1. Trade Networks and Cultural Diffusion

2. A New Era in Trade
Trade exploded on the world scene between 600 and 1450.
Trade was aided through better boats, better roads, monetary systems, lines of credit, and accounting methods.
People began to keep records and lend money which established a business trade relationship.

3. Major Trade Routes
Mediterranean Trade: between western Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic Empire
The Hanseatic League
The Silk Road ( )
Land routes of the Mongols
Between China and Japan
Between India and Persia (Indian Ocean Trade)
Trans-Saharan trade routes between west Africa and the Islamic Empire

4. Hanseatic League
Collection of city-states in the Baltic and North Sea regions of Europe
Banded together in 1241 to establish common trade practices, fight off pirates and foreign governments, and make a trade monopoly
More than 100 countries joined
Created a substantial middle class in northern Europe
Set a precedent for large, European trading operations that affected the Dutch and English

5. Silk Trade Connected China to the Mediterranean cultures
Established in the early Roman Empire
Used heavily during the reign of the Mongols ( )
Carried silk, porcelain, paper, food, and religious ideas
Spread Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity

6. Indian Ocean Trade
Between 600 and 1450, the Persians and the Arabs dominated I.O.T.
The trade routes connected ports in western India to ports in Persian Gulf, which in turn were connected to ports in eastern Africa.
Boats were resilient to large waves
Used the monsoon seasons and direction of winds to schedule their voyages

7. Indian Ocean Trade (cont.)
This route tended to be safer than Mediterranean Trade because there was less warfare
Sailors often married the local women at the ends of their trade routes, so cultures spread and intermixed rapidly

8. Sub-Saharan African trade
The Bantu people spread their culture throughout sub-Saharan Africa during their migrations.
Religion (Christianity) was spread along the trade routes from Ethiopia to sub-Saharan Africa.
By the fifteenth century the spread of Islam was associated with the spread of literacy.
Islamic learning centers were established along the trade routes during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

9. A Global Network? After 1200 the world was very interconnected
If you link the trade routes, goods could make their way from England to Persia to India to Japan.
Goods could travel from Muscovy to Mali
The network was a web of interconnected but highly-independent parts.
No one person managed it, but all major civilizations (except those in the Americas) were a part of it.