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I say may seem self-serving, so I present it as an intention rather than an accomplishment. You will have to decide which it is.
    Before closing my introduction, perhaps my definition of “capitalism” is in order. Capitalism is a cultural system rooted in economic practices that rotate around the imperative of private investors to turn a profit. Profit seeking usually promotes production efficiencies like the division of labor, economies of size, specialization, the expansion of the market for one’s goods, and, above all, innovation. Because capitalism is a cultural system and not simply an economic one, it cannot be explained by material factors alone. In the beginning, capitalist practices provoked an outpouring of criticisms and defenses. Competition buffets all participants in this investor-driven economy whether people are investing their capital, marketing their products, or selling their labor. The series of inventions that harnessed natural energy, first with water and coal-fired steam in the eighteenth century, made economic progress dependent upon the exploitation of fossil fuels. Coal and oil once seemed without limit, but today they have become scarce enough to make us ask if our economic system is sustainable.
    My challenge is to make you curious about a system that is all too familiar. That familiarity, joined to the notion that there is something inherently capitalistic in human nature, has obscured the real conflict between capitalism and its economic predecessors. Capitalist practices represented a radical departure from ancient usages when they appeared upon the scene in the seventeenth century. Because they assaulted the mores of men and women in traditional society, it took a very favorable environment for them to gain a footing. After that, the capacity of new capitalist ways to create wealth induced imitation. And the impertinent dynamic of “more” sent entrepreneurs from the West around the world in search of commodities along with the laborers to produce them. They carried with them the engines for the relentless revolution that capitalism introduced.

TRADING IN NEW DIRECTIONS
    W HILE THE SPANISH were linking the Old with the New World following Columbus’s voyage to the Caribbean, the Portuguese were bringing together the ancient trades of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Commerce in the Indian Ocean after the conquests of the Arabs and Mongols had already joined the landmasses of Asia, India, North Africa, and parts of Europe by the end of the thirteenth century. Now they were in contact with northwestern Europe and European settlements in the New World. The vast East Indian trading network, organized by the caliphate in Constantinople, circulated spices, luxury fabrics, and precious woods. The Spanish sent home gold, silver, and indigenous foods from the New World. After being separated for millennia, the peoples of the earth were finally in touch with one another. Or more precisely, the curious, exploitative, and adventurous Europeans got in touch with them.
    As Muslim traders pushed farther and farther to the east, their faith had spread to China, India, the Malay Archipelago, and the Philippines. Arresting the spread of Islam gave the Portuguese a religious motive for pushing beyond the Cape of Good Hope. When Tunisian traders on the Malabar Coast asked crew members of Vasco da Gama’s pioneering voyage of 1498 what had brought them so far, they were told, “Christians and spices.” Their evangelical spirit actually materialized in quite a few Japanese converts, who began to produce handsome pieces of devotional art for sale. These, along with translucent tortoiseshell bowls crafted in India and ivory spoons that African artists decorated with carvings of animals, displayed how quickly local crafts became part of global commerce. 1
    The spices, fabrics, and perfumed woods of the East Indies stimulated the imagination and taste buds of Europeans, not to mention their wanderlust. Bland