This Fleeting World

Acceleration: The Agrarian Era 55
region of highly competitive medium-sized states. Because such states had
a more limited tax base than great imperial powers such as the Abbasid
empire or China’s Tang (618–907 ce) empire, they had to seek alternative
sources of revenue, including revenues from trade, to survive the vicious
warfare that became the norm in this region.
Not surprisingly, a tradition of predatory, militaristic trading states
emerged. Blocked in the eastern Mediterranean, European powers sought
new ways of cutting into the great markets of southern and eastern Asia,
and this search, backed aggressively by European governments, eventually
encouraged European merchants, led by the Portuguese, to circle the globe
in their small but highly manoeuvrable and heavily armed ships. The wealth
that European states secured as they cut in on the profits of the great trading
systems of southeastern Asia and the even more spectacular gains they
made by conquering the great civilizations of Central and South America
repaid the initial investment of money and resources many times over.
Impact of Global Networks
The Americas and Europe were the first regions to be transformed by
the new global system of exchanges. In eastern Eurasia the incursions of
Europeans had a limited impact for a century or more. Portuguese and
A display of burial goods recovered from the burial mounds of Agrarian era
farmers in southeastern Missouri.