The building of a global world: trade systems before 1500

Part V analyses how commerce acted as an enabler of modern economic development. This chapter moves the narrative from the development of agrarian civilisations, as part of an urban sub-phase on the economic pathway, to the role of commerce in stimulating movement along that pathway. It considers the early trade networks which existed, even during the forager phase. It focuses on the disabling conditions which constrained the expansion of trade and the range of goods traded. It extends the analysis beyond economic trade theory to the political economy of global trade. The main part of the chapter reviews the first, but premature, appearance of a world system of trade, based largely on the Silk Road and its maritime twin. It argues that the Mongol Empire assisted the formation of trade links across Eurasia, but that the Black Death disrupted the global trade system.