Mapping the Mercantilist World Economy

ericrossacademic.wordpress.com

90 pointscolinprince3 comments

Great read. I've studied a fair amount of history (by the end of university, I realised I'd done at least one formal course in every time period from the sacking of Rome in 410 to the sacking of Nixon in 1974), so I always enjoy these 'larger context' pieces.

One thing this helped me understand better was the Dutch Tulip-mania. Tulips, as I learnt when they were blooming everywhere on a visit to Istanbul, are native to modern-day Turkey, historically the Ottoman Empire. The ongoing trade / power struggle between the Muslim / Arab world and the emerging European Powers would thus have restricted trade from one to the other, and driven up the scarcity of Tulip bulbs. I had wondered how something that grows so naturally on one side of a continent could be so valuable for as long as it was on the other side - this helped me piece more of the story together.

Thank you for the insightful article! Sadly it only covers historical trade routes. Are similar maps available for present day? I.e. What are the main trade routes for different types of goods?

There's an entire industry of analysts trying to keep track of global trade. You might try http://www.globalmaritimehub.com/ , for example. I used to follow http://www.theoildrum.com/ which focused on oil and the broader trade of energy. On the other hand there are various indexes for collapsing complex trade results into single numbers like the Baltic Dry index.

This is definitely a question which is amenable to losing yourself in searches.

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