A Brief History of the Future: A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-First Century by Jacques Attali Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jacques Attali
bells appear on church belfries after six centuries of tolling prayer hours in monastic houses. Time belongs to the new masters.
By the end of the twelfth century, Bruges is themost dynamic of these little seaports. It is still no more than a large township with a vast farming hinterland. Its merchants already travel by land and by sea to Scotland, England, Germany, Poland, France, and Spain, while some of them creep stage by small stage as far as Persia and India. Its harbor, constantly menaced by silting and constantly dredged, becomes one of the most important ports of call of all the great Flemish fairs. From 1227, Genoese vessels moor there; Venetian ships follow in 1314. Italian traders settle there and exchange steel, wool, glass, and Flemish jewelry for Levantine spices, thus partaking in the spice trade of the Levant, India, and China.
Differences between the standard of living of craftsmen and merchants (the “patricians” who control the city) are considerable; one insurrection is followed by another. In 1302, the craftsmen take the side of the count of Flanders and temporarily triumph over the patricians, who are supported by the king of France. Democratic life expands. Intellectual and artistic life, although still under the control of the church, is a little freer than elsewhere.
At the start of the fourteenth century, Bruges becomes the core of the new order’s first form — capitalism. A very small core: in 1340, at the height of its power, the city numbers only thirty-five thousand inhabitants.
In the environs of this core are the fairs of the Hanseatic League, Germany, France, and Italy. On the periphery are those of the rest of Europe, dominated by big landowners. The core and the environs ship wine, linen, money, glass, and jewels to the periphery as wellas to neighboring empires. In exchange, they receive wheat, timber, furs, and rye. In the big kingdoms, nobody attaches the slightest importance to the bustle of these cities.
In Asia — still the repository of most of the world’s wealth — the imperial merry-go-round continues. The Mongol Genghis Khan and then the Turk Tamerlane build vast kingdoms extending from the Pacific Ocean to the suburbs of Vienna. They rule them in nomad fashion, through force and fear. Demographically and economically, they tower over the world, terrifying Europeans who live in constant fear of seeing their vast forces loom on the horizon.
Then this first structure becomes shaky. Insecurity in Asia slows long-distance trading, and a cooling climate discourages the urge to travel. In 1348, the Great Plague (reaching Europe from Turkey and the Mediterranean) kills one-third of the European population and severs mercantile circuits. The Hanseatic ports and Champagne’s fairs are ruined.
Bruges no longer possesses the means to maintain its port, which finally silts up for good. By the end of the fourteenth century, this first core gradually subsides (thanks to its beauty) into the eternity of the work of art. For another century, the city will remain the greatest mercantile power of northern Europe, but it is no longer the core of the mercantile order.
While France and England tear one another apart in a war that will last a century, a new mercantile structure takes shape around a still insignificant city, a new core quite as improbable as the first — Venice.
Venice 1350–1500: The Conquest of the East
Like Bruges in its day, Venice is an isolated port with a huge agricultural hinterland, condemned either to expansion or to nonexistence. As with Bruges, it is out of a lack that its power is born, from defiance that its prestige derives, from insolence that its splendor arises. Lesson for the future: after Venice, all succeeding cores will be the products of catching up.
Venice is now a small town, but it is situated deep in the Adriatic Sea and ideally placed to receive the silver just discovered in German mines. But necessity is not enough: luck also plays a
By the end of the twelfth century, Bruges is themost dynamic of these little seaports. It is still no more than a large township with a vast farming hinterland. Its merchants already travel by land and by sea to Scotland, England, Germany, Poland, France, and Spain, while some of them creep stage by small stage as far as Persia and India. Its harbor, constantly menaced by silting and constantly dredged, becomes one of the most important ports of call of all the great Flemish fairs. From 1227, Genoese vessels moor there; Venetian ships follow in 1314. Italian traders settle there and exchange steel, wool, glass, and Flemish jewelry for Levantine spices, thus partaking in the spice trade of the Levant, India, and China.
Differences between the standard of living of craftsmen and merchants (the “patricians” who control the city) are considerable; one insurrection is followed by another. In 1302, the craftsmen take the side of the count of Flanders and temporarily triumph over the patricians, who are supported by the king of France. Democratic life expands. Intellectual and artistic life, although still under the control of the church, is a little freer than elsewhere.
At the start of the fourteenth century, Bruges becomes the core of the new order’s first form — capitalism. A very small core: in 1340, at the height of its power, the city numbers only thirty-five thousand inhabitants.
In the environs of this core are the fairs of the Hanseatic League, Germany, France, and Italy. On the periphery are those of the rest of Europe, dominated by big landowners. The core and the environs ship wine, linen, money, glass, and jewels to the periphery as wellas to neighboring empires. In exchange, they receive wheat, timber, furs, and rye. In the big kingdoms, nobody attaches the slightest importance to the bustle of these cities.
In Asia — still the repository of most of the world’s wealth — the imperial merry-go-round continues. The Mongol Genghis Khan and then the Turk Tamerlane build vast kingdoms extending from the Pacific Ocean to the suburbs of Vienna. They rule them in nomad fashion, through force and fear. Demographically and economically, they tower over the world, terrifying Europeans who live in constant fear of seeing their vast forces loom on the horizon.
Then this first structure becomes shaky. Insecurity in Asia slows long-distance trading, and a cooling climate discourages the urge to travel. In 1348, the Great Plague (reaching Europe from Turkey and the Mediterranean) kills one-third of the European population and severs mercantile circuits. The Hanseatic ports and Champagne’s fairs are ruined.
Bruges no longer possesses the means to maintain its port, which finally silts up for good. By the end of the fourteenth century, this first core gradually subsides (thanks to its beauty) into the eternity of the work of art. For another century, the city will remain the greatest mercantile power of northern Europe, but it is no longer the core of the mercantile order.
While France and England tear one another apart in a war that will last a century, a new mercantile structure takes shape around a still insignificant city, a new core quite as improbable as the first — Venice.
Venice 1350–1500: The Conquest of the East
Like Bruges in its day, Venice is an isolated port with a huge agricultural hinterland, condemned either to expansion or to nonexistence. As with Bruges, it is out of a lack that its power is born, from defiance that its prestige derives, from insolence that its splendor arises. Lesson for the future: after Venice, all succeeding cores will be the products of catching up.
Venice is now a small town, but it is situated deep in the Adriatic Sea and ideally placed to receive the silver just discovered in German mines. But necessity is not enough: luck also plays a
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