Working the Waters

Kayla Rakes

Chinese Pioneers

5/1/07

            According Hobson, the technology of the Far East was extremely superior to that of Europe in 1100. But in the current age as a society we rarely recognize the influences of these advancements on the exploration of our world. The credit is primarily given to the Europeans in the eighteenth century yet without the Chinese and other Asian countries, Europeans would not have gained the products and technologies that motivated their exploration and colonization of the rest of the world. 

“the Chinese who discovered around 1000 that magnetic north and true north were not one and the same. Later, by the fifteenth century, this knowledge enabled the construction of the most accurate maps then known.” pg 57

“The major technological breakthroughs were in gunpowder, the gun, and the cannon. But all of these were first invented in China during the ‘first military revolution’ between 850 and 1290.” pg. 58.

“Because European demand for Asian products was high but the Asian demand for European products was very low, Europe made the difference with bullion exports.” pg. 77   

“In fact all India processed silk and cotton, sending an incredible quantity of fabrics, from most ordinary to the most luxurious, all over the world, since through the Europeans even America received a large share of Indian textiles.” pg. 86