How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going

by Vaclav Smil

But the scattered linking of parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa is a far cry from a truly global reach. Only the inclusion of the New World (starting in 1492) and the first circumnavigation of the Earth (1519) began to satisfy this definition, and a mere century later commercial exchanges tied European states with the interior of Asia, India, and the Far East, as well as with coastal regions of Africa and with both Americas—and only Australia was still left aside. Some of these early links were as enduring as they were transformative. The East India Company, headquartered in London and operating between 1600 and 1874, traded a wide range of items—largely to and from the Indian subcontinent—ranging from textiles and metals to spices and opium. The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) imported spices, textiles, gems, and coffee mostly from Southeast Asia; it kept its uninterrupted monopoly on trade with Japan for two centuries (between 1641 and 1858), and the Dutch domination of the East Indies ended only in 1945.[16]