The Intricacies Of The History of Imperial Commerce

When looking at the History of imperial commerce I think that there are multiple hugely important event or practices that occurred during this era. Some historians might have their egos solely invested into a specific part of the era, which they might argue is THE thing to study if you look into this era of world history. However, when I was looking at the different specific parts of this era that we studied in this class a historian could make their case for any of them being more “important” then the others. One historian might say looking at and analyzing the slave trade is obviously the most important! Because without this gruesome practice of slave trade the economy of the entire world couldn’t have sustained enough to help the fuel the blaze that was the industry revolution in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. The Pacific Ocean trade routes showed Europeans the trade routes that helped fuel the globalization that starts popping up. Like in The Indian Ocean trade route that opens up India to be “colonized” by Britain for the next hundred or so years.

I just thought of another way to express my thoughts on this matter and a great parallel to draw. When study WWII is the blitzkrieg more important than the North African campaign? A historian could make the case for both, North Africa would have helped Hitler fuel the blitzkrieg into Russia with oil and supplies from the Middle East via the Suez Canal. So was this more important then the blitzkrieg that overwhelmed Western Europe in less then a year? No, they are both hugely important parts of the history. Just like the slave trade was the main focus of this unit it’s just a cog in the entire picture that is the imperial commerce during this era.