Reading Thoughts - Global Commerce

I was very interested to read about the East India Trading Companies from the Netherlands and Britain and their expansion into the Indian markets. 
        This reminded me of an article I read on the subject several years ago in The Economist. The article compares modern state backed companies in China, Brazil, The Middle East and Russia and how there origins arise in the East India Trading Company.  It also chronicles the high and low points of such joint endeavors between "private/state" hybrid companies.
"A POPULAR parlour game among historians is debating when the modern world began. ...the modern world began on a freezing New Year's Eve, in 1600, when Elizabeth I granted a company of 218 merchants a monopoly of trade to the east of the Cape of Good Hope."
This opening paragraph hooked me back when I originally read the article and after our reading I feel it has even more profound connections today.  Below is a link to the full article please read it for yourself.  I hope you find it as interesting as I did. 

The East India Company

Mains'l Haul Handout

I really enjoyed the Mains'l Haul handout, I found the Kelp Highway theory to be very interesting.  Certain ideas stood out that had less to do with a boring historical record and more to do with monumental achievements of humankind.  I found it quite inspiring that these vast migrations were done by people with Stone Age technologies and how brave they must've been to be able to embark on such a journey.  

"These ancient maritime migrations to Australia, the Americas, and the Pacific, accomplished with Stone Age technologies but with great courage and human ingenuity, represent three of the most significant migrations in human history,” (Erlandson 13).  

 I feel as though early humans get described far too often as simple or primitive when their exploits illustrate quite the opposite.  After the reading I came to the understanding that although we humans today are more technologically advanced and possess tools that ancient man couldn't have envisioned we are really no more intelligent than them,  no more ingenious,  and certainly no more courageous.  This migration from me brought up comparisons to early space exploration, where brave individuals with untested technology ventured to uncharted and unexplored places.  For early humans the Pacific Ocean might have well been a foreign planet and as a further testament to their courageousness many of the oceans today are still yet to be explored.

"This human ability to innovate during periods of heightened environmental stress is one of the hallmark characteristics of our species…” (Cassidy 22).