t up an international trade in cereals. Shipbuilding itself promoted the movement of such commodities as pitch, flax or timber. More than European consumption was involved; all this took place in a setting of growing colonial empires. By the eighteenth century there were already present an oceanic economy and an international trading community which does busin!ess -- and fights and intrigues for it -- around the globe. In this economy an important and growing part was played by slaves, most of them black Africans. In Europe itself, slavery had by then all but withered away. Now it was to undergo a vast extension in other continents. Soon a permanent slaving station was set up in West Africa. This shows the rapid discovery of the profitability of the new traffic. It was already clear that it was a business of brutality. As the search for slaves went further inland, it became simpler to rely on local potentates who would round up captives and barter them wholesale.Early industrial centers grew by accretion, often around the centers of established European industries closely related to agriculture. This long continued to be true. These old trades had created concentrations of supporting industry. Antwerp had been the great port of entry to Europe for English cloth; as a result, finishing and dyeing establishments appeared there to work up further commodities flowing through the port.The twentieth century needs no reminders that social change can quickly follow economic change. We have little belief in the immutability of social forms and institutions. Three hundred years ago, many men and women believed them to be virtually God-given and the result was that although social changes took place in the aftermath of inflation, they were muffled by the persistence of old forms. Superficially much of European society remained unchanged between 1500 and 1800. Yet the economic realities underlying changed a great deal. Rural life had already begun ...
