How Did the Spice Trade Affect the Fortunes of the Arab World?

---

PRESENTER

Mark Khoury

ORIGINAL CITY 

Dubai

Original Date

November 3, 2018

Description

For more than 1,000 years, the Spice Trade was the largest global trade network in the world, bringing spices from the places as far away as Eastern China, Southern India, and the Malay Islands to the plates of European consumers. For centuries, various Arab and Persian traders relied on the unending demand for spices within Europe and their strategic positioning as middlemen to profit as merchants in this lucrative trade. However, both empires would feel threatened by the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the increasing competition for access to this trade by the Ottoman's formidable navy. This presentation examines the historical context for the Spice Trade and examines the influence of the Spice Trade in shaping the future of the Arab World and of global politics thereafter.

Sources & Future References

• Smithsonian - The Spice that Built Venice

• UToronto - The Consumption of Spices and Their Costs in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern Europe: Luxuries or Necessities?

• 1882 Rogers - A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vol. IV: 1401 - 1582, Oxford

• 1992 - The Economist - Goodbye to the Mamluks, Millennium issue: The Turkish empire

• 1955 Parry - Econ Botany - The Story of Spices, 9(2) pp.190-207

• 1958 Fischel - J Econ Soc Hist Orient - The Spice Trade in Mamluk Egypt, 1(2) pp. 157-174

• 2007 Subrahmanyam - J Global Hist - The birth-pangs of Portuguese Asia: revisiting the “long decade” 1498-1509, 2 pp. 261-280

Contact Info                                                                                                     

Instagram: @hashtag.khoury
Linkedin: khourymark
Website: mark@markkhoury.me
www.quora.com/profile/Mark-Khoury-1

If you would like to contact the presenter directly, please email us at afikra and we will connect you!