Transcript 1,The Motivations and preconditions for Exploration

The Age of Discovery
• Magellan's Ship In Puerto San Julian
• Nowhere has the dynamic and even ruthless energy of
Western civilization been more apparent than its
expansion into the rest of the world. By the sixteenth
century, the Atlantic seaboard had become the center
of a commercial activity that raised Portuagal and
Spain and later the Dutch Republic, England, and
France to prominence. The age of expansion was a
crucial factor in the European transition from the
agrarian economy of the Middle Ages to a commercial
and industrial capitalistic system.
1,The Motivations and preconditions
for Exploration
 Combined forces propelled Europeans outward and
enabled them to dominate Asians, Africans, and
American Indians. European monarchs, merchants,
and aristocrats fostered expansion for power and
profit; religion and technology played their part.
The Motives

European had long been attracted to the Far east. In
the great riches and magic were widespread. but in the
fourteenth century, the conquests of the Ottoman
Turks and then the overthrow of the Mongols by the
first of the Ming Chinese emperors halted Western
traffic to the east. With the closing of the overland
routes to the Far East, a number of people became
interested in the possibility of reaching Asia by sea to
gain access to eastern spices and other precious items.
2,Portuguese Exploration
• Prince Henry the Navigator(1394-1460),the young son
of King John Ⅰ of Portugal(r.1385-1433)contributed
a great deal to the scientific and seafaring knowledge
of the day through his work at a remarkable
observatory at Sagres on Cape St.Vincent, at the tip
of Portugal.

Henry’s interest in voyages of discovery was taken up
again by his grandnephew, King JohnⅡ (r.1481-95),
who encouraged Portuguese explorers to find all allwater route to India. Diaz finally rounded the Cape of
Good Hope on the southern of Africa in 1487.Vasco
da Gama surpassed that accomplishment by rounding
the cape, skirting the eastern coast of Africa, and
cutting across the Indian Ocean to the southwestern
coast of India.
• In 1488 Portuguese
navigator Bartolomeu
Dias became the first
European to sail around
the Cape of Good Hope
at the southern tip of
Africa. Dias called the
cape Cabo Tormentoso
(Portuguese for “Cape of
Storms”) because of the
area’s dangerous sea
conditions.
• Description: The
Portuguese navigator
Vasco Da Gama (c.
1469-1524) arrived in
Southwest India in 1498
after sailing from
Lisbon around the tip
of South Africa (the
Cape of Good Hope).
Initially the Portuguese
presence was at Cochin
(Kochi) in Southwest
India.
• Vasco da Gama
surpassed that
accomplishment
by rounding the
cape, skirting the
eastern coast of
Africa, and
cutting across the
Indian Ocean to
the southwestern
coast of India.
Da Gama’s
successful voyage
marked the
beginning of an
all-water route to
India.

Under the direction of officials known as viceroys,
Portugal now created an overseas empire. That
success was short-lived, however. Although Portugal
drew large profits from these early century, it lacked
the resources to maintain permanent colonies in India
and to support the navy required to protect its trade.
3,Columbus and Spanish Exploration
While the Portuguese sought access to the spice trade
of the Indies by sailing eastward through the Indian
Ocean, the Spanish attempted to reach the same
destination by sailing westward across the Atlantic.
An important figure in the history of Spanish
exploration was an Italian. Cristoforo Colombo, more
commonly known as Christopher Columbus (14511506).
• Christopher Columbus (1451 –
May 20, 1506) was an Italian
navigator, colonizer and explorer
whose voyages across the Atlantic
Ocean led to general European
awareness of the American
continents in the Western
Hemisphere. Though not the first
to reach the Americas from AfroEurasia — preceded some five
hundred years by Leif Ericson, and
pheraps by others — Columbus
initiated widespread contact
between Europeans and
indigenousAmericans. With his
several hapless attempts at
establishing a settlement on the
island of Hispaniola, he personally
initiated the process of Spanish
colonization which foreshadowed
general European colonizationof
the “New World."
Fernando de Magallanes (Spring 1480 – April 27, 1521, Mactan Island,
Cebu,Philippines) was a Portuquese maritime explorer who, while in the
service of the Spanish Crown, tried to find a westward route to the Spice
Islands of Indonisia. This was the first successful attempt to circumnaviqate
the Earth in history. Although he did not complete the entire voyage (he was
killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines) fellow Basque navigator
Juan Sebastian Elcano completed the final westward voyage.
4, The Impact of European
Expansion
• The arrival of the Europeans had an enormous
impact on both the conquerors and the conquered.
The Price Revolution

Linked to overseas expansion was another
phenomenon-an unprecedented inflation during
the sixteenth century, known as the price revolution.
For example, cereal prices multiplied by eight
times or more in certain religious in the course
of that century, and they continued to rise,
although more slowly, during the first half of
the seventeenth century.
The Expansion of Agriculture
• The greatest effects of the price revolution were on
farming. Food prices, rising roughly twice as much as
the prices of other goods, spurred ambitious farmers to
take advantage of the situation and to produce for the
expanding market. The opportunity for profit drove
some farmers to work harder and manage their land
better.
The Expansion of Trade and Industry
► The
conditions of the price revolution also caused trade
and industry to expand. Population growth exceeding
the capacity of local food supplies stimulated commerce
in basic foodstuffs-for example, the Baltic trade with
Western Europe. Equally important as a stimulus to
trade and industry was the growing income of landlords,
merchants, and, in some instances, peasants.
Innovations in Business
• Markets tended to shift from local to regional or even
to international-a condition that gave rise to
merchant-capitalist. Unlike local producers, the
merchant-capitalists’ operations extended across local
and national bound-aries. An essential feature of
merchant capitalism was the putting –out system of
production.
5, Different Patterns of Commercial
Development
England and the Netherlands
In both England and the United Provinces (the
Netherlands), the favorable conditions led to largescale commercial expansion.
France
France benefited from commercial and industrial
expansion, but not to the same degree as England.
The principal reason for this was the aristocratic
structure of French society.
The Fostering of Mercantile
Capitalism
The changes described –especially in England and the
Netherlands-represent a crucial stage in the
development of the modern economic system known
as capitalism. This is a system of Private enterprise: the
man economic decisions (what, how much, where, and
at what price to produce, buy, and sell) are made by
private individuals in their capacity as owners, workers,
or consumers.
Toward a Global Economy
The transformations considered in this chapter were
among the most momentous in the world’s history. In
an unprecedented development, one small part of the
world, western Europe, had become the lord of the
sea lanes, the master of many lands throughout the
globe, and the banker and profit taker in an emerging
world economy. Western Europe’s globe hegemony
was to last well into this century. In conquering and
setting new lands, Europeans exported Western
culture around the globe, a process that accelerated in
the twentieth century.