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The Early Modern Economy - Trade and services

4 important questions on The Early Modern Economy - Trade and services

What was the basis for European trade?

The basis for European trade was local and regional exchange in thousands of small towns, in which agricultural and manufactured goods were marketed.
Alongside this, medieval merchants established a flourishing long-distance spice trade, supported by an international financial infrastructure, which led to an early form of commercial capitalism in the leading Italian city-states.

Where did the economic gravity shift towards from the sixteenth century onwards?

From the sixteenth century, the discovery of the New World and the desire to exploit its assets shifted the centre of economic gravity from the Mediterranean towards the Atlantic seaboard of the north-west.

What did the symptoms of this early stage of globalization include?

The symptoms of this early stage of globalization included vast inflows of bullion from the silver mines of Central America; the creation of joint-stock companies like the Dutch East India Comany (which, by the early eighteenth century, supplied even humble households in North European cities with coffee, tea and other colonial goods); and the creation of national banks.

What encouraged the gradual emergence of a consumer society?

Early modern expansion, socio-economic differentiation and urbanization thus encouraged the gradual emergence of a consumer society, particularly in England and the Netherlands.
Alongside the development, there was a major expansion in the provision of services, most obviously by lawyers keen to take advantage of the growing level of dispute in an increasingly contractual society, but also by artists and leisure providers who were keen to exploit the growing demand for sports, hunting and cultural pastimes among fashionable elites.

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Early Modern History

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