ABSTRACT
Character of the Period.—The expansion of overseas commerce is the feature that gives this age its chief interest and significance. A transitional period between two economic revolutions, between the violent upheaval of the sixteenth century and the far-reaching Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth, it contrasts curiously with the epochs of rapid and convulsive change that precede and follow it. But this appearance of economic immobility is confined to internal development only. Agriculture and industry underwent no radical change in their organization or their technique. But international commerce was profoundly modified in its character as well as in its extent. The age-long traffic between East and West was diverted to new channels; a new continent arose on the western horizon to provide fresh markets for exploitation; the centre of international trade shifted from the narrow seas of the Baltic and the Mediterranean to the broad oceans; and the economic leadership of the world passed from the Italian and German cities to the countries looking out on the Atlantic seaboard. In due course this commercial revolution became the parent of revolutions in industry and agriculture. But not until the latest age of European history did commercial expansion produce its full effects on internal economic organization. In the period we are considering, revolutionary change was confined to trade and to its auxiliaries, banking and finance. It is these aspects of economic activity that must chiefly engage our attention in the chapters that follow.
