The Millennium Maritime Trade Revolution 700-1700- How Asia Lost Maritime Supremacy

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Many historians have spent lifetimes researching original documents to piece together vital fragments of this contextual story, which otherwise could not be told with necessary certainty. I am awed by historians like Shlomo Goitein, Ralph Davis, Charles Boxer, Fernand Braudel, and those who painstakingly researched aspects of medieval Baltic trade in documents in multiple languages, those who research the far fewer Asian inscriptions and documents, and many, many more. Thanks to all. I reviewed early drafts of John Pike's Thirty Years War, now due to be published in three or more volumes. They gave interesting insights but, as yet unpublished, I am unable to acknowledge book and page, thus do so generally here. Once again I thank my Bolton School teachers Richard Wilkinson and Alan Benson, Magdalene College Cambridge supervisors, Ralph Bennet and Ronald Hyam and of course my parents who sacrificed much for my education. Thanks to many shipping and trading colleagues who shaped my views on the commercial maritime world, to my editor Lester Crook, the Pen and Sword team, graphic designer Sam Musgrove for the maps, the Baltic Exchange for their assistance in promoting this series' first book and my sons' continual support.

Names and Spellings

There are many ways names are spelt when Anglicised. I use the most recognisable, with the possible exception of Guangzhou, Canton to earlier historians, itself a corruption of Portuguese attempts to say Guangzhou.

Thile this book may be read as a stand-alone volume, it may be more profitably appreciated after reading How Maritime Trade and the W Indian Subcontinent Shaped the World, which starts in the deepest antiquity of Indian Ocean seafaring and maritime trade, gradually diffusing into the Mediterranean, linking with north European trade, eventually culminating in the maritime connected Roman Empire and its trade with the Indian Ocean. Its collapse meant European maritime trade all but ceased, stuttering to life by 670-700, whereas Indian Ocean trade continued, short and long-haul, in essentials, food and luxuries. This book continues the story, charting Asia's maritime trade acceleration and Europe's slow recovery. By 1700 Asian trade was still more voluminous, more controlled by Asians and Europe's ships were smaller, but northern Europe's merchants had expanded into the Baltic, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and the Americas, which itself traded directly with Europe, Asia and Africa. This then, is partly the story of Europe's maritime trade's rebirth. The title 'Revolution', from revolve, thus refers to a reversal rather than dramatic short political or social change.

Maritime trade encompasses many industries, finished goods and raw materials, shipbuilding, ship owning, navigation, finance, repair, provisioning, warehousing, lodging, entertaining, buying and selling with merchants as intermediaries, operating in peace and war, sometimes encouraged, supported, ignored, or persecuted by governments. They continued reacting to ever-changing supply and demand, irrespective of national boundaries.

Historians have different priorities and philosophies. John Seeley (1834-1895) stated, 'history is past politics and politics, present history. By contrast, economic historian George Unwin (1870-1925) thought history 'an account of the things that mattered most in the past, a philosophy more to this author's taste. He counselled, 'the serious student of history must learn as his primary duty to question all conventional views and values," something the first book took to heart. Political history is deeply ingrained at many universities. Shlomo Goitein rescued many boxes of the valuable Geniza documents, (Chapters 7 and 8) labelled by a Cambridge archivist 'commercial papers of no importance, yet it was from merchants that European medieval kings and princes borrowed to finance wars, buy allies and mercenaries.

Maritime trade largely drives world history. For example, in this period Asia's traders kept Indian Ocean societies rich. Trade led Europe's economic recovery. Trade in crusader states opened Europe's eyes to a wider world. It was England's motivator in the Hundred Years War, a major issue in the Thirty Years War and motivated the Portuguese, Dutch and English push into Asia. The themes and philosophy of the series, outlined in some detail in the earlier book's Chapter 1. here recapped briefly, continue; the importance of maritime trade in world history, the cultural differences between maritime-influenced and continental regions, that maritime trade promotes economic development, wealth creation, toleration, creative, intellectual and practical progress and that choke points are key drivers in the story: How the maritime revolution happened was due to multiple destructive continental influences in Asia and the Mediterranean and fiercely independent, competitive north European merchants, increasingly encouraged by government.

As Henri Pirenne observed over a century ago, capital accumulates in cities, and 'when unimpeded by prince or other governmental authority, capital always exerts its power in favour of liberty...reflected in the advance of personal and political freedom,' especially in ports. Fernand Braudel states 'the miracle of toleration... [occurred] wherever the community of trade convened." Options trader turned philosopher, Nassim Nicholas Taleb makes the same point. 'Money and transactions' he writes, 'purify relations...commerce, business, Levantine souks...are activities and places that bring out the best in people, making most of them forgiving, honest, loving, trusting and open-minded...commerce, particularly small commerce, is the door...to any form of tolerance. Experimenting in ports; shipbuilding, design, marketing, seeking technical or commercial solutions, he says 'depends on artificial tinkering,' and 'risk taking is largely responsible for innovation and growth." In the carly-1660s, Thomas Sprat thought, 'the genius of experimenting is so much dispersed that...all places and corners are now busy and warm about this work." Contemporaneously it was missing in Asia and the Mediterranean; partly why maritime north Europe began its ascent.

There is a qualitative difference between maritime societies, experimentative, innovative, inclusive, wealth creating and tolerant, and continental societies, conservative and hierarchical. Gujarati, Tamil, Omani and Southeast Asian maritime Austronesians continued producing tenacious merchants and seafarers. Not all maritime societies are moulded in the same pattern, however. Some adapt more easily than others. Venetian commerce was conducted in its golden age mainly by Venetians. Hansa ports tried to enforce a north Europe-Baltic monopoly. Bruges, Antwerp, Amsterdam and London were more open and inclusive. Amsterdam and London merchants had substantial fleets, Bruges' and Antwerp's insignificant. Portuguese 16th-century Indian Ocean expansion was initially imbued with aggressive Reconquista character. Both they and the 16th-17th-century Dutch sought monopoly. Merchants fighting monopoly did so tenaciously, for example Dutch, English and Scandinavian Baltic merchants against the Hansa and those nations against each other. After Hansa collapse, Hamburg allowed foreign traders to settle with 50-60% of its 17th-century resident merchants foreign, its commercial infrastructure similar to Amsterdam and London. It thrived. Lubeck pursued xenophobic, intolerant religious policies forbidding foreigners to trade.