(1908-1913), especially Vol. II, _1451-1538_,
and H. A. Gibbons, _The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire _(1916),
covering the earlier years, from 1300 to 1403.
CHAPTER II
THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION
[Sidenote: Introductory]
Five hundred years ago a European could search in vain the map of "the
world" for America, or Australia, or the Pacific Ocean. Experienced
mariners, and even learned geographers, were quite unaware that beyond
the Western Sea lay two great continents peopled by red men; of Africa
they knew only the northern coast; and in respect of Asia a thousand
absurd tales passed current. The unexplored waste of waters that
constituted the Atlantic Ocean was, to many ignorant Europeans of the
fifteenth century, a terrible region frequented by fierce and fantastic
monsters. To the average European the countries surveyed in the
preceding chapter, together with their Mohammedan neighbors across the
Mediterranean, still comprised the entire known world.
Shortly before the close of the fifteenth century, daring captains
began to direct long voyages on the high seas and to discover the
existence of new lands; and from that time to the present, Europeans
have been busily exploring and conquering--veritably "Europeanizing"--
the whole globe.
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