HIST363 Study Guide

Unit 2: Ancient and Early Modern Industry

2a. Explain the impact of agriculture on industrialization

  • Why is agriculture important for industrialization?
  • How does agriculture affect the labor market?
  • How does agriculture affect industry?
  • How does industrialization affect agriculture?

You saw how the agricultural revolution in England was a necessary precondition for industrialization. However, that is not the whole story of how agriculture and industry affect each other. Agricultural needs drive industrial inventions, which in turn drive greater agricultural advances. Agricultural products and technology also formed the basis of pre-industrial trade, so when farmers innovated to increase yields or save labor, those innovations became goods to trade. As those innovations spread through trade, they would also be altered to suit a particular region, crop, or method. These innovations and technologies, in turn, drove both industrialization and agriculture.
 
To review, see Why Agriculture Was So Important.

 

2b. Describe important industries in China, India, and the Roman Empire

  • What were some of the negative byproducts of Roman deep vein mining?
  • What were some Roman glassmaking methods? How did the Romans use the glass they manufactured?
  • What materials did the Romans use for building construction?
  • How did Rome obtain the grain it needed?
  • What role did water play in Roman society, and how did the Romans engineer its use?
  • What were four great industrial inventions of ancient China?
  • How did ancient China's workshop system of production foreshadow the modern assembly line?
  • How were copper and bronze metallurgy in China different from metallurgy in the West?
  • What was the economy of Germania Inferior, and how did it relate to Roman governance of the area?
  • India has a long history of cotton manufacturing that predates Europe and was the impetus to England's Industrial Revolution. What were cotton production and processing like before the British colonization of India?

While modern industrial production methods and practices may not have been fully developed in pre-Modern China, India, and the Roman Empire, this does not mean some form of industrial production did not exist. Roman mining and glassware were highly-developed industries that required technological applications to be successful. Roman glassmaking was highly developed, highly prized, and has been found as far away as China and Japan.
 
China perfected bronze metallurgy and bronze production for domestic and military use and had a highly-advanced industrial process with an early version of the assembly line. In India, cotton production existed long before the British arrived and exploited Indian cotton for their own purposes and textile production. Cotton fabric provided an impetus to the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
 
To review, see:

 

2c. Examine the different forms of industry in Early Modern Europe

  • How were trade networks created, and how did they expand?
  • How did the merchant class develop, and how did its appearance affect European society?
  • What are guilds, and how did they affect trade networks and societies where they were established?
  • What was The Silk Road? How was it maintained, and how was it ultimately revived? Why did it need reviving?

During the Renaissance (1300–1600), Florence and several Italian cities benefited from their extensive wool processing industry. Business leaders encouraged the creation of a growing banking industry to finance it. For example, wealthy families, such as the Medici, provided major financial support, which promoted new industrial operations.
 
Early forms of capitalism developed in Europe as trade, commerce, and urbanization grew. In the 12th century, European cities and towns expanded as merchants began opening trade routes with the Middle East and East to meet the ever-increasing demand for foreign goods, such as silk, porcelain, and spices, in addition to the industries covered in Unit 3.
 
Middle Eastern merchants and traders dominated these lucrative trade routes and marked up the cost of buying these products significantly. European merchants eventually learned how to bypass these middlemen: they created their own trade routes to sail directly to the source and buy the valuable commodities sold in the East Indies. Their efforts stimulated improvements in naval technology and cartography and created new forms of business organizations, banking arrangements, and insurance providers.
 
For example, the British East India Company and Dutch East India Company became two of the largest and most successful joint stock companies in the international marketplace. Their global reach made them the most profitable trading companies in the world prior to the modern period.
 
To review, see:

 

2d. Discuss how early merchant capitalism spread more than just goods across the world

  • What is merchant capitalism?
  • What role did the Hanseatic League play in developing European capitalism?
  • What role did charter and joint stock companies play in developing early modern capitalism?
  • What were some less desirable things spread by trade? What were some of the effects of this spread?

Trade and commerce resumed during the latter Middle Ages (476 AD–1492) after the collapse of Rome, the revival of European towns and cities, and a return of stability. However, the Roman Catholic Church was an omnipresent force and impeded industrial growth. For example, the Church limited excessive profit-making by forbidding usury (money lending at high-interest rates) and demanded businesses charge their customers a just and fair price.
 
Capitalism and national forms of industry, which we discuss in more detail in Unit 3, became widespread in Europe. Merchants found new business and trade routes in addition to their local partners. For example, merchant traders from cities along the Baltic coast – northern Germany, Scandinavia, Russia – created the Hanseatic League (1157–1600), a transnational commercial network, to facilitate trade and common interests.
 
Merchants in Amsterdam, Antwerp, London, and Venice also created new business organizations comprised of wealthy investors, called joint stock companies (similar to today's publicly-traded corporations) to finance more expensive trading ventures, such as the long, perilous voyages to India, Indonesia, and the New World which would prove extremely profitable when successful.
 
To review, see:

 

2e. Examine the role of religion in global economics

  • How was religious tolerance key to trade in late medieval and early modern Europe?
  • How did usury and the Calvinist idea of predestination affect the rise of early capitalism in the Netherlands?

During the Reformation (1517–1648), a decline in the power of the Catholic Church and the rise of Calvinism eroded the religious dominance that slowed the rise of the merchant class. Businesses gained the ability to lend money at a market-based interest rate and would charge prices based on supply and demand with less interference from the church. Calvinism supported the idea of predestination – that monetary and business success indicated God's favor – a belief that would encourage entrepreneurism, investment, and personal wealth.
 
To review, see How Did the World Become Interconnected? and Trade Empires.

 

2f. Explain how early forms of capitalism developed in Europe

  • How did the emergence of a merchant class change European society?
  • How did transnational commercial interests, like the Hanseatic League, develop?
  • How did merchants in the English wool trade form a guild? How did that guild affect English society, and why?
  • How did joint stock companies like the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company come to be? What happened to them?

Before the period we examine in this unit, European wealth and status were based on land and titles. Initially, the only way to obtain land and titles was to inherit them. During the period we are considering, it became possible to purchase land and titles in some places, essentially making capital a substitute for inheritance. Eventually, wealth and status came to be determined more by capital itself (or the assets purchased with it) than formal titles or ownership of a specific territory. This is just one major shift in how capital was used and perceived over time.
 
As you consider the materials from this unit, look for the capitalist institutions, customs, and social arrangements that grew out of the discussed processes.
 
To review, see:

 

Unit 2 Vocabulary

Be sure you understand these terms as you study for the final exam. Try to think of the reason why each term is included.

  • British East India Company
  • bronze metallurgy
  • Calvinism
  • capital
  • capitalism
  • cotton production
  • Dutch East India Company
  • glassmaking
  • Hanseatic League
  • joint stock companies
  • merchant class
  • middlemen
  • predestination
  • Reformation
  • Renaissance
  • Roman Catholic Church
  • trading companies
  • usury