Testo di assaggio

JOSEPH and FRANCES GIES
Merchants and Moneymen
The Commercial Revolution, 1000 - 1500

The history of commerce in the middle ages is the story of a revolution that took place between 1000 and 1500. The great upheavals of tenth-century Europe had caused trade to dwindle to a purely local affair. Displaced peoples, however, such as the Greeks, Syrians and Jews and the Lombards in Italy turned to commerce to rebuild their fortunes. But it was the Muslims, sweeping through Europe at the height o
...becomes an island, as if one were in the Cyclades. Among the waters rise your scattered houses, built on man-made foundations; twisted and knotted osier holds the earth in a solid mass, so that it can resist the waves. . . . The only wealth of the inhabitants is fish; rich and poor live on equal terms, eat the same food, live in the same kind of house. . . . Your energies are concentrated on the saltworks. Instead of pushing ploughs and wielding sickles, you turn your salt cylinders. . .
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