Trade Route: Did you mean...?

By 1750, Africa had emerged as the center of three major slave-trading systems: the transatlantic, trans-Saharan, and Indian Ocean trades. These interconnected networks linked African societies to European, Middle Eastern, and Asian markets...

A map illustrating the boundaries, spheres of influence, and the flow of trade around the Mediterranean Sea between the 7th and 4th centuries BCE.

A trade union scroll for the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, created in January 1851. The scroll shows illustrations of important engineers and inventions during the Industrial Revolution. (Science Museum, London)

Roman economy trade Amphora, Amphorae Argentarii Commerce Free Market Economy Garum Mensarii Mint Nummularii Pax Romana Princeps State-Controlled Economy Veto

This map illustrates the shifting web of overland and maritime routes—later dubbed the “Silk Road”—that linked China, India, and Southeast Asia with Persia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Europe. From desert caravans to monsoon-powered ships...

Relief from the Igel Column depicting mules pulling a four-wheeled chariot cart laden transporting bales of cloth. The Igel Column is a multi-storey Roman sandstone funerary monument located on the left bank of the Moselle some eight kilometres...

Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is today the Philippines...

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an eyewitness account of ancient travel to Africa and India via the Red Sea written by an unknown Greek-speaking Egyptian author in the 1st century CE. In this detailed account, the conditions of the...

In the 2nd century CE, the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland in northern Europe to the deserts of southern Egypt, encompassing the entirety of the Mediterranean basin. Beyond that lay its borders. Where there was no natural frontier such...

In which John Green teaches you the history of the Indian Ocean Trade. John weaves a tale of swashbuckling adventure, replete with trade in books, ivory, and timber. Along the way, John manages to cover advances in seafaring technology, just...