Key Concept
The expansion of European commerce accelerated the growth of a worldwide economic network.

Concept Overview

The economic watershed of the 17th and 18th centuries was a historically unique passage from limited resources that made material want inescapable, to self- generating economic growth that dramatically raised levels of physical and material well-being. European societies — first those with access to the Atlantic and gradually those to the east and on the Mediterranean — provided increasing percentages of their populations with a higher standard of living.

The gradual emergence of new economic structures that made European global influence possible both presupposed and promoted far-reaching changes in human capital, property rights, financial instruments, technologies, and labor systems. These changes included:

  • Availability of labor power, both in terms of numbers and in terms of persons with the skills (literacy, ability to understand and manipulate the natural world, physical health sufficient for work) required for efficient production 
  • Institutions and practices that supported economic activity and provided incentives for it (new definitions of property rights and protections for them against theft or confiscation and against state taxation) 
  • Accumulations of capital for financing enterprises and innovations, as well as for raising the standard of living and the means for turning private savings into investable or “venture” capital 
  • Technological innovations in food production, transportation, communication, and manufacturing 

A major result of these changes was the development of a growing consumer society that benefited from and contributed to the increase in material resources. At the same time, other effects of the economic revolution — increased geographic mobility, transformed employer–worker relations, the decline of domestic manufacturing — eroded traditional community and family solidarities and protections.

European economic strength derived in part from the ability to control and exploit resources (human and material) around the globe. Mercantilism supported the development of European trade and influence around the world. However, the economic, social, demographic, and ecological effects of European exploitation on other regions were often devastating. Internally, Europe divided more and more sharply between the societies engaging in overseas trade and undergoing the economic transformations sketched above (primarily countries on the Atlantic)
and those (primarily in central and eastern Europe) with little such involvement.
The eastern European countries remained in a traditional, principally agrarian, economy and maintained the traditional order of society and the state that rested on it. 
*Language on this page is provided by the College Board.

Sub-Concept 1

Early modern Europe developed a market economy that provided the foundation for its global role.

Sub-Concept 2

The European-dominated worldwide economic network contributed to the agricultural, industrial, and consumer revolutions in Europe.

Sub-Concept 3

Commercial rivalries influenced diplomacy and warfare among European states in the early modern era.

My Videos

The Agricultural Revolution
The Putting-Out System

Reading Assignments

Pages below are from Jackson Spielvogel's Western Civilization, Updated 9th AP Edition
Reading assignment 1:
  • Was There an Agricultural Revolution? - pages 550-551
  • New Methods of Finance - pages 551-552
  • European Industry - pages 552-553
  • Mercantile Empires and World Trade - page 553

Interesting Articles

Primary Sources

  • David Davies, The Case of Labourers in Husbandry Stated and Considered - page 552
  • The Leeds Woolen Workers' Petition - page 554

Paul Sargent Makes History