Discuss

Guns could be bought or captured and turned against the invaders. But not diseases such as smallpox to which the conquerors were mostly immune. Until the nineteenth century, poverty and hunger were common in Europe. Cities were crowded and deadly diseases were widespread.

Religious conflicts were common, and religious dissenters were persecuted. Thousands therefore fled Europe for America. Here, by the eighteenth century, plantations worked by slaves captured in Africa were growing cotton and sugar for European markets. Until well into the eighteenth century, China and India were among the world’s richest countries.

They were also pre-eminent in Asian trade. However, from the fifteenth century, China is said to have restricted overseas contacts and retreated into isolation. China’s reduced role and the rising importance of the Americas gradually moved the centre of world trade westwards. Europe now emerged as the centre of world trade.

New words Dissenter – One who refuses to accept established beliefs and practices Fig. – Slaves for sale, New Orleans, Illustrated London News , . A prospective buyer carefully inspecting slaves lined up before the auction. You can see two children along with four women and seven men in top hats and suit waiting to be sold.

To attract buyers, slaves were often dressed in their best clothes. The world changed profoundly in the nineteenth century. Economic, political, social, cultural and technological factors interacted in complex ways to transform societies and reshape external relations. Economists identify three types of movement or ‘flows’ within international economic exchanges.

The first is the flow of trade which in the nineteenth century referred largely to trade in goods (e.g., cloth or wheat). The second is the flow of labour – the migration of people in search of employment. The third is the movement of capital for short-term or long-term investments over long distances. All three flows were closely interwoven and affected peoples’ lives more deeply now than ever before.

The interconnections could sometimes be broken – for example, labour migration was often more restricted than goods or capital flows. Yet it helps us understand the nineteenth-century world economy better if we look at the three flows together.