Page 211 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1512 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The camel has been a significant beast of burden and means of transportation in
Africa and Asia throughout much of human history. This photo shows a camel bus
in contemporary India.

of production and trade that began with establishment of European manufactured products. The economy and
transoceanic communications during the fifteenth and population responded to an enormous bounty and rising
sixteenth centuries. This network was linked with river demand by increasing output and by creating a popula-
and canal transportation during the seventeenth and tion explosion.
eighteenth centuries, then with railroads during the nine- This explosion was a product of what social science
teenth century, and automotive highways during the calls the “demographic transition.” It had several stages.
twentieth century. The second factor was harnessing of From 1740 to 1830 most of western Europe experienced
fossil fuel energy: coal during the eighteenth and nine- declining mortality and high or even increasing fertility.
teenth centuries; oil, natural gas, and electricity during Mortality declined because of at least two factors. First,
the twentieth century. Regions linked to world trading infectious diseases seem to have diminished in virulence.
networks, resource-rich colonies in the New World, coal Why is not clear, but European populations exposed to
and iron deposits, and rivers or terrain suited to canal Asian and African diseases brought by increased global
building became the epicenters of early industrialization. contacts had, after two centuries or so, developed immu-
England, the Netherlands, northern France, and north- nities to the deadlier strains of most diseases. Second,
western German states were foremost. nutrition improved.Transportation improvements facili-
Inanimate energy harnessed to machinery greatly tated movement of emergency food supplies to alleviate
increased the productivity of labor. World trading net- localized crop failures. New World foods—potatoes and
works provided enormous bounties of furs, fish, seals, maize—assured subsistence for the poorer classes. Bring-
whales, cotton, grain, sugar, spices, gold, and silver. ing more land into cultivation and improving crop rota-
Global contacts meanwhile increased demand for west tions increased output of traditional foods. Imported