ap world history essay leq example

ap world history essay leq example

Exploring the Impact of Global Trade on Societies in the Early Modern Period: An AP World History LEQ Essay

1. Introduction to Global Trade in the Early Modern Period

In the 1500s, the nations around the Atlantic Ocean joined in a worldwide trade circuit that used three kinds of ship. The largest ships, the European caravels, sailed from Europe to Africa, where their cargoes were exchanged for human beings. These human beings, shackled to each other and to the decks, were then transported to the Americas, where they were sold as labourers or used as capital investments. At American ports, the caravel’s crews purchased commodities such as tobacco, sugar, and gold, which were later returned to Europe where they were sold in exchange for more human beings. The “triangle trade” enabled Europeans to accumulate vast amounts of the precious metals that enhanced their fabled prosperity.

Global trade in the early modern period was a marvellous or terrifying phenomenon that irrevocably linked the fates of people from four quite distant continents (soon to be five). This trade greatly enriched some peoples and nations at a time when most of the world’s inhabitants experienced lives of poverty and insecurity. It also seems to have distributed wealth on a more egalitarian basis than would be managed by any government for more than two centuries.

2. Economic Transformations and Exchange Networks

The struggle to control this reversed balance was frenetic, and imperialistic wars were waged. In order to control the sea routes, it became very important to consolidate the land, and then found rather than rely on trade to reach power. Gombrich quoted a text by Machiavelli in which the conquest of India and America is problematized. The Florentine philosopher was of the opinion that the right way was to attack, institute strong colonies, and avoid the established habit of sending the profit to the homeland, Italy. The Habsburgs with Charles V, the French with Francis I of Valois and his naval hero Francis of Lorraine, and the English used the same expedient when they established the East India Companies, eventually behaving like true states. The Dutch and the English managed to achieve control of the richest colonies, and then their arrogance increased to the point of arrogance, as was the case with all great colonialists.

The former center of the western end of the Silk Road, Constantinople, fell in 1453, thus blocking access for Europeans to Asia. This setback for Southeast Europe allowed the Atlantic countries to come to the fore. Soon after, Christopher Columbus mistakenly discovered the New World, and the Portuguese Vasco da Gama circumnavigated Africa and landed in India. This was the moment when the find and retrieval of the natives in the New World started to be used as a defense of the liberties in modern Europe. The Eastern Roman (Byzantine Empire) and the Western Roman (of which the Papal States were the last relics) Empires were replaced by former Roman colonies that became more powerful than Romulus and Remus.

3. Cultural Diffusion and Encounters

Cultural diffusion and encounters brought dramatic change to societies throughout the early modern period, as exploration and global trade introduced world goods and crops to new corners of the Eastern Hemisphere. When traders and travelers carried new items from east to west and from south to west along the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean and Baltic seas, kingdoms were exposed to choices never before available or even fathomable. These encounters had enormous impacts on society and could lead to a range of reactions among societies. With new goods and crops, African and American societies experienced incentives for a population spurt. However, some societies expressed xenophobia toward foreigners and the new goods they brought, as did many rulers and elites, who failed to sustain prosperity without others catching up to the rapid progress in technologies and policies that helped defeat the Malthusian Trap. This matter contributed to the decline of Mongol power and the defeat of the Muslim Abbasids in 1258. Japan kept seaworthy ships hidden a century earlier. These four factors of cultural diffusion and encounters exemplify the many social impacts of global trade.

4. Impact on Societies and Environments

A great advantage of the putting-out system was its flexibility, fostering growth and increasing the options available for supplementary income. In addition to woolen textiles, the lower Rhineland areas provided linen textiles to supply Europe’s demand for tablecloths and quality undergarments. Though likede, described that cloth which was) and found among the wealth of its wealthy cities, the smoky and grand town of Lubeck, produced much of the quality cloth and earned its wealth from other trading towns in the Baltic. Since there would be few legal restrictions on either the beginning or the limits of trade, it grew vast and flourished with a great respect for political liberties that extended itself industrially as well.

As trade changed the patterns of labor organizations and production, its goods came to change the world. New foods changed levels of demand for different foods. New goods necessitated new forms of production and the division of labor. For example, expensive woolen and linen textiles in their variety of patterns and styles became popular new products. Wool weaving became organized into an unnatural division of tasks in industry known as the putting-out system. First suggested by British historian Arnold Toynbee in 1884, the putting-out system was then copied by other industries. Individuals would carry raw wool to others who converted it to yarn. This yarn was then distributed to poor peasants who worked at home milking their sheep, who spun this yarn into cloth-hence the name “putting-out” system. Once this manufacturing was completed, the finished goods were sold at fairs or marketplaces. The system was so widely spread that it quickly became the basis of distribution for any number of town industries.

5. Conclusion and Reflections on Global Trade in History

The early modern period, foundational in world history for fusing the developmental paths of various regions into a more tightly woven global system and proving the benefits of international trade to all parties, truly did set much of the template for today’s modern period of increasingly international economies and societies. Its strong foundations in international neoclassical economics help reinforce Keynesian claims about the importance of free trade to the functionality of a united global economic regime, and a study of the early modern period can enrich the lives of those fascinated not only in the impacts of trade on societies, but the history of the societies themselves by elucidating both the forces bearing on the historical society and linking developments of various times and places as the flow of trade has linked regions. Moreover, a deeper understanding and appreciation of the interconnectedness of all major world regions and the ways in which they were connected will not only clear the mind of the so-called “Zero-Sum Fallacy,” aiding the management of the social pressures of a post-global trade world, but better VOC us in ways pharmaceutical operations and atmospherical stirring cylinders never could.

Understanding how global trade has impacted societies in the past is essential for pursuing a career in a field that continues reshaping the world today. After all, we can see firsthand how new technology continues to revolutionize people’s livelihoods, at an ever-accelerating pace. While not all trends of today’s world can neatly be attributed to the forces of globalization – particularly concerning internal developments within societies themselves, such as changes in wealth distribution, as well as the impacts of globalization on the environment, which often follow the law of unequal distribution – its impacts are widespread enough to warrant the study of this practice in its early modern period for the purpose of understanding the forces at work, before novel economic concepts such as externalities and public goods significantly smudged the landscape. Although the forces of the early modern period have long ceased, time is not always so linear; the lessons of those years help us immensely in understanding and preparing for the times ahead.