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Several inaccuracies regarding Venice. Venice thrived in the 15th and 16th century, despite the claim of the article of Venice losing the pepper trade to Lisbon

Several inaccuracies regarding Venice. Venice thrived in the 15th and 16th century, despite the claim of the article of Venice losing the pepper trade to Lisbon, and started to decline only at the beginning of the 17th century. Salt seems to have been at least as important as pepper. From the Wikipedia page on the Economic History of Venice [0]: > According to economic historian Jan De Vries, Venice's economic power in the Mediterranean had declined significantly by the start of the 17th century. De Vries attributes this decline to the loss of the spice trade, a declining uncompetitive textile industry, competition in book publishing due to a rejuvenated Catholic Church, the adverse impact of the Thirty Years' War on Venice's key trade partners, and the increasing cost of cotton and silk imports to Venice. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Venice#Salt_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Venice#Sal...

graderjs 5y ago
It's history. There's bound to be vagaries of interpretation for different authors. But even given your source it doesn't seem so much inaccurate as mostly corroborated > De Vries attributes this decline to the loss of the spice trade And regarding the date I don't think you can over specify the meaning of the article's sentence on Venice to induce an inaccuracy. Vasco de Gama’s discovery of a sea-route to the spice lands ... in 1498 ... destroyed the economies of Alexandria, Genoa and Venice Sure, you could read that as: "Venice's economy was destroyed the moment de Gama set foot on the spice lands", but it seems an equally, if not more, valid reading (and much more generous and reasonable), to assume what is meant is that de Gama's discovery eventually destroyed those economies...as in, it was an inflection point that tipped the scales in Portugal's favor and helped begin the processes that directly lead to the incumbents' declines. Reasonable given that no one expects economies of empires to be destroyed overnight. With empire-scale reserves, and monopoly advantages the process could reasonably take a century, of course (and a century being roughly the span from 1498 to the 17th century). And generous given that, since the decline date is so easily found on a resource as common as Wikipedia, it's unlikely they are mistaken by not being erudite enough. The lack of elaborating temporal detail is even less damning, given the economy the article seems to want to take with words, sparing a mere two sentences on large swathes of history. With this sort of compact language, who can expect them to pedantically agonize over removing every possible divergent interpretation, and achieve unequivocal precision? I think the more likely situation is the article is perfectly accurate on that point, and you've simply read an inaccuracy into it by misinterpreting the authors' omission of absolute precision as error.

graderjs 5y ago

It's history. There's bound to be vagaries of interpretation for different authors. But even given your source it doesn't seem so much inaccurate as mostly corroborated > De Vries attributes this decline to the loss of the spice trade And regarding the date I don't think you can over specify the meaning of the article's sentence on Venice to induce an inaccuracy. Vasco de Gama’s discovery of a sea-route to the spice lands ... in 1498 ... destroyed the economies of Alexandria, Genoa and Venice Sure, you could read that as: "Venice's economy was destroyed the moment de Gama set foot on the spice lands", but it seems an equally, if not more, valid reading (and much more generous and reasonable), to assume what is meant is that de Gama's discovery eventually destroyed those economies...as in, it was an inflection point that tipped the scales in Portugal's favor and helped begin the processes that directly lead to the incumbents' declines. Reasonable given that no one expects economies of empires to be destroyed overnight. With empire-scale reserves, and monopoly advantages the process could reasonably take a century, of course (and a century being roughly the span from 1498 to the 17th century). And generous given that, since the decline date is so easily found on a resource as common as Wikipedia, it's unlikely they are mistaken by not being erudite enough. The lack of elaborating temporal detail is even less damning, given the economy the article seems to want to take with words, sparing a mere two sentences on large swathes of history. With this sort of compact language, who can expect them to pedantically agonize over removing every possible divergent interpretation, and achieve unequivocal precision? I think the more likely situation is the article is perfectly accurate on that point, and you've simply read an inaccuracy into it by misinterpreting the authors' omission of absolute precision as error.