Re-examining the Decline of Spain Richard Kagan writes in his insightful article, "Prescott's Paradigm" that Spanish history is often overshadowed by historians' fixation on the "decline" of Spain. While some of the prejudice could originally be ascribed to anti-Catho...

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the world was a quite small place for Europeans. While they knew about China and Southern Africa, their worldview was still focused on Europe and the Mediterranean. Within 200 years, Europe would be almost all over the world with settlement on various conti...

In what ways did American silver facilitate the growth of world trade? The discovery of American silver and its subsequent influx into Europe and Asia had a significant impact on the growth of world trade, to the extent that it is accurate to say that the growth in trade at this time laid the fou...