Talk:Commercial revolution

Needs to be archived
Where is this text from? The paragraph reference numbers make me think this is cut-and-pasted from another source. Is the contributor the copyright owner? If not, we should delete this as a copyright violation. -- The Anome 20:27, 3 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am the one who wrote this material. This is the first time that I have returned to this site in over a year. The material is my own, it's based on lectures. If it is the style that is unwanted, then delete it, but if it is only fear of infringment, then keep it. User:12.223.87.232

Can somebody add some info here about the commercial revolution in the USA during the late 1800s early 1900s? -- Austonst 20:00, 6 Mar 2006

Time Frame of the CR
I may be wrong, but many sources I found say that the Commrecial Revolution happened in the 1200s? Like, one of them I have right now, in my History textbook...."In the 1200s Europe had begun to experience the Commerical Revolution, a preiod of great change..." Wikiwikiwakoo 01:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)Wikiwikiwakoo

Indeed, the commercial revolution actually began in the 1200s. Italian City States already had colonies in the Black Sea area. The commercial revolution mentioned in this article was only a gradual move from the Mediterrenean towards the Atlantic. This expansion was never revolutionary in terms of "general commerce, and in the growth of non-manufacturing pursuits, such as banking, insurance, and investing". The major breakthrough in these fields actually occured in the 1200s. I think this article should be rehauled completely. *B.* —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.197.186.69 (talk) 17:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd love to find some sourceable material that says the 1200's, and add that perspective. I can see where it would have been a gradual change, but nothing that I've been able to find says that. If you have sources, please point me to them! Thanks! Hires an editor (talk) 20:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Voyages of Discovery
The voyages of discovery should be a narrative of the main explorers and their impact on the commercial revolution. Da Gama, Columbus, Prince Henry the Navigator, others... Hires an editor 18:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Expand Section
The mercantilism section of this article needs help! A basic summary of the main article is all that's needed. Hires an editor 15:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
I put this tag here because many sections need cleanup, additional information, better stylistic flow, more citations, and so on. Hires an editor 19:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Pictures and other illustrations
This article will benefit from the addition of pictures and other illustrations of the contents of the article. Please add some appropriate images to this article. Thanks! Hires an editor 14:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Periodization and etymology
What is the motivation for the periodization as articulated in the opening sentence, and who is credited for having introduced the term "commercial revolution" into the historical discourse? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.139.226.34 (talk) 15:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

New peer review
I just provided a new peer review here. The article has a lot of good content and individual sections are mostly well written. My biggest concerns are that the overall organization of the article needs some attention and some of the sourcing is not of sufficiently high calibre.

Good luck!

--Mcorazao (talk) 12:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a reference
Per the Peer Review, adding this text, and removing it from the "References" section: *

I got this information from a teacher's website posting, and used it as a guide for the article. Hires an editor (talk) 21:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Periodization issues
This article needs some transition compatibility addressed with its predecessor period, that of merchant capitalism, see that article's lead paragraph. Dogru144 (talk) 19:52, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Monetary factors
The "Monetary Factors" section includes this: "The Europeans had a constant deficit in that silver and gold coin only went one way: out of Europe, spent on the very type of trade that they were now cut off from by the Ottomans."

This makes no sense. If the cause of the drain was trade with the East, and they were cut off from that by the Ottomans, then there should have been no trade, no drain, and no deficit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.101.206 (talk) 06:41, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong Time Frame. Proposal to rename the article.
The time frame of this article is really odd. I have never heard of this period referred to as the "Commercial Revolution". The very person the article says coined the term - Robert Sabatino Lopez - applies the label to 950-1350, referring to the explosion of trade in the Mediterranean Sea, spearheaded by the Italian commercial powers. I've seen it sometimes enlarged to encompass the explosion by the Hanseatic League in North and Baltic Seas in the 14th C. But I have never seen it used to refer to later State-led trade, which usually come under the rubric of Mercantilism. Of course, English history books may may time it differently, since England was only a raw material producer throughout the Middle Ages, with no domestic merchant class to speak of until the 17th C. But it is very misleading to use a title coined specifically for the rise of Italian-Hanseatic commerce to a much later period that has nothing to do with it.

As there is no proper article focused on the Commercial Revolution (the Medieval one), I'd like to reserve the title for that, and propose renaming this article to something else, like "Mercantile Revolution" or some such variant. Walrasiad (talk) 21:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You're absolutely right. The whole article is misleading and inaccurate. It confounds Age of Discovery, Mercantilism, Colonialism with the Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages. The true Commercial Revolution is a product of the medieval period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.19.218.162 (talk) 20:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

The Commercial Revolution in western Europe began in 1200. The main reason was the return of gold & silver coinage originally brought by the Romans using bullion mined in the east. The Ottomans prevented trade there and thus stopped bullion entering europe for centuries but after after 1150 silver was discovered in the central European mountains, the black forest and Sardinia. This enabled specie to be made, and also the Italians began opening banks which used types of negotiable instruments that allowed credit to be given without committing usary. A good source for this is The Economic & Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages (1300-1500) by James Westfall Thompson, written in the fifties I think which you can get as a PDF online. Another source which specifically uses the term Commercial Revolution for this era is 'The Capetian Kings of France by Robert Fawtier, translater by Lionel Butler in 1960--Godwhale (talk) 09:51, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

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Origin of the term Commercial Revolution
The article states "The term itself was coined in the middle of the 20th century, by economic historian Roberto Sabatino Lopez," and cites a book published by him in 1976. However, the term is used, capitalized and referring to the same general time period and consequences, in Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation, published in 1944 (e.g., pg. 66 and pg. 69 in the 2001 Beacon Press edition), with no indication in the book's Notes on Sources that Lopez was the source of the term (and looking at Lopez's biography page, it seems doubtful he would have been the originator of the term at that time). Searching Project Gutenberg shows the capitalized term being used for the same general period in multiple books from the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., Chapter I of Town Life in the Fifteenth Century by Mrs. J.R. Greene). Hence, I don't think Lopez should be given unequivocal credit for creating the term, since it appears to have been in use much earlier than the cited work or even his entire academic career. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raorllud (talk • contribs) 14:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)