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The Age of Discovery • Magellan's Ship In Puerto San Julian • Nowhere has the dynamic and even ruthless energy of Western civilization been more apparent than its expansion into the rest of the world. By the sixteenth century, the Atlantic seaboard had become the center of a commercial activity that raised Portuagal and Spain and later the Dutch Republic, England, and France to prominence. The age of expansion was a crucial factor in the European transition from the agrarian economy of the Middle Ages to a commercial and industrial capitalistic system. 1,The Motivations and preconditions for Exploration Combined forces propelled Europeans outward and enabled them to dominate Asians, Africans, and American Indians. European monarchs, merchants, and aristocrats fostered expansion for power and profit; religion and technology played their part. The Motives European had long been attracted to the Far east. In the great riches and magic were widespread. but in the fourteenth century, the conquests of the Ottoman Turks and then the overthrow of the Mongols by the first of the Ming Chinese emperors halted Western traffic to the east. With the closing of the overland routes to the Far East, a number of people became interested in the possibility of reaching Asia by sea to gain access to eastern spices and other precious items. 2,Portuguese Exploration • Prince Henry the Navigator(1394-1460),the young son of King John Ⅰ of Portugal(r.1385-1433)contributed a great deal to the scientific and seafaring knowledge of the day through his work at a remarkable observatory at Sagres on Cape St.Vincent, at the tip of Portugal. Henry’s interest in voyages of discovery was taken up again by his grandnephew, King JohnⅡ (r.1481-95), who encouraged Portuguese explorers to find all allwater route to India. Diaz finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope on the southern of Africa in 1487.Vasco da Gama surpassed that accomplishment by rounding the cape, skirting the eastern coast of Africa, and cutting across the Indian Ocean to the southwestern coast of India. • In 1488 Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first European to sail around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. Dias called the cape Cabo Tormentoso (Portuguese for “Cape of Storms”) because of the area’s dangerous sea conditions. • Description: The Portuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama (c. 1469-1524) arrived in Southwest India in 1498 after sailing from Lisbon around the tip of South Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). Initially the Portuguese presence was at Cochin (Kochi) in Southwest India. • Vasco da Gama surpassed that accomplishment by rounding the cape, skirting the eastern coast of Africa, and cutting across the Indian Ocean to the southwestern coast of India. Da Gama’s successful voyage marked the beginning of an all-water route to India. Under the direction of officials known as viceroys, Portugal now created an overseas empire. That success was short-lived, however. Although Portugal drew large profits from these early century, it lacked the resources to maintain permanent colonies in India and to support the navy required to protect its trade. 3,Columbus and Spanish Exploration While the Portuguese sought access to the spice trade of the Indies by sailing eastward through the Indian Ocean, the Spanish attempted to reach the same destination by sailing westward across the Atlantic. An important figure in the history of Spanish exploration was an Italian. Cristoforo Colombo, more commonly known as Christopher Columbus (14511506). • Christopher Columbus (1451 – May 20, 1506) was an Italian navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Though not the first to reach the Americas from AfroEurasia — preceded some five hundred years by Leif Ericson, and pheraps by others — Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenousAmericans. With his several hapless attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, he personally initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonizationof the “New World." Fernando de Magallanes (Spring 1480 – April 27, 1521, Mactan Island, Cebu,Philippines) was a Portuquese maritime explorer who, while in the service of the Spanish Crown, tried to find a westward route to the Spice Islands of Indonisia. This was the first successful attempt to circumnaviqate the Earth in history. Although he did not complete the entire voyage (he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines) fellow Basque navigator Juan Sebastian Elcano completed the final westward voyage. 4, The Impact of European Expansion • The arrival of the Europeans had an enormous impact on both the conquerors and the conquered. The Price Revolution Linked to overseas expansion was another phenomenon-an unprecedented inflation during the sixteenth century, known as the price revolution. For example, cereal prices multiplied by eight times or more in certain religious in the course of that century, and they continued to rise, although more slowly, during the first half of the seventeenth century. The Expansion of Agriculture • The greatest effects of the price revolution were on farming. Food prices, rising roughly twice as much as the prices of other goods, spurred ambitious farmers to take advantage of the situation and to produce for the expanding market. The opportunity for profit drove some farmers to work harder and manage their land better. The Expansion of Trade and Industry ► The conditions of the price revolution also caused trade and industry to expand. Population growth exceeding the capacity of local food supplies stimulated commerce in basic foodstuffs-for example, the Baltic trade with Western Europe. Equally important as a stimulus to trade and industry was the growing income of landlords, merchants, and, in some instances, peasants. Innovations in Business • Markets tended to shift from local to regional or even to international-a condition that gave rise to merchant-capitalist. Unlike local producers, the merchant-capitalists’ operations extended across local and national bound-aries. An essential feature of merchant capitalism was the putting –out system of production. 5, Different Patterns of Commercial Development England and the Netherlands In both England and the United Provinces (the Netherlands), the favorable conditions led to largescale commercial expansion. France France benefited from commercial and industrial expansion, but not to the same degree as England. The principal reason for this was the aristocratic structure of French society. The Fostering of Mercantile Capitalism The changes described –especially in England and the Netherlands-represent a crucial stage in the development of the modern economic system known as capitalism. This is a system of Private enterprise: the man economic decisions (what, how much, where, and at what price to produce, buy, and sell) are made by private individuals in their capacity as owners, workers, or consumers. Toward a Global Economy The transformations considered in this chapter were among the most momentous in the world’s history. In an unprecedented development, one small part of the world, western Europe, had become the lord of the sea lanes, the master of many lands throughout the globe, and the banker and profit taker in an emerging world economy. Western Europe’s globe hegemony was to last well into this century. In conquering and setting new lands, Europeans exported Western culture around the globe, a process that accelerated in the twentieth century.