What role does maritime history play in the political and economic life of this period?

Question

Time period is1500-1750

Answer 1

The period from 1500-1750 has a maritime evolution that propelled global trade, the Columbian Exchange, and also technological advances in ships and shipbuilding. Global navigation and charting made nations with maritime capacity wealthy, although along with trade in goods and raw materials, the slave trade and numerous wars involving trade also came about--most notably in the competition between Spain and England.

But Asia and the Pacific became involved in new ways, and the Mediterranean region left the era of the Crusades behind, and coastal trade developed and helped drive a shift of European culture from the medieval world into the Renaissance. This 250 period is almost unparalleled in the economic, cultural, and technological developments that it bred--only Industrialization comes close, and it, too, led to major military conflicts.