Period· The columns of time

Early Modern

1500 → 1800

The early modern period, from about 1500 to 1800, is defined by regular sea links between the continents and by what they carried: plants, animals and diseases.

Period running from about 1500 to 1800, defined by the establishment of regular maritime links between continents and by their consequences: the circulation of plants, animals and pathogens between hemispheres, the first joint-stock companies and the first global silver economy.

What the evidence shows

The diffusion of printing in Europe, ocean navigation, the Columbian exchange between hemispheres and the constitution of the first East India companies fall between about 1500 and 1800. The joint-stock company solves a determinate financing problem: an expedition to Asia might produce a considerable profit or fail to return, a loss no merchant could bear alone. Dividing ownership of the ship into shares allows a large number of subscribers each to commit a limited sum and to sell their share before the expedition returns, which renders the risk divisible and negotiable. The demographic catastrophe of the Americas belongs to the same centuries, epidemics introduced from Europe having caused the death of most of the population within the century following contact. Both phenomena proceed from the same apparatus of intercontinental connection.

Bounds and conventions

The two limits, around 1500 and around 1800, are teaching conventions. They are disputed, and some historians deny the period any coherence of its own beyond convenience of classification.

1500 to 1800. European historiographical convention.