HIST 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Silk Road, War Communism, Industrial Revolution
Document Summary
Commercial capitalism : the exchange of goods; trade. Finance capitalism : pursuit of borrowing using finances. Drug foods were first consumer products; alcohol, coffee, tea, chocolate, opium, tobacco. Commodities no one had consumed before and were not necessary for survival. First products to come that you could become different by consuming differently. Opium and alcohol = relaxation and hunger pains. Most were only produced in the tropical world. A few european powers who took over small areas for super profits. Produced unprecedented wealth and new forms of knowledge for the exporters. Contributed greatly to building up capital for european states and their economies. Difficult before 1400, for travel to far away places; not oceanic but overland by the silk road routes. Mid 1400"s, the ottoman turks conquered constantinople in 1453; rise of the ottoman empire closed off europe"s traditional routes into asia. Europe had to find new ways to reach asia by sea.
