Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Commerce and Culture

• Silk Road
• One of world's most extensive and sustained networks of exchange
• Especially influential in trade
• Growth
• Inner and outer Eurasia
• Products were exchanged for agricultural products and manufactured goods
• Trading networks did better when larger states provided security 
• Goods that travelled the roads
• Mainly luxury goods for elite 
• The high cost of transport didn't allow for the movement of staple goods
• Silk symbolized Eurasian exchange system 
• China had monopoly on silk
• Others began producing silk
• Symbol of high status 
• Small volume of trade, but economic and social aspects were important 
• Cultures
• Cultural exchange more important than exchange of goods
• Buddhism
• Spread through central and east Asia
• Appealed to merchants
• Conversion voluntary 
• Transformed during spread
• Disease in Transit 
• Long distance trade meant exposure to unfamiliar diseases
• Bubonic Plague 
• Killed 1/2 European population
• Death toll in Asia as well
• Sea Roads
• Mediterranean Sea
• Venice
• Controlled trade imports from Asia
• Indian Ocean network
• World's most important until after 1500
• Environmental and cultural diversity 
• Sea transportation cheaper than land transportation
• Bulk goods
• Trade between towns not states
• Trade began in 1st civilizations 
• India=fulcrum of trade
• Encounters
• Economic and political revival of China
• Rise of Islam
• Catalyst for change in Southeast Asia and East Africa
• Political change
• Introduction of foreign ideas 
• Rice production got more involved
• Indian culture spread
• Alphabet, art, religious ideas
• Sand Roads
• Commercial beginnings in West Africa 
• North Africa manufactured 
• Sahara copper and salt deposits 
• West Africa
• Camel
• 10 days without water
• Possible to cross Sahara
• Merchants wanted gold, ivory, slaves, kola nuts from W Africa
• Sahara major trade route
• Huge caravans
• Trade encouraged more political structures 
• Larger
• Monarchies with elaborate court life
• Slavery
• Most slaves women at 1st
• Male slaves used as officials, porters, craftsmen
• Captures from further south

This was a very interesting chapter to read.  It is so amazing to me how far our world has come in terms of trade, goods, and disease prevention.  Nowadays, if you want something from China in the US, it can get here in about two days.  At the time of these roads, things like silk was exciting and exotic, now we can just go to a store and buy it.  The way the Bubonic Plague spread is also insane to me...it took the lives of so many and now something like that happening is so unlikely because we have so many measures to prevent that.  Seeing the development and what humans are capable of is very impressive.