Intellectual Revolution
...and mercantilism which lasted from approximately the sixteenth century until the early eighteenth century. Beginning with the Crusades, Europeans rediscovered spices, silks, and other commodities rare in Europe. This development created a new desire for trade, and trade expanded in the second half of the Middle Ages. European nations, through voyages of discovery, were looking for new trade routes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which allowed the European powers to build vast, new international trade networks. Nations also sought new sources of wealth. To deal with this new-found wealth, new economic theories and practices were created. Because of competing national interest, nations had the desire for increased world power through their colonial empires. The Commercial Revolution is marked by an increase in general commerce, and in the growth of non-manufacturing pursuits, such as banking, insurance, and investing.
Origins of the term
The term itself was coined in the middle of the 20th century, by economic historian RS Lopez, to shift focus away from the English Industrial Revolution.
Voyages of discovery
A combination of factors drove the Age of Discovery. Among these were geopolitical, monetary, and technological factors. The Europeans involved in the Age of Discovery were mainly from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. During this period (1450-1600s), the European economic center shifted from the Islamic Mediterranean to Western Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and to some extent England). This shift was caused by the successful circumnavigation of Africa opening up sea-trade with the east: after Portugal's Vasco Da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and landed in Calicut, India, a new path of eastern trade was possible ending the monopoly of the Ottoman Turks and their European allies, the Italian...
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