shared purpose. Pilgrimages of both secular and sacred forms took place during the nicer seasons of the year, when people could camp out with light clothing and just a few belongings.

Space 2.0
by Rod Pyle
Published 2 Jan 2019

Some of these depots will be in Earth orbit, others out by the moon, and some eventually near and on Mars. “There are [about] ten billion metric tons of water on lunar poles. We can start with refueling services,” Sowers said. Water from lunar sources would be made into fuel, then stored. “This fuel availability provides for trade routes using ACES and XEUS.” XEUS is a robotic lunar lander that will be able to transport useful supplies from the lunar surface to the storage depots. While space entrepreneurs study ways to extract, transport, and store these resources, this may ultimately prove to be too risky for even the billionaires without government partnerships.

A Little History of Economics
by Niall Kishtainy
Published 15 Jan 2017

The mercantilists were in favour of them. They believed that large populations helped nations to win out over foreign rivals because a large labour force working for low wages allowed manufacturers to make cheap goods to sell abroad, and a large army and navy made possible the defence of the nations’ trade routes. After the mercantilists, the utopian thinkers – Charles Fourier, Robert Owen and Henri de Saint-Simon – said that people weren’t doomed to poverty. They believed above all in progress. If people helped each other, poverty and squalor could be abolished, they said. Malthus’s father, Daniel, admired the utopians, believing their ideas to be the keys to a better society.

The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth
by Jeremy Rifkin
Published 9 Sep 2019

Fourth, both the EU and China are reaching out beyond their borders to assist other regions in making the transition to a postcarbon civilization. On this last point, China has taken a commanding lead with its Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative was announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013 and takes its inspiration from the ancient Silk Road, the trade route that connected China, Asia, and the West.11 The vision is to build out a twenty-first-century smart digital infrastructure that can connect all of Eurasia, creating the largest integrated commercial space in history. The Belt and Road Initiative is more than just a new global trade initiative combined with conventional infrastructure investment to ensure adequate transport and logistics corridors and speed commerce across Eurasian supply chains and markets.

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
by Fareed Zakaria
Published 5 Oct 2020

If we think of globalization as the increasing movement of people, goods, and capital, it has been at work ever since the first humans began migrating out of Africa sometime between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago—most likely as increasing droughts and famines (and perhaps disease) forced them to search for new pastures. In the intervening millennia, the long process of globalization has continued apace, through wars and plagues. As empires rose—Persian, Roman, Incan, Mali, Mongol, and Ottoman—they all expanded trade routes, discovered new frontiers, and caused the intermingling of peoples. The point at which modern globalization was born can be dated more precisely. No less a luminary than Adam Smith suggested two years—1492 and 1498. In the former, Columbus “discovered” the Americas; in the latter, Vasco da Gama found a new route to Asia by going around Africa.

A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
by Tom Standage
Published 16 Aug 2021

The wagon drawn on the Bronocice pot shows the pole and yoke that would have allowed it to be pulled by two oxen. These were the first vehicles capable of carrying heavy loads, or people. Whether the first wheels and wagons originated in Europe, in Mesopotamia, or in the area in between—the Pontic steppe around the north of the Black Sea—the notion of the four-wheeled wagon quickly spread along the trade routes that connected them. By 3000 B.C.E. such wagons could be found in all three regions, though they were being put to rather different uses. REINVENTING THE WHEEL In Europe wagons seem to have been used primarily for agriculture. It seems unlikely that they were used to transport loads over long distances—something that requires relatively flat, open country or well-maintained trackways.

The Stonemason: A History of Building Britain
by Andrew Ziminski
Published 5 Mar 2020

This is the greatest concentration of round barrows in Britain, the final stop for dynasties of chieftains and the grander Beaker people of the later Bronze Age: the archers, chieftains and wise women who had been buried with plenty of gold to see them on their way. Two-thirds of all gold found in Britain from the Bronze Age has come from here, a return of the tariffs-in-kind they could have levied on the minerals brought along the trade routes such as the ridgeways and River Avon, where they controlled supply. As with Avebury, archaeologists are still not sure if it was Beaker settlers who put up the arrangement that we can see today, but they certainly had a hand in the Stonehenge monument’s final phase between 2300 and 1900 BCE, moving and re-erecting the blue stones a few more times.

Empire of Ants: The Hidden Worlds and Extraordinary Lives of Earth's Tiny Conquerors
by Susanne Foitzik and Olaf Fritsche
Published 5 Apr 2021

Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 285. chapter 12: the path to world domination the tropical fire ant solenopsis geminata was spread across the world in the sixteenth century by spanish sailors Gotzek, D. et al. (2015). Global invasion history of the tropical fire ant: A stowaway on the first global trade routes. Molecular Ecology, 24, 374–88. McGlynn, T. P. (1999). The worldwide transfer of ants: geographical distribution and ecological invasions. Journal of Biogeography, 26, 535–48. the argentine ant linepithema humile reigns over the mediterranean coast of western europe with two supercolonies Blight, O. et al. (2010).

Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets
by Brett Scott
Published 4 Jul 2022

Perhaps they could also get in on the business of selling visions of cyber-Kowloon? 13 Raiding the Raiders Astana (Nur-Sultan) rises out of the Kazakh Steppe, the immense stretch of grassland in northern Kazakhstan. The steppes have long been synonymous with nomadic Scythians, Cossacks and Mongols galloping across ancient Silk Road trading routes, and the country’s capital city seems incongruous in these desolate plains. Developed from scratch as a planned city in the early nineties, it has a prefabricated feel, as if it could be dismantled and carried off on horseback. The new city was a personal project of Kazakhstan’s strongman president at the time, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The Last Ride of the Pony Express: My 2,000-Mile Horseback Journey Into the Old West
by Will Grant
Published 14 Oct 2023

The first sentence of the introduction opens the book with its place-time parameters: For the purpose of this volume, I have regarded the American West as beginning geographically west of the Mississippi River and ending chronologically at the turn of the last century, approximately with the closing of the frontier.7 The chronological beginning of the West is not as clear as its ending. The current environment began to take shape when the last ice age ended ten thousand years ago. Indigenous peoples developed nomadic and seminomadic lifeways that followed the seasons, the wildlife, the water. A network of trade routes connected parts of the West with the rest of the Americas, and complex civilizations arose on the Great Plains and throughout the Southwest and wherever there were sufficient resources to support settlement. The biggest change to the cultural landscape, though, came with the arrival of Europeans.

Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World
by James Ball
Published 19 Jul 2023

Counter-terror and extremism assessments had warned well in advance that the convoy was tied to extreme and conspiratorial movements, such as Didulo, who visited and addressed the Ottowa crowds,34 QAnon and the Canadian far right.35 Prime minister Justin Trudeau was forced to get approval to employ never-before-used emergency powers to deal with the persistent blockades, which imperilled vital trade routes between the USA and Canada.36 The actual demands of those in the convoy protest in Ottowa were unclear and inconsistent, at best. Though ostensibly about ending the country’s remaining Covid-19 restrictions, some signs urged passers-by (in the largely liberal city) to ‘take the red pill’, while other convoy protesters expressed support for controversial Canadian academic Jordan Peterson.37 Didulo used her time at the protest to burn a Canadian flag outside parliament.

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks
by Keith Houston
Published 23 Sep 2013

Geoffrey Ashall Glaister’s comprehensive Encyclopedia of the Book describes the symbol as the “digit,” and alleges that it was “found in early twelfth century (Spanish) manuscripts.”22 As with Johnson’s dismissal of the Domesday Book’s “self-explanatory” reference marks, Glaister’s factoid is dashed off with no corroboration (this author has come across at least one twelfth-century English book displaying a manicule, as seen in Figure 9.2), and detailed information about this early chapter of the manicule’s life remains tantalizingly out of reach.23 Figure 9.2 A twelfth-century English text, Leges angliae (Laws of England), decorated with a manicule. Also noteworthy here are two cross-shaped asterisks linking a marginal note with the main text, and the numerous Tironian ets scattered throughout. Starting in the fourteenth century, life in Europe began to shift away from medieval norms. New trade routes to the Orient and the assimilation of Arabian trading practices broadened Western horizons, while the fusty ranks of monks and theologians who had dominated academic study for centuries gave way to a new breed of “humanists” emanating from Florence, Naples, and other wealthy Italian city-states, and who concerned themselves with matters of earthly rather than divine import.24 In 1453, this flowering of intellectual life intersected with two seismic political events felt across the Continent: Constantinople fell to the ascendant Ottoman Turks, sending a stream of Greek scholars and ancient texts to the West, and the cessation of the Anglo-French Hundred Years’ War brought peace—if only a temporary one—to northern Europe.

The Pursuit of Power: Europe, 1815-1914
by Richard J. Evans
Published 31 Aug 2016

This encouraged foreign businesses to get involved, and the French in particular took advantage of this provision. By 1858 nearly 3,000 miles of track had been built in Spain, but the foreign companies who ran the system paid no attention to Spanish economic needs, so that the lines simply radiated out from Madrid or Barcelona instead of following traditional trade routes. Thus there was for a long time no cheap and reliable means of getting coal from the mines of Asturias in the north to the foundries of Vizcaya 200 miles to the east, which were obliged to rely on imports of Welsh coal instead. The railway boom reached Russia in the 1860s, driven by private firms operating under government guarantee.

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Nicolle was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his discovery. Alongside the decline of typhus and smallpox and the virtual disappearance of the bubonic plague, nineteenth-century Europeans also had to contend with an entirely new threat to their life and health: Asiatic cholera. The disease spread to Europe as a result of the opening up of new trade routes through Afghanistan and Persia following the British conquest of northern India, escaping from its reservoir in Bengal in 1817 and making its way westwards initially with troop movements and then with trade. Cholera spread to Europe because Europe’s strategic power was spreading across Asia. Soon christened ‘Asiatic cholera’, the disease was widely understood as Asia’s revenge: a deadly invasion from the supposedly backward and uncivilized East, launched just as Western civilization, in the eyes of many Europeans, was reaching the height of its progress and achievements.

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Things might have been very different had the European nations carried on fighting each other and exporting their conflicts to other parts of the globe, as they had done before 1815. Peace, underpinned by British naval hegemony, allowed the spread of communications networks, telegraph cables, sea lanes and trade routes, and intercontinental railways, leading to further economic development and a dense network of rapid imperial communications. Global trade expanded almost exponentially under these conditions, in a way that would have been impossible had the major industrializing states been fighting one another.

Frommer's New Mexico
by Lesley S. King
Published 2 Jan 1999

The most recent flows are only 1,000 years old; Native American legends tell of rivers of “fire rock.” Seventeen miles south of I-40 is La Ventana Natural Arch, the largest accessible natural arch in New Mexico. From NM 53, which exits I-40 just west of Grants, visitors have access to the Zuni-Acoma Trail, an ancient Pueblo trade route that crosses four major lava flows in a 71⁄2-mile (one-way) hike. A printed trail guide is available. El Calderon, a forested area 20 miles south of I-40, is a trail head for exploring a cinder cone, lava tubes, and a bat cave. (Warning: Hikers should not enter the bat cave or otherwise disturb the bats.)

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To find out more about this route, visit the El Camino Real International Heritage Center. See below for details. 309 SOUTHWESTERN NEW MEXICO Socorro & the VLA 11 Other Attractions El Camino Real International Heritage Center This museum, opened in 2005, tells the story of El Camino Real, the 1,500-mile international trade route from Mexico to San Juan Pueblo, near Santa Fe. The impressive $5-million, 20,000-square-foot structure, set in the middle of the desert, is an award-winning building perched like a ship above Sheep Canyon between Socorro and Truth or Consequences. In fact, the center is designed with ship elements, including a bowsprit on the helm.

Colorado
by Lonely Planet

Once a pioneer homestead belonging to an impressive woman widowed in her youth, it’s now a small and dramatically beautiful wildlife sanctuary. Trail Ridge Rd The signature drive in Rocky Mountain National Park, Trail Ridge Rd (US 34) over the Continental Divide was once a highway of a different sort – a trade route used by generations of Ute, Arapaho and Apache people to traverse Milner Pass. Of course, even the 19th century seems modern when you consider that archaeological evidence collected here suggests that humans have been traversing this pass for 6000 years. Which begs the questions, how old is this Milner guy and how many languages does he speak?

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The rangers are happy to suggest hikes and outings. There’s also a small on-site bookstore. Grand Junction POP 35,000 / ELEV 4586FT In truth, Grand Junction has long been about as utilitarian as its name might suggest. The town lies near two major rivers, and the intersection of highways today are built over trading routes centuries old. It ain’t much to see on its own, if you’re headed anywhere in the western part of this state, you’re bound to pass through. Amid one of Colorado’s most fertile agricultural zones, Grand Junction is a cow town at heart – despite being western Colorado’s main urban hub. Planners have partially turned downtown Main St into a pleasant pedestrian mall by reducing roads, planting trees, providing benches and littering it with sculptures.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
by Francis Fukuyama
Published 11 Apr 2011

There were many causes contributing to the political decay of the Mamluk regime and its destruction at the hands of the Ottomans in 1517. Egypt endured twenty-six years of plagues between 1388 and 1514. One of the immediate consequences of the rise of the Ottomans was that it became harder and harder for the Mamluks to recruit young slave-soldiers since the Ottomans sat directly astride the trade routes to Central Asia. And finally, the Mamluk system proved too inflexible to adopt new military technologies, particularly the use of firearms by infantry forces. The Ottomans, facing a European enemy, began to use firearms in 1425, perhaps a century after the innovation was first explored in Europe.25 They quickly mastered these weapons, and cannons played a key role in the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

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An enormous complacency pervaded Ming China in all walks of life. It was not just emperors who didn’t feel it necessary to extract as much as they could in taxes; other forms of innovation and change simply didn’t seem to be worth the effort. The eunuch admiral Zheng He sailed across the Indian Ocean and discovered new trade routes and civilizations. This didn’t provoke curiosity, however, and the voyages were never followed up. The next emperor cut the navy’s budget as an economizing move, and the Chinese Age of Discovery was over almost before it had begun. Similarly, during the Song Dynasty, an inventor named Su Sung invented the world’s first mechanical clock, a huge, multistory mechanism powered by a waterwheel, but it was abandoned when the Rurzhen conquered the Song capital of Kaifeng.

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military
by Neil Degrasse Tyson and Avis Lang
Published 10 Sep 2018

Nevertheless, little more than a century after Herodotus wrote those words, a daring Greek from Massalia named Pytheas may well have made his way to the Atlantic Ocean, the tin works of Cornwall, and much else besides.16 Massalia (Marseille) was the colony of a colony, one of many Greek and Phoenician maritime cities that sprouted across and beyond the full breadth of the Mediterranean from the early to the middle of the first millennium BC. During those centuries, the founding of colonies and the forging of trade routes proceeded hand in hand with the development of warships and the establishment of navies.17 Alongside all that commerce and conflict, inquiry and learning flourished as well. Interchange took place on every coast; information poured in from every direction. Anaximander, a resident of the thriving Greek city of Miletus, drew the first map of the inhabited regions of Earth.

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And the Chinese state, which grew plenty of sugar and other tropical delights within its own borders, had little cause to put money, personnel, and effort into creating colonies overseas.37 The Portuguese, on the other hand, representing king, country, and God, sought both control and colonies. Good ships and newfangled guns gave them the advantage as they revived the practices of building forts, blocking trade routes, claiming trade monopolies, boarding foreign ships, and generally seeking to rule the waves and harbors. A key part of their program was to find routes free of Ottoman control and thus free of Ottoman tax collectors.38 Venturing far across the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the fifteenth century, the Portuguese had need of knowledge and instruments more elaborate than those used by the average captain crisscrossing the Mediterranean or exploring the east coast of Africa or taking soundings for depth, sampling bottom silt, and monitoring the tides in the fogbound English Channel or the Baltic.

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
by Edward E. Baptist
Published 24 Oct 2016

Many in Congress feared that the western settlements might secede or, worse yet, fall into the arms of European empires. As Britain’s Indian allies raided south from their base at Detroit, Spain claimed the English-speaking settlements around Natchez. In 1784, Spain also closed the mouth of the Mississippi at New Orleans, the main trading route for western US territories. Eastern states also disagreed vehemently over how to sort out their overlapping claims to blocks of western land, which legislators hoped to sell in order to pay bonds issued during the Revolution. In the area that became Kentucky, still technically part of Virginia, the confusion generated by the uncertain government made it hard for small farmers like the Lincolns to make hard-won homesteads good.

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“It is better to buy none in families, but to select only choice, first rate, young hands from 16 to 25 years of age (buying no children or aged negroes),” those same old Natchez planters quoted above told John Knight. Before American acquisition, Louisiana enslavers had bought children, adults, and older adults in percentages proportionate to their presence in the population. But after the purchase and the establishment of new trade routes and robust systems of credit, entrepreneurs bidding at Maspero’s began to demand that eastern sellers send them young adults ready to start work right away, and able to produce profits for years to come. By the five-year period starting in 1815, almost 45 percent of the enslaved people bought from other states were between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five: more than twice as many as the number between twenty-six and forty-four, and significantly more than the children aged thirteen and under (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3).52 Enslavers wanted to buy people who had no claim to a special status—who were as unformed as Henry Watson had been in the eyes of Natchez buyer Alexander McNeill.

Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War: 1938-1941
by Alan Allport
Published 2 Sep 2020

In March 1938, under pressure to reduce the naval estimates, the government deferred the building of two new flotillas of destroyers, two escort vessels, three patrol vessels and four minesweepers.21 It was only a few days before the outbreak of war that the Admiralty finally placed orders for fifty-six new anti-submarine escort sloops equipped with ASDIC, depth charges and four-inch guns. These were the first of the so-called ‘Flower’ class corvettes which would be vital to the defence of the North Atlantic trade route over the next six years. But most of the Flower class corvettes would not be ready for commissioning until 1941. Only about 100 vessels suitable for anti-submarine escort were available to the Royal Navy in September 1939, a very modest force to defend up to 3,000 ocean-going merchant ships.22 As a result, only an average of two escorts could be provided for each transatlantic convoy at the start of the war.

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I have already given you the political data upon which the military arrangements for the defence of Singapore should be based, namely, that should Japan enter the war the United States will in all probability come in on our side; and in any case Japan would not be likely to besiege Singapore at the outset, as this would be an operation far more dangerous to her and less harmful to us than spreading her cruisers and battle-cruisers on the Eastern trade routes.56 Dill responded on 15 May, a fact omitted from Churchill’s account in The Grand Alliance. He pointed out that his argument that the defence of Singapore had a greater strategic priority than the defence of Egypt was simply a repetition of Churchill’s own statements on the matter. In addition, I agree with you that the defence of Singapore requires only a fraction of the troops required for the defence of Egypt.

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
by Joseph Henrich
Published 7 Sep 2020

This has operated differently in diverse regions, with exchange-oriented social norms sometimes evolving to foster more smoothly flowing trade between occupational castes or ethno-religious groups. In South Asia, for example, some medieval ports established enduring exchange relationships between local Hindus and Muslim traders on the Indian Ocean. Centuries later, long after the disruption of Islamic trade routes by European powers, trading ports experience less interethnic violence between Hindus and Muslims than nontrading cities. It seems that trade between these groups forged enduring informal institutions, the psychological effects of which persisted long after trade ceased.63 These kinds of prosocial effects can be observed today all over the world by examining the relationship between a community’s proximity to large rivers or oceans and the attitudes of its inhabitants toward foreigners and immigrants.

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Beyond their original use in grinding grain, European communities gradually deployed windmills for a growing list of jobs, including throwing silk, extracting oil, and manufacturing gunpowder. Later, Europeans dumped their awkward roman numerals (I, II, III, etc.) for more user-friendly arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.), including a symbol for zero that had originated in India. After 1500, when Europeans opened global trade routes and subjugated vast overseas empires, the products, technologies, and practices from other distant societies flooded in, further energizing science, innovation, and production: latex, quinine, fertilizer (guano), potatoes, sugar, coffee, and the cotton gin (inspired by the Indian charka), just to highlight a few.

The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy
by Sasha Issenberg
Published 1 Jan 2007

Japanese communities on the West Coast were dispersed by mass internments—Hoshizaki and other Mutual Trading executives were sent to the camp at Manzanar—and it took a while for neighborhoods to be resettled. There wasn’t much business to conduct, anyway: The Japanese economy was threadbare, and Pacific trade routes in shambles. Luckily, unlike most Japanese-American businesses, Mutual Trading’s assets had been guarded at the Maryknoll Church, popular with Japanese families who had been exposed to Catholicism from missionary visits in the late nineteenth century. As residents returned to Little Tokyo and tried to rebuild their house holds, Mutual Trading was the only vendor in town with merchandise on hand.

How to Fix Copyright
by William Patry
Published 3 Jan 2012

Adam Smith claimed, in the eighteenth century, that an increase in the size of markets leads to increases in the diversity of offerings.16 Trade among countries increases this diversity by introducing people in one country to the goods, services, and cultures of others.17 Most of the early great powers, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, were sea powers. The Greeks spread their culture wherever they went, whether that spread was voluntary or forced as part of a conquest. France, Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Portugal did the same.The trade routes to the Far East transmitted more than spices. From the Industrial Revolution forward, increased literacy rates and mass production led to an expansion of culture so that it was no longer the province of the upper classes.Walt Whitman remarked, “To have great poets, there must be great audiences.”18 Whitman believed that poetry could be appreciated by the working class 254 HOW TO FIX COPYRIGHT and later regretted that he had not toured the country and given readings to the working class.19 Alexis de Tocqueville, in studying the United States, took a different view, concluding that “market growth serves as a magnet, pulling creators towards mass production and away from serving niches,” resulting in “a culture of the least common denominator. . . .”20 De Tocqueville’s rather than Smith’s views seems to have prevailed.

Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure
by Julian Smith
Published 7 Dec 2010

I was amazed she remembered—I’d forgotten saying it myself. But she was right. I could picture the precipice, clear as day. CHAPTER TEN Grogan and Sharp couldn’t wait to get off the Good News at Ujiji, one of the oldest and most famous towns in central Africa. For more than a century, it had been the western end of the lucrative Arab trading route to the island city of Zanzibar, almost due east on the coast. Caravans laden with ivory arrived from the Congo trailing long lines of manacled slaves. Those who survived the journey were auctioned in the markets of Zanzibar and Dar-Es-Salaam, its coastal counterpart. Ujiji’s glory days faded as the slave trade was gradually abolished in the nineteenth century.

Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia
by Tony Horwitz
Published 1 Jan 1991

But most of the towers seemed to squat rather than soar. Urine trickled from holes in the upper floors, a primitive sewage system that relied on the hot sun to dry waste water as it dribbled down. From atop the ramparts there was still a glimpse of former glory. A cleft in the mountains marked the site of an ancient trade route, along which passed caravans of myrrh and frankincense on their way to the Mediterranean port of Gaza. Muslim pilgrims also followed the road north to visit Mecca, just over the mountains. Their gravestones, covered in calligraphy, massed outside Saada's walls, facing the holy city. These days, thousands of Yemenis made the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for worldlier gain.

Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It
by Richard A. Clarke and Robert Knake
Published 15 Dec 2010

It’s not the islands that China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei are feuding over, but what is under them and around them. The reefs have some of the largest remaining stocks of fish in the world, a resource not to be discounted among the growing and hungry nations that lay claim to the waters. The islands also skirt the critical trade route that links the Indian Ocean to the Pacific nations through which a large majority of the world’s oil flows out of the Middle East. Then there are the Spratlys’ oil and gas. Undeveloped fields estimated to hold more natural gas than are Kuwait, currently home to the fourth-largest reserves in the world, could fuel the economies of any of the countries for decades to come.

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 1 Mar 2016

We must reckon with how and why we did this. MASS MASS MASS For a happy couple of centuries before industrialism and the modern era, the business landscape looked something like Burning Man, the famous desert festival for digital artisans. The military campaigns of the Crusades had opened new trade routes throughout Europe and beyond. Soldiers were returning from faraway places after having been exposed to all sorts of new crafts and techniques for building and farming. They even copied a market they had observed in the Middle East—the bazaar—where people could exchange not only their goods but also their ideas, leading to innovations in milling, fabrication, and finance.

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World
by Steven Johnson
Published 15 Nov 2016

A Babylonian living two thousand years before Christ would have had no idea about the existence of the Spice Islands, or Indonesia—or the Indian Ocean for that matter. Put another way, those tiny spices traveled thousands of miles farther than any individual human had ever traveled. The epic relay race that brought the cloves to modern-day Syria is lost to us now, but our knowledge of spice-trade routes from Roman times suggests the broad outlines of the itinerary. Outriggers or Chinese traders would have carried the cloves down through the Java Sea, winding their way through the narrow straits of Malacca. At port cities in Sumatra or modern-day Malaysia, they would have been sold to Indian traders who brought them across the Bay of Bengal around Sri Lanka to the Malabar coast of India.

Industry 4.0: The Industrial Internet of Things
by Alasdair Gilchrist
Published 27 Jun 2016

Another possible use-case is in supply chain management where the predictive analysis techniques of Big Data can come into play. The world’s largest logistic companies need to know the latest current events on a global scale, such as the political climate as well as the local weather conditions that affect traditional trade routes. They need to know of impending strike action by traffic controllers or crane drivers in a shipping port, as these could cause massive disruption and have a knock-on effect to a customer’s stock inventory levels. However, with trucks and goods bristling with sensors, it is now possible Industry 4.0 to harvest this data on a global level.

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
Published 6 May 2007

By the middle of the tenth century, more than a century before the Crusades began, half the Christian world had been conquered by Muslim Arab armies: the city of Jerusalem and countries in which Christianity had been established for centuries, including Egypt, Sicily, Spain, and Turkey. In 1095, Pope Urban II called on the French aristocracy to wage holy war against all Muslims. A pilgrimage to regain Jerusalem would give European towns an opportunity to extend their trade routes; it would organize the newly affluent warrior aristocracy and mobilize the peasants into a unified force; and it would unite the Christian world, which had been split into Eastern and Roman factions. The Pope assured his forces that killing a Muslim was an act of Christian penance. Anyone killed in battle, the Pope promised, would bypass thousands of years of torture in purgatory and go directly to heaven.

Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security
by Sarah Chayes
Published 19 Jan 2015

CHAPTER TEN Variation 4: The Resource Kleptocracy Nigeria, ca. 2014 In Africa’s populous giant, Nigeria, conservative Muslims are found not in the lush southern valleys but in the dry and gradually desertifying north. Among the oldest cities in West Africa is Kano, on the fringes of this zone. Its dense, vibrant core once cinched together trade routes crossing the habitable lands on the southern edge of the Sahara with those leading north to the centers of thought and industry on the Mediterranean. Today, in that compact old-city hub, stalls at ground level and suspended overhead on a kind of open-air scaffolding overflow with bright-hued bolts of the region’s famous fabrics.

Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System
by Alexander Betts and Paul Collier
Published 29 Mar 2017

After finding a disused generator and spending seven months repairing it, he began to collect televisions and old PlayStation games consoles. He now charges young refugees a nominal fee to play Fifa World Soccer and other games, ploughing his profits back into gradually expanding the business. Furthermore, Nakivale’s economy is not just an isolated enclave; it is nested within broader trade routes and supply chains. To take an example, across the settlement, many Congolese buy and sell a brightly coloured ceremonial fabric called bitenge. A commonly held belief among many of the international community staff is that the fabric simply comes across the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Paris Revealed
by Stephen Clarke
Published 12 Aug 2012

And for those who prefer to do nothing, there are several hundred loungers and parasols laid out on artificial beaches (along with an equal number of security men to stop them being stolen). It really is a holiday resort for people who can’t afford to, or don’t want to, leave the city in summer. And Parisians flock there like migrating flamingos. The migration is spreading out from the city centre, too. I live near Napoleon’s Canal de l’Ourcq, which was once one of France’s main trade routes, and is now slowly emerging from decades of industrial and urban decline. In summer, people rent canoes and pedalos, there are one-euro boat trips up the canal to the suburb of Pantin, and a small marina has been installed. Part of the canal, along the Bassin de la Villette, has even been incorporated into the Paris Plage scheme, forcing the city to rename it Paris Plages, plural.

The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the Hidden Power of Urban Networks.
by Steven Johnson
Published 18 Oct 2006

Newspapers would track the disease’s progress through the harbors and trading towns of Europe, as it marched relentlessly across the Continent. When cholera first appeared in New York City in the summer of 1832, it attacked the city from the north: arriving first in Montreal via ships originating in France, the disease spent a month snaking along the trade routes of upstate New York toward the city, then floating straight down the Hudson. Every few days the papers would announce that the cholera had taken another step; when it eventually arrived, in early July, almost half the city had escaped to the countryside, creating traffic jams that resembled the Long Island Expressway on a modern-day Fourth of July weekend.

Digital Bank: Strategies for Launching or Becoming a Digital Bank
by Chris Skinner
Published 27 Aug 2013

Greek slave traders often bartered salt for slaves, giving rise to the expression that someone was “not worth his salt”, whilst Roman legionnaires were paid in salt rations known as ‘solarium argentums’ also known as a ‘salarium’, the Latin origin of the word “salary”. Jesus said “Ye are the salt of the earth” and trade routes such as the ancient Via Salaria, which led from northern Italy to the Adriatic Sea, were used to transport the valuable seasoning inland from the coast. This brought riches and prosperity to the bordering cities which were often named for the white mineral: “Salz”, the German word for salt, which gave Salzburg and Salzgitter their names.

To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Express, the World's Greatest Railroad
by Christian Wolmar
Published 4 Aug 2014

He argued that Siberia was no longer ‘a desolate and terrible country inhabited by convicts’,14 but rather a rich source of resources which could be exploited with a railway connection. He wanted it to run from Moscow right through to the Amur river, but if that were impossible, at least as far as Irkutsk. He wanted it to use the northern route through Perm, rather than existing trade routes through the south in order to spur the development of these areas, which were home to tribes and untouched by civilization. His plan, though, attracted scant support from the committee of ministers, the contemporary equivalent of the Cabinet. Although, Posyet’s proposal did not gain the support of the committee, it did decide to go ahead with the construction of a railway from Nizhny-Novgorod along the right bank of the Volga to Kazan and Yekaterinburg, a proposal endorsed by the tsar in December 1875.

Two Nations, Indivisible: A History of Inequality in America: A History of Inequality in America
by Jamie Bronstein
Published 29 Oct 2016

Over the period between 1780 and 1850, life expectancies at age 10 declined in the United States from a high of almost 56 years to a low of 48, and mean heights dropped from 5 feet 7 inches for white men to 5 feet 6 inches. These factors suggest that in the short run, market revolution changes could be detrimental. Historians have suggested that inequality of distribution, variable trade cycles, urbanization, and the ease with which diseases could travel along new trade routes may have been to blame.11 In his book Democracy in America, written after an 1831 tour of the United States, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville praised American social and economic mobility.12 Of course the second quarter of the nineteenth century saw the making of many fortunes in diverse industries.

The Post-American World: Release 2.0
by Fareed Zakaria
Published 1 Jan 2008

In addition, the new nongovernmental forces that are increasingly active will constrain Washington substantially. This is a challenge for Washington but also for everyone else. For almost three centuries, the world has been undergirded by the presence of a large liberal hegemon—first Britain, then the United States. These two superpowers helped create and maintain an open world economy, protecting trade routes and sea lanes, acting as lenders of last resort, holding the reserve currency, investing abroad, and keeping their own markets open. They also tipped the military balance against the great aggressors of their ages, from Napoleon’s France, to Germany, to the Soviet Union. For all its abuses of power, the United States has been the creator and sustainer of the current order of open trade and democratic government—an order that has been benign and beneficial for the vast majority of humankind.

The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization
by Richard Baldwin
Published 14 Nov 2016

Spain had colonies throughout Central America and the west coast of South America—most notably in Peru and Bolivia. From the start of the sixteenth century, Europeans dominated Europe-to-Asia trade, playing “king of the hill” among themselves. The Dutch knocked off the Portuguese, and were in turned knocked off by the British. In addition to altering Asian–European trade routes, this so-called Age of Discovery is associated with Europeans’ colonization of North and South America—an event that would help reverse ten millennia of economic dominance by Eurasian civilizations. The Columbian Exchange: Food Crops for Epidemics The shift of the planet’s economic center of gravity to the North Atlantic was based in part on the so-called Columbian Exchange.

When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence
by Stephen D. King
Published 17 Jun 2013

The first symptom of the Black Death was the appearance of a bubo – a boil – in either the armpit or the groin, followed by internal bleeding that led to bruising on the skin. After a few days of terrible pain and suffering, the unlucky victim would drop dead. The Black Death probably arrived in Europe via the Silk Road, the trading route that connected China to modern-day Turkey and Syria. It didn't help that corpses of plague victims were catapulted into castles during sieges, a sure way of spreading disease with unseemly haste. The Black Death travelled across Europe at tremendous speed and, by the end of 1348, had arrived in England.

You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves
by Hiawatha Bray
Published 31 Mar 2014

“The time was a critical and anxious one in the war,” Jackson wrote in 1920, “and I had also some reasons for expecting that the German fleet might put out to sea during the week.”10 Messages intercepted by Room 40 indicated that eighteen German U-boats had put to sea a couple of weeks earlier, but had not shown up on normal trade routes for their usual attacks on merchant ships. The Royal Navy suspected that the U-boats were being deployed to assist the German fleet in their planned breakout.11 Later that day Round’s radio listening posts issued a new report. The ship that had broadcast the previous message had since moved a few miles north.

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made
by Jason Schreier
Published 4 Sep 2017

We would even reference other games, like Red Dead Redemption or Skyrim, check how they did it, and then we wanted to figure out, all right, does this feel good for us, do we need it denser, or vary from that.” Tost’s team didn’t just want The Witcher 3’s world to feel like a collection of disparate quests—they wanted it to support an entire ecosystem. There would be a village that built bricks, connected to the city of Novigrad via elaborate trade routes. There would be manufacturing, agriculture, and all the other accouterments of a realistic medieval world. “If you look at the farming areas around Novigrad, all of these exist to support this huge city which believably could exist in this world,” said Tost. “All of these people living there, they get support from different kinds of infrastructure around the world.

How to Be Idle
by Tom Hodgkinson
Published 1 Jan 2004

A good wife would ensure a steady supply; good employers attracted labourers with the quality of their ale. It was the national drink for a chaotic and strong-willed country of ruddyfaced boozers. We may not have been particularly refined, but we knew how to have a good time. Thanks, however, to new trade routes, tea began to filter in to English culture in the late seventeenth century. It was at first fashionable at court, probably because it was expensive and rare. But its popularity began to spread. One early apologist for tea was Dr Johnson. There was none of the oriental refinement in the way he drank it, and the custom of tea at four or five 0' clock had not yet been invented.

Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds
by Rusty Bradley and Kevin Maurer
Published 27 Jun 2011

The sickness quickly turned to anger. My team now had to fight for ground we had already taken. Kandahar was the prize—strategically vital to both us and the Taliban. The third-largest city in Afghanistan, Kandahar has been fought over for centuries. Since the time of Alexander the Great it has stood at the crossroads of trade routes to five major cities: Herat and Gereshk to the west, Kabul and Ghazni to the northeast, and Quetta in Pakistan to the south. With its airport and extensive network of roads, the city served as a center for the mujahideen resistance during the Soviet invasion and was the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s hometown.

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization
by Branko Milanovic
Published 10 Apr 2016

I shall argue that the modern historical era, the past five hundred years, is characterized by Kuznets waves of alternating increases and decreases in inequality. Before the Industrial Revolution, when mean income was stagnant, there was no relationship between mean income level and the level of inequality. Wages and inequality were driven up or down by idiosyncratic events such as epidemics, new discoveries (of the Americas or of new trade routes between Europe and Asia), invasions, and wars. If inequality decreased as mean income and wages went up and the poor became slightly better off, Malthusian checks would be triggered: the population would increase to unsustainable levels and would ultimately be driven down (as the average per capita income declined) by higher mortality rates among the poor.

Future Tense: Jews, Judaism, and Israel in the Twenty-First Century
by Jonathan Sacks
Published 19 Apr 2010

It was in Mesopotamia that the first city-states were built, and in Egypt that the greatest and longest-lived of ancient empires had its base. So Israel would almost invariably be a small country at the juncture of powerful empires, in a simultaneously strategic and vulnerable location on major trade routes. The normal movement of population is from poor countries to rich ones, and from rudimentary to more advanced civilisations. The two great Jewish journeys, Abraham’s from Ur of the Chaldees, and Moses’ and the Israelites’ from Egypt, were in the opposite direction. The explanation is, as I have said, that the Bible is a critique of empires.

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World
by Gaia Vince
Published 22 Aug 2022

The Yamnaya would have been an extraordinary sight, like nothing the indigenous European crop farmers had seen before: fair-skinned, dark-eyed warriors decorated with bronze jewellery, hurtling along on horseback and with horse-drawn wagons. Their advanced metalwork and intricately patterned earthenware have been dug up from Scotland to Morocco. They also brought their Indo-European language, whose roots lay in northern Iran, and set up the first Eurasian trade in marijuana. The trade routes created by Yamnaya and their neighbours became part of the Silk Road several millennia later. The Yamnaya were so transformative partly because they were networked – a web of mobile societies that formed an intercontinental communication system – and because of their trading prowess. Successful migration relies on networks of collaboration and exchange.

Work! Consume! Die!
by Frankie Boyle
Published 12 Oct 2011

In the classical world I could have perhaps enjoyed watching it, as it was training for battle. I would have sat engrossed as lithe men leapt at each other with weapons, happy for them to be celebrated by my society because they would soon be dead. I would have watched their tricks and flips in a different light, knowing that they would soon be slashed to pieces to defend a trade route, their muscular bodies impaled on a stake as a grim warning, their hand-to-eye co-ordination counting for naught now that their hands and eyes had been taken as trophies, while I tried to get into their widows’ togas by writing poems in their memory. ‘I think about whether I care and decide that, on balance, I don’t’ Paul Marsh drives my daughter and me out to Mugdock Park.

The Warhol Economy
by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
Published 15 Jan 2020

In The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene 1974–1984, edited by Marvin Taylor. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 97–116. Grabher, Gernot. (2001). Ecologies of Creativity: the Village, the Group and the Heterarchic Organisation of the British Advertising Industry. Environmental Planning A, 33: 351–74. ———. (2006). Trading Routes, Bypasses and Risky Intersections: Mapping the Travels of “Networks” Between Economic Sociology and Economic Geography. Progress in Human Geography 30, 2:1–27. Granovetter, Mark S. (1972). The Strength of Weak Ties. Chicago: American Journal of Sociology 78, 6:1360–1380. ———. (1985). Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance
by Laurie Garrett
Published 31 Oct 1994

Like Evans, McNeill saw stages over time in human relations with the microbes, but he linked them not so much to economic development as to the nature at any given moment of the ecology of a society. He argued that waterborne parasitic diseases dominated the human ecology when people invented irrigation farming. Global trade routes facilitated the spread of bacterial diseases, such as plague. The creation of cities led to an enormous increase in human-to-human contact, allowing for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and respiratory viruses. Over the long course of history, McNeill said, pathogenic microbes sought stability in their relationships with hosts.

…

According to what little archaeological information and scientific conjecture is available, their microbial threats came primarily from parasites in their food and water or were carried by local insects. Over the next 4,000 years the human population slowly increased and people congregated around rivers, ocean ports, and sites of rich food resources. Trade routes emerged, connecting the nascent urban centers, and the city’s residents thrived off their merchants’ exploits and the taxes they levied on their poorer rural subjects. By the time the Egyptians ceased building pyramids, around 2000 B.C., there were several cities with thousands of inhabitants each: Memphis, Thebes, Ur—the religious or political capitals of empires.

…

In these areas two factors may have played a role: a highly mobile Asian population that traveled frequently to India and other regions of resistant malaria, and relatively high availability of chloroquine through both legal and black-market venues. From there, resistance spread along the equatorial travel routes connecting traders from Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zaire, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda—the same trade routes implicated in the spread of the region’s AIDS epidemic. The problem eventually spread outward, from Addis Ababa to Cape Town, from Senegal to Madagascar.150 Studies of the newly emerging P. falciparum strains showed that the mutations involved in resistance, once present, were permanent features in the parasitic line.

The Rough Guide to Brazil
by Rough Guides
Published 22 Sep 2018

On the way up, sit on the left-hand side of the bus for great views along a oneway road, bordered by naked rock on one side and a sheer drop on the other; the return to Rio is made by a slightly different route that also snakes its way through terrifying mountain passes. The landscape is dramatic, climbing among forested slopes that give way suddenly to ravines and gullies, while clouds shroud the surrounding mountains. In 1720, Bernardo Soares de Proença opened a trade route between Rio and Minas Gerais, and in return was conceded the area around the present site of Petrópolis as a royal land grant. Surrounded by stunning scenery, and with a gentle, alpine summer climate, it had by the nineteenth century become a favourite retreat of Rio’s elite. The arrival of German immigrants contributed to the development of the town, and has much to do with its curious European Gothic feel.

…

Its downtown area manages to combine skyscraping banks and apartment buildings with ranchers’ general stores and poky little shops selling strange forest herbs and Catholic ex votos. Reminiscent in parts of quiet southern US cities, it’s a relatively salubrious market centre for an enormous cattle-ranching region, as well as being an important centre of trade routes from Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina and the south of Brazil. A pioneering place, many of the early twentieth-century settlers here were Arabs, some of whom have since started businesses such as restaurants and hotels. There is also a large Japanese section of the immigrant population, which has left its mark on the local culinary trade.

…

There was no use of metal or the wheel, and no centralized, state-like civilizations on the scale of Spanish America. The arrival of the Portuguese was an utter catastrophe for these peoples: measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea and influenza killed thousands, often spreading along local trade routes long before direct contact with Europeans. In 1500 the total number of indigenous people was probably around five million – by 1800 there were just 250,000. However, the 2010 census revealed that 817,000 Brazilians now classify themselves as indigenous, and given that almost every single Portuguese colonist took a local wife in the early years of settlement, millions of Brazilians are likely to carry indigenous genes today.

The Evolutionary Void
by Peter F. Hamilton
Published 18 Aug 2010

The constables also had to ensure free movement along those streets, which, given that a lot of the elderly had difficulty walking, was becoming quite taxing. The charity and goodwill of the permanent residents that had blossomed after the first couple of visits by Skylords were all but gone now. The gondola arrived in Mid Pool and headed up Trade Route Canal. They had to wait several minutes before the mooring platform at the end of Jodsell Street had a free berth. From there it was only a short walk along the street to the district master’s mansion at the center of Sampalok. Edeard always felt slightly bashful whenever he entered the big square at the heart of Sampalok.

…

Something in human nature just called out to occupy and use the empty city. The boat idea was a good one, she thought, both therapeutic and practical. However, it overlooked the fact she’d never done any manual work in her life and didn’t know the first thing about carpentry. Maybe tomorrow. She went over the flat pink bridge across Trade Route Canal and into the tip of Pholas Park. From there she had to walk along Lilac Canal for several minutes until she came to a blue humpback bridge into Fiacre. The human bridges of metal and wood must have been the first artifacts to disappear after their builders left. Now she had to use the city’s own crossings.

The Taste of War: World War Two and the Battle for Food
by Lizzie Collingham
Published 1 Jan 2011

The British food supply was heavily dependent on the diplomatic skills of the men of the British Food Mission in Washington who represented Britain’s food needs at the Combined Food Board and worked hard to persuade the Americans and Britain’s other allies that British food requests were reasonable and that they should take priority over competing raw-material and military requirements.5 The success of the British Food Mission meant that although the Battle of the Atlantic hampered the Allies’ ability to conduct military operations, at no point in the war did it threaten the British people with hunger, let alone starvation. THE WORST WINTER OF THE WAR As German troops marched into Poland, Hitler ordered all submarines patrolling the ocean trade routes to attack hostile ships without warning.6 The Germans used submarines, planes and mines to sink the British merchant marine. Throughout 1940 Admiral Karl Dönitz, head of the U-boat arm of the German navy, was able to inflict severe damage on British merchant shipping with the fifty-seven submarines under his command.7 Without radar or sophisticated anti-submarine technology, the British navy were unable to provide ships with adequate protection from this invisible enemy.

…

This is remembered in Tanganyika as ‘Europe’s famine’.69 By caving in to settler demands the colonial East African governments failed to implement policies which secured the benefits of higher wartime prices for food for African farmers. Nevertheless, the official price, even for African maize, doubled, and many Africans made their own efforts to ensure that they were able to participate in the wartime bonanza. Some simply side-stepped the government and evaded controls by transporting their maize along pre-colonial trade routes at night. Black market maize fetched an even higher price than that paid to the settlers by the government purchasing boards.70 Whether East Africans went hungry depended on the ways in which the war disrupted their local economy. In areas where there was road-building, a disproportionate number of wage labourers compared to farmers led to a tendency towards over-selling and later hunger.

Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation
by Edward Chancellor
Published 31 May 2000

Forum der Schweizer Geschichte Zeughausstrasse 5 • Tues–Sun 10am–5pm • Charge • forumschwyz.ch To get a sense of the historical circumstances that fostered the famous Charter of Confederation, it’s worth visiting the Forum der Schweizer Geschichte (Forum of Swiss History), a branch of the Swiss National Museum, in the town centre beside the bus station. Videos and interactive displays cover the region and Switzerland’s social history, looking in particular at the trading routes the communities who first signed such agreements wished to protect. These explanations are interspersed with some fascinating artefacts, including a shield bearing the coat of arms of the masters of Brienz dating from 1180–1225, and the interior of a room from a local house dating from 1311, its wooden walls daubed in black.

…

Johann Jacobs Museum Seefeldquai 17 • Temporarily closed at the time of writing • Charge • johannjacobs.com The lakeside promenades running south from Bellevue are crowded with people all summer long, blading, strolling and chatting in the sunshine. Following them south brings you past the Johann Jacobs Museum, a mildly diverting place in an elegant lakeside villa, devoted to historical and current trade routes. Temporary exhibitions explore the way cultures interact and overlap when commodities travel. Zürichhorn Chinese garden April–Oct daily 11am–9pm • Free • chinagarten-zuerich.ch Just beyond is the Zürichhorn park, a popular place for soaking up some sunshine that also boasts the fine Heureka sculpture by Jean Tinguely and a visually striking, but underwhelming, walled Chinese garden, a gift from Zürich’s twin city of Kunming, featuring a traditional zigzag bridge and pavilions, and the three symbolic species of pine, bamboo and cherry.

The Rough Guide to Switzerland (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 24 May 2022

Forum der Schweizer Geschichte Zeughausstrasse 5 • Tues–Sun 10am–5pm • Charge • forumschwyz.ch To get a sense of the historical circumstances that fostered the famous Charter of Confederation, it’s worth visiting the Forum der Schweizer Geschichte (Forum of Swiss History), a branch of the Swiss National Museum, in the town centre beside the bus station. Videos and interactive displays cover the region and Switzerland’s social history, looking in particular at the trading routes the communities who first signed such agreements wished to protect. These explanations are interspersed with some fascinating artefacts, including a shield bearing the coat of arms of the masters of Brienz dating from 1180–1225, and the interior of a room from a local house dating from 1311, its wooden walls daubed in black.

…

Johann Jacobs Museum Seefeldquai 17 • Temporarily closed at the time of writing • Charge • johannjacobs.com The lakeside promenades running south from Bellevue are crowded with people all summer long, blading, strolling and chatting in the sunshine. Following them south brings you past the Johann Jacobs Museum, a mildly diverting place in an elegant lakeside villa, devoted to historical and current trade routes. Temporary exhibitions explore the way cultures interact and overlap when commodities travel. Zürichhorn Chinese garden April–Oct daily 11am–9pm • Free • chinagarten-zuerich.ch Just beyond is the Zürichhorn park, a popular place for soaking up some sunshine that also boasts the fine Heureka sculpture by Jean Tinguely and a visually striking, but underwhelming, walled Chinese garden, a gift from Zürich’s twin city of Kunming, featuring a traditional zigzag bridge and pavilions, and the three symbolic species of pine, bamboo and cherry.

Rats
by Robert Sullivan
Published 8 May 2009

It is theorized that the nomads who lived in the area were spared plague death because the fleas on the tarbagans were apparently repelled by the smell of the tribe's horses; a balance existed between flea-infected tarbagans and humans. Then something happened to the area that disturbed that balance. Historians speculate about earthquakes, but no one knows for certain. Another change occurring at the time was the building of a road, a great silk-trading route that connected Europe with China. Italians were especially interested in trading for silk, and they set up colonies along the eastern shore of the Black Sea, which was from where people like Marco Polo made their way to China. Along with silk and other trading goods, the traders brought back rats, probably black rats, which preceded Rattus norvegicus into Europe and were migrating along the human routes from Asia.

Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language
by Robert McCrum
Published 24 May 2010

Britain, having lost one empire in the West, found a second one in the East. With remarkable foresight, the Scots economist Adam Smith identified this process as early as 1776 in The Wealth of Nations. There were, wrote Smith, two milestones on Britain’s road to global empire: the settlement of North America and the opening of trade routes to India and the East: The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind. By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one another’s wants, to increase one another’s enjoyments, and to encourage one another’s industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial.

Climbing Mount Improbable
by Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward
Published 1 Jan 1996

Their trick is to exploit external energy sources. If it weren’t for the sun’s heat and the moon’s shifting gravity, air and sea would be still. External energy charges up the ocean currents, pumps up the winds, stirs the dust-devils, rocks the atmosphere with powerful forces capable of flattening a house or driving a trade-route; it also engenders thermal up-currents which, if you use them judiciously, can raise you to the clouds. Vultures, eagles and albatrosses use them to perfection. They may be the only animals to match our skill in mining the energy of the weather. My main source of information on soaring birds is the writings of Dr Colin Pennycuick of Bristol University.

Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture
by Taylor Clark
Published 5 Nov 2007

This Frenchman’s name was Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, and when his quest began, in the autumn of 1720, he was an ambitious young naval officer on leave in Paris from his post on the Ca-rib-be-an island of Martinique. De Clieu was acutely aware of the fact that the early eighteenth century was a terrible time to be a coffee drinker; beans were both scarce and costly. At the time, the Dutch trading empire controlled the continent’s two major coffee sources — plantations on the Indonesian island of Java and trade routes with the Yemeni port of Mocha — and as with any monopoly, they made the most of it. * Continental coffee aficionados had little recourse in the matter. They couldn’t grow the beans themselves, as coffee trees withered in European soil without meticulous supervision. Dutch hegemony appeared inescapable.

QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance
by Lloyd, John and Mitchinson, John
Published 7 Oct 2010

Bartolomeu Dias (1451–1500), the Portuguese navigator who discovered the Cape of Good Hope and became the first European to make the hair-raising trip around the foot of Africa, named it Cabo das Tormentas (‘Cape of Storms’). His employer, King John II of Portugal (1455–95), keen to encourage others to adopt the new trade route, overruled him and tactfully rechristened it Cabo da Boa Esperança (‘Cape of Good Hope’). The King died childless, aged only forty. Five years later Bartolomeu Dias also died. He was wrecked in a terrible storm – along with four ships and the loss of all hands – off the very cape he had so presciently named.

The rough guide to walks in London and southeast England
by Helena Smith and Judith Bamber
Published 29 Dec 2008

Trains London Paddington to Swindon (every 20min; 1hr); return from Goring to London Paddington (every 15min; 1hr). Map OS Landranger 174: Newbury & Wantage; OS Explorer 170: Abingdon, Wantage & Vale of White Horse. The Ridgeway, a 136-kilometre path starting at Overton Hill in Wiltshire and ending at Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire, formed part of an ancient trading route between southwest England and mainland Europe, which may have started on the Dorset coast and run up to Norfolk. The route has been used by traders, invaders and drovers for at least five thousand years, the proliferation of Neolithic and Bronze Age burial sites and Iron Age forts along the way attesting to its cultural and strategic importance.

The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership
by Richard Branson
Published 8 Sep 2014

He desperately wanted to build a bridge from Asia to Europe. While not quite as daunting a task as it sounds, at the time crossing the River Bosphorus in Istanbul (or Constantinople as it was then) with a single-span 240-metre-long bridge would have been an unprecedented feat of engineering. The commercial pay-off from linking the east–west trade routes would have been huge, however, and so the challenging project demanded some radical thinking. A number of the leading bridge-building experts of the time were struggling without much success to adapt the classic and simple keystone arch design to the span and height that the Bosphorus project necessitated.

Physics in Mind: A Quantum View of the Brain
by Werner Loewenstein
Published 29 Jan 2013

Ikats The two random generators—their information structure, their information parsimony, even their dynamics—are so out of the ordinary that an analogy would be helpful. Alas, in all of human technology there is nothing that works that way—certainly not in three dimensions. However, if you are willing to make do with one less dimension, I can offer an analogy of sorts: the Ikat. This is an old weaving art that once flourished along the silk trade route (China, Bokhara, Samarkand). Sadly it is disappearing, but you can still see it practiced here and there—Indonesia is a good place. And it is a feast for the eyes: from one silk fiber, the weaver makes an exquisite fabric; he feeds into the loom a single prestained thread of silk and, abracadabra, out of the warp and woof emerges a cloth with resplendent color play and complex design.

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
by John de Graaf , David Wann , Thomas H Naylor and David Horsey
Published 1 Jan 2001

—KARL MARX, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Fear of affluenza has been part of the American tradition since some of the first colonists arrived here from Europe. It was a mixed bunch that risked life and livelihood to cross the Atlantic on small wooden ships. The first came seeking riches. The Spanish wanted gold; the French, furs. The Dutch sought new trade routes to the fabled Indies. But among the early arrivals from England were refugees seeking to escape what they had come to view as a godless materialism taking root in Europe. “When the Puritans arrived in the New World, one of their major premises was their desire to try to create a Christian commonwealth that practiced simple living,” explains historian David Shi.1 In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Puritans adopted what were known as sumptuary laws, forbidding conspicuous displays of wealth.

The Despot's Accomplice: How the West Is Aiding and Abetting the Decline of Democracy
by Brian Klaas
Published 15 Mar 2017

From the perspective of those in power, the transition to democracy currently offers concrete and serious risks, but only shaky and indeterminate rewards. â•… The League of Democracies would drastically shift that calculation: with a clear reward waiting, two new pressures would push despots to open their political systems as they drift ever closer toward that tantalizing economic carrot. First, business would be on board with democracy. Whether in Turkmenistan, Bolivia, or even a solid democracy such as Japan, business interests exert an important force on politics. By making clear that further democratic reform will result in new (and potentially major) economic trade routes, business can be enlisted as democracy’s ally. â•… Second, despots themselves may be tempted to experiment with democratic reforms in order to retain political popularity. It is a myth that people like Islam Karimov and Alexander Lukashenko are indifferent toward their people; they may not care deeply for their wellbeing and they may not care to hear their political voices, but they do worry consistently about the risks of becoming deeply unpopular with their own citizenry.

Servant Economy: Where America's Elite Is Sending the Middle Class
by Jeff Faux
Published 16 May 2012

China, he thinks, is no paper tiger. Whereas Friedman sees China as hopelessly dependent on the U.S. market, Starobin argues that the creditor always has the upper hand over the borrower. China and India are using their surplus to build up their navies, which could gradually push the U.S. out of the trade routes in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. Starobin lays out several possibilities for what might follow the decline of U.S. global power. The first is chaos. If U.S. imperialism has been the bulwark against a return to a geopolitics of savagery and war, then its shrinking authority will leave anarchy in its wake.

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch
by Lewis Dartnell
Published 15 Apr 2014

Fore-and-aft rigging dates back to Roman navigation of the Mediterranean, but really came into its own during the Age of Discovery, hauling the great European exploration ships, led by the Portuguese and Spanish, across the oceans of the world to encounter distant new lands and establish long-range trade routes. When you present a fore-and-aft sail obliquely to the wind, a whole new effect comes into play. The wind filling the sail causes it to bulge outward and behave like an airfoil—the airflow rushing over the curved surface is deflected and creates a region of low pressure in front of the sail. Rather than being blown through the water with the wind drag created by a square sail, the fore-and-aft sail is sucked forward by this aerodynamic lift force.

Family Trade
by Stross, Charles
Published 6 Jan 2004

Vikings, but Vikings who had assimilated the Roman church—the worship of the divine company of gods—and such learning as the broken wreckage of Europe had to offer. We sent agents across the Atlantic to explore the Rome of this world thirty years or so ago: It lies unquiet beneath the spurs of the Great Khan, but the churches still make burned offerings before the gods. Maybe when there are more of us we will open up trade routes in Europe … but not yet.” “Um. Okay.” Miriam nodded, reduced to silence by a sudden sense of cultural indigestion. This is so alien! “So what about you? The Clan, I mean. Where do you—we—fit into the picture?” “The Clan families are mostly based in Gruinmarkt, which is roughly where Massachusetts and New York and Maine are over here.

The Hidden Family
by Charles Stross
Published 2 May 2005

Those of you who’ve wired up your estates will know what I’m talking about. But we can import tools and ideas and even teachers from New Britain, and deliver a real push to the economy over here. Within thirty years you could be traveling to your estates by railway, your farmers could be producing three times as much food, and your ships could dominate the Atlantic trade routes.” Angbard rapped his gavel on the wooden block in front of him for attention. “The chair thanks Countess Helge,” he said formally. “Are there any more questions from the floor?” A new speaker stood up: a smooth-looking managerial type who smiled at Miriam in a friendly manner from the bench behind her grandmother.

The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War
by Tim Butcher
Published 2 Jun 2013

It led to a golden age of construction in the first half of the sixteenth century, when some of Europe’s most elegant mosques were built and the Miljacka was laced with fine stone bridges. ‘The Bosnian countryman gapes with as much wonderment at the domes of the two chief mosques as an English rustic at the first sight of St Paul’s,’ wrote Arthur Evans when he trekked here in 1875 at the end of Ottoman rule. Established as a hub on trade routes across the Balkan Peninsula, Sarajevo grew quickly through commerce, with one seventeenth-century visitor reporting that the population had already reached 80,000, making it a true metropolis for that era, one of the largest cities in the Balkans. It was a city then dominated by Islam, the faith both of the Ottoman colonial outsiders deployed to Bosnia and of the growing cohort of local Slavs who converted to the religion of the occupier.

The Weather of the Future
by Heidi Cullen
Published 2 Aug 2010

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the climatologists know we have to do both. We have to look forward and we have to look back. In 1609, 400 years ago, the English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into New York Bay. Hudson had been hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a northeast all-water trade route to Asia. On his ship, the Half Moon, Hudson and his crew left Amsterdam and sailed along the coast of Norway until they hit ferocious weather and sea ice. Rather than return empty-handed, and disobeying orders to search only for a northeast route, Hudson made a 3,000-mile detour in search of warmer weather and the dream of finding a southwest route to Asia through North America.

Deep Sea and Foreign Going
by Rose George
Published 4 Sep 2013

Then, in the words of Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, president of Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, this is what happened next: ‘The violation of Somali waters by foreign trawlers expectedly triggered a reaction of armed resistance by Somali fishermen [who] linked themselves with local warlords for protection, placing armed militiamen on board the trawlers.’ He calls this new breed of fishers ‘fishermen-turned-pirates’. They then targeted unarmed commercial vessels, ‘inhumanly taking hostages for ransom and disrupting international maritime trade routes’. There are other versions of their origins. For Robert Young Pelton, who ran the Somalia Report news agency, pirates emerged originally from the Puntland coastguard. When the national government fell, the coastguard turned pirate ‘in about a day’. A London-based Somalia expert told me modern pirates had never been fishermen or coastguards.

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
by Laura Spinney
Published 31 May 2017

A sacred site for Shi’ite Muslims, it received the equivalent of its 70,000 inhabitants each year in pilgrims from all over the Shi’ite world. They came to pray at the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth of twelve sacred imams considered by Shi’ites to be the spiritual heirs of the prophet Muhammad. But it was also a centre of the saffron and turquoise industries, known, too, for its beautiful carpets, and an important stop on the trade route from British India to the west, and from Persia to Russia. The government, 900 kilometres away in Tehran, had little or no authority in Mashed, but Mashed was not immune from the political and economic crisis that had engulfed the rest of the country. For more than half a century, Persia had been a battleground for imperialist interests–the backdrop to the so-called ‘Great Game’, in which the British and Russians struggled for control of the huge area between the Caspian and Arabian Seas–and by 1918 its government was weak and almost bankrupt.

Who Rules the World?
by Noam Chomsky

One need not be a supporter of China’s provocative and aggressive actions in the South China Sea to notice that the incident did not involve a Chinese nuclear-capable bomber in the Caribbean, or off the coast of California, where China has no pretensions of establishing a “Chinese lake.” Luckily for the world. Chinese leaders understand very well that their country’s maritime trade routes are ringed with hostile powers from Japan through the Malacca Straits and beyond, backed by overwhelming U.S. military force. Accordingly, China is proceeding to expand westward with extensive investments and careful moves toward integration. In part, these developments are within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes the Central Asian states and Russia, and soon India and Pakistan with Iran as one of the observers—a status that was denied to the United States, which was also called on to close all military bases in the region.

The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity
by Amy Webb
Published 5 Mar 2019

Our global population is a problem because we didn’t take action on climate change quickly enough, not even after China took up the mantle of sustainability and environmental protection. We have lost two-thirds of the Earth’s arable land. While we made great efforts to build underground farms in America, we cannot grow food quickly enough to feed our local populations. Global sanctions have blocked trade routes and have cut us and our allies off from food-producing nations, but even China and its One China nations are struggling. One day, Apple families suffer from what appears to be a mysterious illness. Their PDRs show an anomaly but offer no detail or specifics. At first, we think that this latest version of nanobots are defective, so product managers rush to develop patch AGIs.

The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything
by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
Published 27 Feb 2018

The group, which includes firms like KPMG and HSBC and has engaged shipping and logistics firms like Hong Kong behemoth Li & Fung, takes its name from a massive Chinese global investment program. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative—also known as the “One Belt, One Road” project—contains a plan to invest $3 trillion in collaboratively developing high-tech manufacturing within sixty-five different countries along three separate trade routes tying Asia to Europe and Africa. Some have described it as a Beijing-led Marshall Plan, but as McKinsey partner Kevin Sneader notes, the ambitious program is twelve times the size of General George C. Marshall’s 1948 project to reconstruct Europe with American investment. The way Pindar Wong, founder of the Belt and Road Blockchain Consortium, sees it, “such a complex set of supply relationships across 65 different jurisdictions with varying degrees of trust will need a distributed information-sharing paradigm if it is to work.”

The Pineapple: King of Fruits
by Francesca Beauman
Published 22 Feb 2011

The first successful crossing of the Atlantic by steamship took place in 1819 when the Savannah sailed from Georgia to Liverpool. The 1830s saw a boom in the industry, with the launch of the first such ship to make the journey regularly, the Great Western, which took just over fifteen days. Soon steamships plied all the world’s major trade routes, presenting an unprecedented opportunity for the pineapple. It had constantly had to face up to the problem that once plucked from the plant, it no longer ripened but merely decayed. Of all the produce of the West Indies, it was one of the most delicate. Speed was of the essence and this is what the steamship delivered.

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
by Eric Posner and E. Weyl
Published 14 May 2018

What is special about migration (a term that we will henceforth use to refer to migration of ordinary workers rather than highly skilled workers and tourists)? The Origins of Free Trade Long-distance movements of goods and tools have been a feature of human civilization since the beginning of agriculture. The Mediterranean trade was central to Athenian, Carthaginian, and Roman development. Mohammad was a trader and the trading routes of the Muslim world and on to Asia via the Silk Road helped maintain the light of civilization through the Middle Ages in the West.1 Mass migrations were also a feature of early history. Many of the great empires were established and later destroyed by nomadic tribes that flooded from the North Asian steppe southward, westward, and eastward.

Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race
by Tim Fernholz
Published 20 Mar 2018

Enforcing a no-fly zone over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the most active military mission at the time, relied on satellite communications and imaging and positioning technology. Without the ability to maintain a constellation of satellites in orbit, the United States would be in no position to project military force around the world. And, by extension, this meant that the global economy hung in the balance as well: without the ability to secure trade routes and enforce global security pacts, the whole international system could unravel. Still, the private companies had yet to deliver a viable rocket, despite the government’s $1 billion investment and years of work. Lockheed Martin’s replacement for the Titan IV, a rocket that would be called Atlas V, was still two years away from flying.

Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer Will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce
by Natalie Berg and Miya Knights
Published 28 Jan 2019

Towards the end of 2015, it emerged in rapid succession that it had been negotiating to lease 20 Boeing 767 jets for its own air-delivery service, had registered to provide ocean freight services in China, and had purchased thousands of truck trailers to ship merchandise between distribution facilities.21 Amazon China then registered to provide ocean freight services, essentially pushing Chinese sellers to use its services for shipping to Amazon US customers and giving it control over the significant trading routes between China and the US. Amazon Maritime, Inc. holds a US Federal Maritime Commission operating licence, as a non-vessel-owning common carrier (NVOCC). Amazon as a carrier In 2016, Amazon received options to purchase up to 19.9 per cent of Air Transport International’s stock and began scheduled operations with 20 Boeing 767 aircraft.

Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy
by George Magnus
Published 10 Sep 2018

It adopted paper as a replacement for silk and bamboo as early as the second century, and invented movable type printing technology in the eleventh century, some four hundred years before Gutenberg introduced it to Europe. The bureaucracy used this technology to disseminate information about technological best practices to farmers and peasants. Trade figured prominently in ancient China as it does in modern China. It is best known in older times because of the Silk Road trading routes and caravan trails that went west from the imperial capital of Xi’an via central and southern Asia and the Middle East to the Mediterranean. They took spices, silk and cotton out of China, while new crops and payments for trade in silver, and, importantly, ideas about culture, philosophy and religion, came in the opposite direction.

The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World
by Catherine Nixey
Published 20 Sep 2017

64 CHAPTER NINE THE RECKLESS ONES ‘For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,’ 1 Corinthians 3:19 They called them the ‘parabalani’ – ‘the reckless ones’.1 At first, the name had been a compliment. Under the scorching heat of the Alexandrian sun, in this city at the crossroads of busy trading routes, someone needed to carry away the bodies of the sick and the weak – not to mention the merely unsavoury poor – and do so swiftly, to protect everyone else. This was a city that knew how devastating a plague could be. A hundred and fifty years before, a new disease had arrived in Alexandria, then fanned out into the rest of the empire, killing millions.

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything
by David Christian
Published 21 May 2018

States emerged in societies that were populous and wealthy enough to have towns and cities as well as large numbers of farming villages and plenty of surplus labor that could staff and pay for armies and bureaucracies. From Towns to Cities and Rulers: Mobilization and a New Trophic Level As populations and surpluses grew, so did the size of the largest human communities. And communities as well as people began to specialize. Some villages grew and acquired new roles because they were near trade routes, controlled strategic river crossings, held markets that attracted buyers and sellers from other villages, or were near important religious sites. Çatalhüyük in southern Anatolia was surrounded by good farming land, but it also had obsidian, the hard volcanic glass used to make the finest and sharpest Neolithic blades.

Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut
by Nicholas Schmidle
Published 3 May 2021

He wished there were more people like him, he said, more people “not satisfied staying within the box, or looking within the horizon.” More who wanted to “get on ships and sail out beyond where they can’t see, beyond the horizon, into the unknown. That is how the human race advances to the next thing, discovers new worlds, new trade routes,” said Stucky. “Voyagers and explorers have always carried more risk than a standard person. But you need the majority to stay behind while explorers go out and establish things and open it up for the masses. And to me that’s what space flight is.” They slapped hands. Branson asked Stucky how it was.

The Domestic Revolution
by Ruth Goodman
Published 15 Apr 2020

Criss-crossing this new landscape were transport routes and supply lines that received much of their early boost from the bulk trade in coal for the home. Although often overlooked, the first great domestically driven expansion in coal haulage by land and by water, both inland and at sea, strengthened trade routes and encouraged investment in seventeenth-century Britain. Seamen trained upon the coal run from Newcastle to London provided skilled and semi-skilled labour for the rapidly expanding Royal Navy and the tougher mercantile routes across the Atlantic. The Newcastle run made ship-building more economically worthwhile, reducing the financial risks involved in a once volatile trade.

Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy
by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel
Published 2 May 2022

Next came the British, who set their sights on Aden as a way station for ships sailing to and from the Indian colonies. In 1837, an attack on a British-flagged vessel provided a pretext for the East India Company to seize what was then a fishing village. British investment helped bring a degree of prosperity to southern Yemen, especially after the Suez Canal opened up the trade route through Egypt, and Aden became one of the most important ports in the Empire, a gateway between East and West. Colonial administrators installed a clocktower known as “Little Ben,” a statue of Queen Victoria, and a Western-style bureaucracy. Once again, though, the region’s inhabitants vigorously asserted their independence.

Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice
by Jamie K. McCallum
Published 15 Nov 2022

But the lessons from history, drawn from the tragic collisions between plagues and people, show us that we need to understand the fault lines in our current system in order to build a better one. Pandemics were relatively common in the ancient world. The Black Death crept across the continents, migrating with merchants by sea and traders along the Silk Road, a series of paths, trade routes, and caravanserais that crisscrossed the steppes of Central Asia. By the time it arrived in Europe, it collided with a society made vulnerable by the horrific conditions wrought by feudalism—famine, poverty, slavery, and the roving armies of the Hundred Years’ War. Plague killed a staggering fifty million people, wiping out almost one-half of Europe’s population.

A Short Ride in the Jungle
by Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent
Published 6 Apr 2014

In the early eighties Soviet geologists found villagers panning for gold using chunks of shrapnel and bits of US plane wreckage. A decade later, when the Laos government had lowered the red tape enough to let foreign investors in, Australian surveyors started sniffing around. In 2002 they opened Laos' first modern mine, the Sepon gold and copper mine. I say modern because the site, situated on an ancient trade route between Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, had first been mined for copper 2,000 years ago. Ten years on the open cast mine, a few miles south of Vilabury, has transformed the place from a UXO-ridden backwater to a rapidly growing town; an island of health and safety in the middle of the wilderness.

The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age
by Steve Olson
Published 28 Jul 2020

I entitled this book The Apocalypse Factory not to shame the leaders of the Manhattan Project or the proud and resourceful workers at Hanford. Rather, I’m using the word apocalypse in its original sense. In the Bible, the apocalypse is not the final battle between good and evil—that’s Armageddon, a word derived from an ancient military stronghold on a trade route linking Egypt and the Middle East. An apocalypse is a revelation—literally an uncovering—about the future that is meant to provide hope in a time of uncertainty and fear. Apart from the brilliance of its technological achievements, the story of Hanford is mostly a story of human misunderstanding, belligerence, and short-sightedness.

The Rough Guide to France (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides
Published 1 Aug 2019

It is particularly atmospheric in the evening, when an arm-in-arm wander along the quais is a romantic must. Île de la Cité The earliest settlements were built here, followed by the small Gallic town of Lutetia, which was overrun by Julius Caesar’s troops in 52 BC. A natural defensive site commanding a major east–west river trade route, it was an obvious candidate for a bright future. In 508 it became the stronghold of the Merovingian kings, then of the counts of Paris, who in 987 became kings of France. The Frankish kings built themselves a splendid palace at the western tip of the island, of which the Sainte-Chapelle and Conciergerie survive today.

…

. €82 Lille LILLE (Rijsel in Flemish), northern France’s largest city, surprises many visitors with its impressive architecture, the winding streets of its tastefully restored old quarter (Vieux Lille), its plethora of excellent restaurants and its bustling nightlife. It boasts a large university, a modern métro system and a serious attitude to culture, with some great museums. Historically the main stop on the rich trading route between Flanders and Paris, Lille was first and foremost a merchant city: instead of a soaring Gothic cathedral, taking pride of place are secular temples like the Flemish Renaissance gem, the Ancienne Bourse. The focal part of central Lille is the place du Général-de-Gaulle, always referred to as the Grand’Place, marking the southern boundary of Vieux Lille.

…

Along with its rather splendid cathedral, a strong dining scene (inspired by the Renaissance writer and famous gourmand, Rabelais, who lived here for two years), large and beautiful flower-lined public spaces and riverside setting, the honey-coloured city of Metz is worth a day or two of anyone’s time. The city’s origins go back at least to Roman times, when, as now, it stood astride major trade routes. On the death of Charlemagne it became the capital of Lothar’s portion of his empire. By the Middle Ages it had sufficient wealth and strength to proclaim itself an independent republic, which it remained until its absorption into France in 1552. Caught between warring influences, Metz has endured more than its share of historical hand-changing; reluctantly ceded to Germany in 1870, it recovered its liberty at the end of World War I, only to be re-annexed by Hitler until the Liberation.

This Sceptred Isle
by Christopher Lee
Published 19 Jan 2012

The Britons were warlike and because there were some twenty-three tribal regions, it was impossible to get overall agreement, or even an understanding, with more than a few of them. The south and the east were the most easily controllable. The Romans had large forces there, they had set up their capital at Colchester and there were good trade routes through Essex and Kent. The uplands of Britain presented a bigger problem. In AD 54 Claudius died and his stepson, Nero became emperor. The death of another leader, this one in Britain, left a longer lasting impression upon British history and folklore. Her name was Boudicca and she was the widow of the King of the Iceni in East Anglia.

…

In 1797, Commodore Horatio Nelson had just been promoted to Rear Admiral, was about to be knighted and, within months, he, the nation and the wife of Sir William Hamilton would be celebrating his destruction of the French fleet at the mouth of the River Nile; this ruined Napoleon Bonaparte’s ambitions to invade Egypt and thus interrupt British trade routes to and from the Far East, threaten British India and extend his empire to the sub-continent. Like Bismarck in the next century, Napoleon saw the taking of territory as a mark of progress. Nelson knew well the naval role of disrupting enemy ambition, ideally by stopping the enemy fleet from putting to sea and, when they did so, defeating them and taking ships as prizes.

Rick Steves Florence & Tuscany 2017
by Rick Steves
Published 8 Nov 2016

The tomb was a home in the hereafter, complete with the deceased’s belongings. The funerary urn might have a statue on the lid of the deceased at a banquet—lying across a dining couch, spooning with his wife, smiles on their faces, living the good life for all eternity. Seven decades of wars with the Greeks (545-474 B.C.) disrupted their trade routes and drained the Etruscan League, just as a new Mediterranean power was emerging: Rome. In 509 B.C., the Romans overthrew their Etruscan king, and Rome expanded, capturing Etruscan cities one by one (the last in 264 B.C.). Etruscan resisters were killed, the survivors intermarried with Romans, and their kids grew up speaking Latin.

…

Then, in 1348, a six-month plague decimated the population, leaving the once-mighty town with barely 4,000 survivors. Once fiercely independent, now crushed and demoralized, San Gimignano came under Florence’s control and was forced to tear down most of its towers. (The Banca CR Firenze building occupies the remains of one such toppled tower.) And, to add insult to injury, Florence redirected the vital trade route away from San Gimignano. The town never recovered, and poverty left it in a 14th-century architectural time warp. That well-preserved cityscape, ironically, is responsible for the town’s prosperity today. • From the well, walk 30 yards uphill to the adjoining square with the cathedral. Piazza del Duomo Stand at the base of the stairs in front of the church.

QI: The Book of General Ignorance - The Noticeably Stouter Edition
by Lloyd, John and Mitchinson, John
Published 7 Oct 2010

In 2003, archaeologists in Venezuela discovered the fossilised remains of a huge guinea pig-like creature that lived eight million years ago. Phoberomys pattersoni was the size of a cow and weighed 1,400 times more than the average pet guinea pig. Nobody really knows where the expression ‘guinea pig’ comes from but the most likely suggestion is that they reached Europe as part of the triangle of slave-trade routes that linked South America to the Guinea coast of West Africa. What was the first animal in space? The fruit fly. The tiny astronauts were loaded on to an American V2 rocket along with some corn seeds, and blasted into space in July 1946. They were used to test the effects of exposure to radiation at high altitudes.

The Secrets of Station X: How the Bletchley Park codebreakers helped win the war
by Michael Smith
Published 30 Oct 2011

An MI6 agent was dispatched to monitor the passage of ships through the Kattegat, the narrow strip of water separating Denmark from Sweden, and, on 20 May, he reported that two large German warships had left the Baltic bound for the North Sea. The sighting was confirmed by photographic reconnaissance and a few isolated breaks into the main Naval Enigma cypher showed that the Bismarck, accompanied by the new cruiser the Prinz Eugen, was about to attack Britain’s transatlantic trade routes. A British naval squadron was dispatched to hunt the Bismarck down. She was sighted on the evening of 23 May and next morning was engaged by the Hood and the Prince of Wales. The Hood was sunk and the Prince of Wales hit but not without the Bismarck herself sustaining some damage. She parted company with the Prinz Eugen and the Royal Navy ships lost contact with her.

The Case for Israel
by Alan Dershowitz
Published 31 Jul 2003

As Martin Buber, a strong supporter of Palestinian rights, observed in 1939: “Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident, to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful.”3 Nor was the land they sought to cultivate rich in natural resources such as oil or gold, or strategically positioned as a trade route. It was a materially worthless piece of real estate in a backwater of the world whose significance to Jews was religious, historical, and familial. Clearly these Jewish workers were not your typical imperialists. They were refugees from oppressive regimes who were seeking to begin new lives in a place their ancestors had long ago settled and from which most but not all of them had eventually been driven.

Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica
by Nicholas Johnson
Published 31 May 2005

In 1826, when Antarctica had been poked and prodded around the edges but was still thought to be a smattering of islands, John Cleves Symmes revealed his theory that there was a giant hole at the South Pole through which one could enter the earth and find balmy weather, abundant reindeer, lush gardens, and a race of humanoids eager to open a new trade route to the surface world. Symmes sought funds for an expedition to prove his theory, and enlisted charismatic disciple Jeremiah Reynolds to give lectures, which Symmes hoped would increase the public’s receptiveness to his theory, thereby eventually coaxing official support. Unfortunately for Symmes, Reynolds fluttered away once boosted into the limelight.

Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane
by Brett King
Published 5 May 2016

The trust that was central to the 14th-century economy of Sienna and Verona was a trust that let you do something, be part of something, usually a trading community. And this trust could be taken away if you didn’t act in keeping with the values of that community. Bankers too had to deal with the challenges of diaspora and distance. There was a time when everyone knew everyone. Then along came shipping and trade routes and suddenly people wanted to do business with each other across great distances, and without really knowing each other to begin with. Nature abhors a vacuum; so does business. An opportunity was smelt, and the merchant bank of the trading empires was born. These banks worked closely with the trading houses as well as the burgeoning London Money Market.

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure
by Tim Harford
Published 1 Jun 2011

The Royal Observatory was founded with the aim of improving navigation at sea, and in particular of solving the ‘longitude’ problem of figuring out how far east or west a ship at sea was. (The latitude problem was far more easily solved, by measuring the length of the day, or the elevation of the sun or stars.) For a great naval power such as Great Britain, with trade routes stretching across the world, the significance of a ship’s captain being unable to figure out his location could hardly be overstated. And the Royal Observatory today gladly associates itself with the sensational breakthrough that solved the conundrum. Its original site in Greenwich, East London, is bisected by what the Observatory still proudly describes as ‘the Prime Meridian of the World’ – Longitude 0° 0′ 0″.

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future
by John Brockman
Published 18 Jan 2011

By the time of Jesus Christ, two millennia ago, four great neighboring polities spanned Eurasia’s middle latitudes: the Roman Empire; the Parthian Empire, centered in Persia and Mesopotamia; the Kushan Empire of Central Asia and Northern India; and the Han Empire of China and Korea. The Kushan Empire had diplomatic links with the other three, and all four were linked by a network of trade routes known to posterity as the Silk Road. It’s along the Silk Road that Eurasia’s three universalist moral religions—Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Hinduism—interacted and mutated from their respective territorial and tribal origins into the three proselytizing, globalizing religions that today vie for the soul of humanity: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory
by John Seabrook
Published 4 Oct 2015

“We don’t want to travel all that way just to go record four bars of music, especially since we thought it was really good just like it was,” Max Martin said. But on reflection, the opportunity to meet the King of Pop and work with him in his own studio was too great to pass up, and they flew west, early Nordic navigators of what would become a popular trade route of Swedish song Vikings for decades to come. Expecting a state-of-the-art facility, “instead we went to this little studio out in the country, although not far from Hollywood, but it was like a shack,” Max Martin said in the Swedish Radio documentary. “Our studio was like a dream studio compared to where we went to record over there.

Paper Promises
by Philip Coggan
Published 1 Dec 2011

In 1896, while William Jennings Bryan was leading his campaign for debtors on the other side of the Atlantic, the yield on Consols fell to its lowest level in history – 2.2 per cent.3 Creditors had no inkling of the problems to come in the twentieth century; they would never be so complacent again. What the gold standard also helped to create was the first great era of globalization. This was particularly true in Great Britain which had an empire stretching round the world, a navy that protected trade routes, a sound currency in sterling, and a willingness to invest its savings overseas. Low yields on British government debt (gilts) caused the prosperous middle classes to buy bonds in Argentine railways in search of higher incomes (an early version of the ‘search for yield’ that would be seen in the current era).

The Map That Changed the World
by Simon Winchester
Published 1 Jan 2001