Resources used to support Shepway and District u3a’s Science, Philosophy, and Spirituality Group’s Session 2.09: Global Trade. A look at the non-Eurocentric history of the world between 1600 and 1750, which saw the birth of Capitalism and Globalism.
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We often overlook the potential synergy between science, philosophy, and spirituality in helping us understand our deepest questions—especially around free will and personal agency.
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During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pursuit of wealth and power through global trade drove European empires to seek direct access to lucrative goods like spices, sugar, and tobacco, reshaping economies and societies across continents. In Ming China, the introduction of a silver tax intensified demand for silver with severe social consequences, while in the Americas, labour-intensive crops spurred the brutal reliance on enslaved Africans. As European powers like the Dutch and English East India Companies clashed over trade monopolies, joint stock companies emerged, allowing broader public investment and profit-sharing. This new economic structure, alongside the crown’s reliance on commercial success, laid the groundwork for modern capitalism and its enduring global influence.
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Between 1450 and 1600 CE the world became entangled globally, as European explorer’s circumnavigated the globe, and established a network of maritime trade routes. This page contains links to the resources that supported the Shepway and District u3a’s Seminar for the Science, Philosophy, and Spirituality Group in October 2024.
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An article summarising how Ottoman domination of Indian and Chinese trade routes to Europe led to European maritime exploration of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans between 1450 and 1600. Subsequent European colonisation of America and Africa transformed global interactions, destroyed ancient and long-standing empires in the Americas, established the Atlantic slave trade, and amplified the religious upheaval in Europe.
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