The Age of Trade

The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy

Arturo Giraldez

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781442243521
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

This groundbreaking book presents the first full history of the Manila galleons, which marked the true beginning of a global economy. Arturo Giraldez, the world's leading scholar of the galleons, traces the rise of the maritime route, which began with the founding of the city of Manila in 1571 and ended in 1815 when the last galleon left the port of Acapulco in New Spain (Mexico) for the Philippines, establishing a permanent connection between the Spanish empire in America with Asian countries, most importantly China, the main supplier of commodities during that era. Throughout the two-and-a-half-century history of the Manila galleons, the strategic commodity fuelling global networks was always silver. Giraldez shows how this most important of precious metals shaped world history, with influences that stretch to the present.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Philippines before the Spaniards
• Chapter 2: The Origins of Spanish Settlement in the Philippines
• Chapter 3: Spanish Settlement in the Philippines
• Chapter 4: The Seventeenth Century
• Chapter 5: The Galleons1
• Chapter 6: The Economy of the Line
• Chapter 7: The Eighteenth Century and the Galleon Line
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author