"Both sugar trade and spice trade were economic foundations of early European geographic expansion and colonial capitalism. Frankish settlement in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Syria-Palestine may be seen as, arguably, the earliest example of colonial capitalism, preceding early sixteenth-century Portuguese conquests of spice-trading coastal outposts of India, south-east Asia and the Arabian peninsula."

Philip Slavin (2023) ‘With a grain of sugar’: native agriculture and colonial capitalism in the Frankish Levant, c. 1100–1300, Crusades, 22:1, 1-38, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14765276.2023.2193021 #OpenAccess #OA #Article #History #Histodon #Histodons #Europe #France #Levant #Agriculture #Capitalism #International #Trade @histodon @histodons