ABSTRACT
No single or simple reason explains what set in motion and sustained the staggering sequence of European exploration, conquest and colonization which commenced around 1400, though the whole gamut of human motives from economic necessity to idealistic fervour have at various times, and in various combinations, been invoked. It was once plausibly argued that the Turkish advance in the Middle East, 1 blocking the ancient westward flow of oriental spices through the Red Sea and the Levant, obliged Europeans to seek direct access to the source of these luxuries. But when the Portuguese voyages began in earnest towards the mid 1400s, spice imports from the Middle East were rising and prices were falling, as they were in Venice, Europe’s main supplier. 2 Nor did the Ottomans conquer the Levant until the opening decades of the sixteenth century, by which date the Portuguese were regularly sailing to Asia, and Turkish rule, imposing order and reducing taxes, facilitated rather than impeded the trade.
