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500
Middle Ages
-Feudalism and the Manor System
-Very little trade
-Few advances in technology, etc. -
Jan 1, 1347
Black Death
-Killed between 30% to 60% of Europe's population
-Causes inflation due to excess money
-Poor rise through socio-economic classes as jobs left by dead upper class men had to be filled
-Trade was cut off for the duration of the plague
-Created economic conditions that would lead to the Renaissance -
Jan 1, 1400
Renaissance
-Period of new learning and changes in style of art
-More secular than Middle Ages
-During this period, Northern Italy was very wealthy since all of the silk and spice trade had to pass through there
-Included a rise in international banking
-Invention of Gutenberg's printing press would make printing a profitable industry -
Jan 1, 1450
Age of Discovery
-First step towards globalization
-Northern Italy could no longer monopolize trade
-Expanded trade of spices, cloth, precious metals, and slaves
-Treaty of Tordesailles
-Mercantilism
-Columbian Exchange:
Europe gets corn, tomatoes, potatoes, turkeys, cashews, beans, chocolate, chili peppers, peanuts, pineapple, syphilis
Americas get wheat, cattle, horses, pigs, grapes, oranges, rice chickens, geese, olives, bananas, sugar cane, small pox, measles, and other diseases -
Jan 1, 1543
Sceintific Revolution
-a.k.a. "the price revolution
-Price of food rose x10
-Farmers wanted to increase output which made inflation worse
-Inflation due to increased flow of silver from Americas
-Specialization of economies increased (wheat in baltic states, merchant ships in Netherlands) -
Absolutism and Enligtenment
-Farming dominated the economic scene
-A stronger legal system to maintain contracts, bills, insurance, property claims and rights
-Stock companies emerged which benefited enterprises and investors
-Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" popularized Laissez-fraire
-Productivity became measure of national wealth
-Interest Rates were lowered across most of Europe
-Population increase led to growth in producticity and economy
-Innovations streamlined manufactural processes
-Urbanization -
Absolutism and Enligtenment cont'd
-Urbanization stimulated agricultural demand
-Feudal and manorial systems were replaced by commertial farms
-Agricultural technologies made farming more profitable
-Canals and roads made the transporation of goods cheaper and faster
-Mechanizaion of manufacturing processes led to factory growth
-Innovation of existing processes
-Free enterprise led to new ideas and a general increase in profits
-Conditions lead to urbanization and Industrial Revolution -
French Revolution
-Famine
-Excessive spending by royal family
-Privalegded upper classes neglected lower classes
-Unfair taxation
-Inflation
-Thermadorian Reaction--> Price regualtion, attacked upper classes
-The Directory--> continued economic failure -
Industrial Revolution
-Agricultural and commercial society became the modern industrial society
-Supply of cheap labour
-Plentiful resources
-Large supplies of capital
-Train, macadam raods, steamboat
-Factory system
-People moved to city as less were required for agriculture
-Laissez Faire, Communism, Socialism, and Utopianism were responces to the socio-economic problems -
Second Industrial Revolution
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WWI
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Interwar Years
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World War II
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Cold War
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Economic Systems
Left Wing
-Anachrism
-Communism
-Socialism Right Wing
-Capitalism
-Feudalism
