Why was trade with asia so important to european nations?

asia was the only place europeans could sell their wool and timber.
asia had highly prized goods that europe didn’t have.
europeans wanted to learn more about asia.
europeans could easily travel to asia.

Trade with Asia was so important to European nations because Asia had highly prized goods that Europe didn't have.

These products, mainly, were spices (from the Middle East) and fabrics, especially silk (from China).

The route used for trade between these regions was the Silk Road, a network of trade routes organized from the Chinese silk business since the 1st century BC, which spread throughout the Asian continent, connecting China with Mongolia , the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Europe and Africa.

as university of miami psychologists debra lieberman and adam smith pointed out in a recent article in the journal current directions in psychological science, humans have social and psychological mechanisms to deter incest. with very few exceptions, marriages between brothers and sisters and between parents and their children are verboten in every human culture. the primary psychological anti-incest mechanism is the yuck response. even the idea of sex with their mom or dad, bro or sis is upsetting to most people. the psychologist jonathan haidt has found that nearly everyone is repelled by the prospect of brother-sister sex, even in hypothetical situations in which there is no chance of pregnancy).

the biological cost of incest

this raises an interesting question: just what’s so bad about incest? sure, having sex with your dad or your sister seems gross — but why? some anthropologists have argued that incest taboos are learned social conventions. this explanation, however, doesn’t make sense to me as it does not explain the widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms in creatures ranging from cockroaches to chimpanzees. second, the incest taboo is about as close to a universal law as human moral rules get.

why should mechanisms to avoid incest be so widespread both in nature and across human societies? the answer is simple. the problem with having sex close with relatives is that there is an astonishingly high chance that your offspring will be born with a serious birth defect.

many citizens are in danger of contracting a food-borne illness.

more people are living with chronic illnesses.

pathogens are becoming stronger and harder to defeat.

edge nuity