Philip Parker

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Trade is the lifeblood of nations. It has provided vital goods and wealth to countries and merchants, from the ancient Egyptians who went in search of gold and ivory to their 21st-century equivalents trading high-tech electronic equipment from the Far East. Whether the volcanic obsidian that Neolithic Greeks traded across the Aegean 13,000 years ago or the tantalum vital for mobile phone production that fuels contemporary conflicts in Central Africa, trade has driven exploration, empire-building, economic development and dizzying spirals of consumer fashion and commercial bust.
History of World Trade in Maps tells the extraordinary stories of the Roman merchants who plied the monsoon winds to import tens of thousands of tons of pepper from India, their Portuguese successors over a thousand years later who constructed a maritime empire in the Indian Ocean, of Mansa Musa of Mali who spent so lavishly in Cairo he caused the price of gold to crash, of the Aztec merchants who plied the length of Central America long before the arrival of the Spanish, and the tea clippers who raced all the way from China to London, sometimes arriving within hours of each other.

More than 70 maps give a visual representation of the history of World Commerce, accompanied by text which tells the extraordinary story of the merchants, adventurers, middle-men and monarchs who bought, sold, explored and fought in search of profit and power.

The maps are all works of art, witnesses to history, and have a fascinating story to tell.

The maps include:

• Çatalhöyük Plan, c. 6200 BC
• Babylonian Map of the World, c. 600 BC
• Stone Map of China, 1136
• Hereford Mappa Mundi, c. 1300
• Buondelmonti Map of Constantinople, c. 1420
• The Waldseemüller Map, 1507
• James Rennell Map of Hindoostan, 1782
• Air Age Map, 1945
• Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Dashboard, 2020

  From the Silk Road to cyberspace, all trade is here.