Reading path · 7 stops

Money and Trade

The routes, coins and companies that moved the world.

Armies take headlines, but trade pays for them. This path follows wealth through history, silk and spice, caravans and sea lanes, the banks that financed empires and the company that became one, asking how commerce built and broke the powers of every age.

Suits the Builder · the Navigator

  1. 11 · Encyclopedia · TermSilkThe fibre that named a road and moved ideas along with cloth.
  2. 22 · Encyclopedia · TermTrans-Saharan tradeGold north, salt south: the caravans that made Ghana, Mali and Songhai.
  3. 33 · Encyclopedia · TermIndian Ocean tradeThe monsoon exchange that linked Africa, Arabia, India and China long before Europeans arrived.
  4. 44 · Encyclopedia · TermSpice tradeCloves and pepper: small cargoes worth fortunes, and the wars fought to corner them.
  5. 5 · Profile · 697 CE – 1797 CERepublic of VeniceThe middleman city that grew rich on the eastern trade and fought to keep it.
  6. 6 · Encyclopedia · InstitutionDutch East India CompanyThe joint-stock company with a flag, an army and an empire of its own.
  7. 7 · Encyclopedia · Institution · 1609–1820Bank of AmsterdamThe bank at the heart of the first modern financial centre.

All reading paths →