This vast realm of geographical ignorance reduced European activity in the Outer World to an archipelago of settlements, mines and trading depots connected by a skein of pathways kept open only by constant effort.

The third century was a period of disaster, when the general level of well-being was sharply lowered. After a lull during the fourth century, the fifth brought the extinction of the Western Empire and the establishment of barbarians throughout its former territory. The cultivated urban rich, upon whom late Roman civilization depended, were largely

earliest days of the Islamic expansion to the bloody wars and inquisitions of the Crusades to the tragic consequences of colonialism and the cycle of violence in Israel/Palestine, the hostility,

The colonization of the Americas and the expanded trade with Asia also unleashed a new frenzy of consumerism in Europe, marked by soaring demand for spices from Asia and Africa. The most sought after products were tea, silks, and porcelain from China; fine textiles from India; coffee from Yemen; and a trio of addictive products from America’s new c