A history of international trade

In ancient times, carrying goods over long distances was risky and slow, so most trade was local. Long-distance trade dealt mainly in luxury goods, valuable enough to be worth the risk: silk, spices, precious stones.

The Silk Route was an early example: a network of trade routes about 6,000 km long, linking Rome with China. Chinese silk, Roman wool and precious metals, and many other goods from India, Persia and Central Asia travelled along it.

From the fifteenth century, European colonialism began, and with it a cruel new trade: the slave trade. Africans were captured and sold as slaves to work on plantations in the Americas. It went on for some 200 years, until it was abolished, between 1792 (Denmark) and 1808 (the USA).

After the Industrial Revolution, a new pattern appeared: industrial nations imported raw materials (grain, meat, wool) and exported finished goods to the countries that were not industrialised.

During the world wars, countries put heavy taxes (tariffs) and limits on trade. After the Second World War, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which later became the World Trade Organisation (WTO), worked to reduce tariffs and open up trade.