Islas de plata, imperios de seda

Western historiography has often relegated the Pacific Ocean to the periphery of the political and economic chessboard of the Modern Age, despite being the seed of today's globalized market. Between the shores of South America and Asia there existed in that period a vast and sophisticated mercantile network, led by China, which surpassed intra-European trade flows prior to 1800. He speaks of that colonial locus of East Asia between the 1570s and 1680s. Manel Olle; a dynamic space in which the interests of different empires, sultanates and port cities, migratory flows, cultures and creeds converged. This fascinating essay thus draws a vivid fresco of a trans-Pacific community, made up of European and Asian merchants, navigators, emigrants, missionaries, smugglers, corsairs and rulers, which disrupts the clichés about the role played by Asian states in proto-globalization, and historically situates certain aspects of current geopolitics.