9781422281239

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A Brief History of Global Trade I n 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain to navi- gate a sea route to Asia. There were no charts, no maps for him to follow. It would be difficult and dangerous. King Ferdinand of Spain invested a fortune in the venture. There was every possibility that the ships and crew would be lost. What would cause a ruler to invest money to send ships and men into the unknown with no guarantee of success? The answer was simple: access to goods that could not be produced at home. Two hundred years before, the Polo brothers of Venice, Niccolò and Maffeo, along with Niccolò’s son Marco, had spent twenty years in Asia. They told fantastic tales of advanced civ- ilizations possessing great wealth. There were plants, animals, foods, and technology completely unknown to the Europeans. But the overland trip from Europe to Asia was long and diffi- cult, across deserts and mountains and through lands ravaged

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