The Legacy of Globalized Trade

Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up history and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like How William Conquered England What it was like to live in the Georgian era And you can even hear the voice of Richard III We got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week And there's always something more to discover Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit history at. com slash subscribe They'd been chasing rumors for years. Stories along caravan routes and imports India to the Red Sea, to the Mediterranean Stories of spices that came from the very edge of the world Tiny and unremarkable looking, but with the power to ignite the taste buds, heal the body and make people Astonishingly wealthy Spices could be worth more No European knew precisely where they came from and on the Iberian peninsula It would become a deadly race to discover the source. In fifteen eleven after a ninety years search enduring Hunger. and violence Portuguese ships slipped into a chain of volcanic islands scattered across a brilliant equatorial ocean the Maucas. modern day Indonesia The only place where cloves and nutmeg The air was thick with fragrance. Nutmeg hanging in trees The yet to be harvested red split fruit This was the source of the world's most valuable trade Three small rocky islands These islands weren't empty prizes waiting to be claimed They're already alive with established communities and trade networks of local and foreign merchants. Negotiating the flow of spices and money Reasonably peacefully But as was so often the case in this period Europeans announced They didn't really want to be part of this collaborative network They wanted control of the whole thing They saw this as a prize to be controlled monopolized out of the hands of their European rivals Because the Portuguese weren't the only ones, hot on their heels were the Spanish themselves also seeking the riches of the Spice Islands by name that you may be familiar with Ferdinand Mageelan whose fleet would eventually be the first to circumnavigate the globe The spice race between the Spanish and Portuguese in the sixteenth century marked the beginning really of a truly globalized world. The rise and clash of world empires Not on their home soil. But in distant lands, fought directly, but also through proxy wars, diplomacy and trade It ushionereded in a new age of maritime powers, it established a brutal model for how Europeans polonize the world taking what they wanted. Whatever the cost To tell this incredible story I'm really happy to be join by esteemed historian Roger Crowley, whose excellent book Spice delves far deeper into the subject we're going get through in one episode of Dan's History, but're gonna try our best. ennjoy. Roger, thank you very much coming on the podcast, hiding Fine. Thankk you very much, Anan. I'm delighted to be talking you I've read many of your books. I loved sppice. It's an excellent one. I've loved all of your discussions of Portuguese penetration in the Indian Ocean. so I'm very excited about doing this. Let's start with a customer rather than a producer. T talk about Europe in the fifteenth century Who are the big powers? and who's in charge of the trade? Where's that wealth being generated In the middle of the fifteenth century in Europe We talk about being on the verge of the age of discovery, but we're really talking about Europe is being isolated, it's cut off now by the Ottoman Empire from A lot of the things which were valuable to it in terms of trade and in terms of spices and the goods of the Orient The big players in Europe at this point, I suppose is the Holy Roman Empire of which Charles the Fif is going to be the emperor or very large dynasty Places like Venice are fading because they're locked into the Mediterranean and cannot now trade so easily with the world beyond So the opportunity for Europe now lies in what is beyond Europe And what is beyond Europe is The Atlantic of which Europe knew very, very little The Arabs called it the Great Green Sea of Darkness And we're going to see the Atlantic pioneers Taking Europe beyond Europe And that really is going to be those countries which border the Atlantic. and and learn how to sail the Atlantic and crack the code of the Atlantic and the world beyond. Nobody knew if there was A around Africa. To a certain extent, the geography of Ptolemy from the second century A D taught that what we call now called Africa wrapped around the world. and the Indian Ocean was actually a lake So the mystery of what lay beyond Europe is really the only way Now that Europe can escape from a sort of slightly claustrophobic feeling, I think. of being muzzled by the spread of Islam T tell about the silk ros, the spice roots All the goodies are flowing into Europe eventually, but they're passing through the great powers of Central Eurasia, are they? Absolutely. I mean, I think what enrage the Europeans swates are very expensive. The markup could be a thousand percent from source to consumer I was largely coming through the Indian Ocean, although there were spice routes that linked up with the silt road And most of that trade, a lot of that trade was in the hand of Muslims The mamlooks in Egypt were getting very wealthy A lot of the trade spice trade came up the Red Sea and then was portage over to the Nile and then to Alexandria. And the prices just went up and up and up And so this feeling of being in hk, if you like to Islam was one that was of a particular interest an aggravation, I think, to Europe at this time This is where the story gets crazy, Roger. becausecause of all the various, you know, you've talked about the Holy Roman Empire, Europe's divided, but there are powers within Europe Nobody, nobody has ever paid any attention to what is going on on the western tip of the Iberian peninsula before. Why did this little tiny region of Europe end up having such a massive global impact Well, it's very interesting, isn't it? I mean, the Portuguese who are going to be, if you like the pioneers of Atlantic expansion With an incredibly poor little country, population of about a million. too poor to mint its own gold coins facing the wrong way, you could say, because whatever economic action there was within the Mediterranean and they're slightly barricaded by their neighbor Castile, on whom they're not on good terms. Portugal has nothing. It has no natural resources, but what it does have is because they've got this long Atlantic coast. They are the first candidates, if you like crack the code. of the Atlantic Ocean and to start making voyages down the coast of Africa and to work out how the wind systems work to exploreestast the west coast of Africa and to jump off the edge of the known world So it's this very small country of no importance at all. That is going to be the front runner in an expansion into the wider world Why Why Portugal? Theyve just got nowhere else to go and they're feeling adventurous. Are there changes in technology and otography, what precipitates this? is one of the great questions in history. precipitated this, I think was They were also very keen on crusading as most people were, and they had some knowledge of North Africa. It was almost down to individuals John the, the king of Portugal at the end of the fourteenth century There was an Anglo Portuguese alliance. He was married to Philippa of Lancaster, who was the daughter of John of Gaunt and that introduced into the mindset of the Portuguese royal family. I mean, the children of this alliance were cousins of Henry V Therefore they were kind of inspired by this parallel idea of doing great deeds, of doing wonderful things. So part of this annglo Portuguese Alliance Hun it up A spirit to adventure of noble and heraldic deeds that created a climate in which they were going to Bring out beyond Portugal into a new world. It was cast somewhat as a crusade because they knew that there were Muslims in North Africa. and then on the African coast. So it was sort of like an Arthurian court, if you like. It wasn't quite the same as as a merchant culture which was going there to good This a culture of doing great deeds doing heroite things And so they want to do heroquic things and whether you like it or not, that's the avenue you got to go. You can't go east, you can't go north. so we're going south. Yeah, absolutely. They developed the sailing technology quite quickly actually and They slowly worked out how the winds worked effectively. You could sail down the coast of Africa, you find it very difficult to come back. And over a period of time, they realizeed that you actually had to swing out into the Atlantic. Pick up a win to come back again And over a period of thirty, forty, fifty years They worked out how the Atlantic winds work The son of John I first was an extremely clever guy and even made this more scientific So they'd send out ships every year as far down the coast as they could. And when they got to the furthest point they would leave a marker across with the arms of the King Portugal on it So the next ship that went down the coast could see where they'd get to and go a bit further and bit further and bit further and This is kind of almost like a scientific model of exploration NASA, when it's appealing for funds for exploration without an unknown come has cited the Portuguese as the people who invented this strategy So over decades, they worked their way further down the coast, further down the coast of Africa And they have a very good feedback system as well. So All the ships that came back. The captains had to produce their log book, say where they'd been, how far south they'd got, they had to record latitudes And so they're also building cartography at the same time This is kind of like a Renaissance exploration going on here and u This small country therefore, is punching very much above its weight in terms of scientific knowledge, they acquired Quite a lot of intellectual capital after the castile expelled his Muslim population, a man called Abral Zakutu who is cosmographer and who worked out a great deal about the size of the world So there was a kind of a little intellectual hub going on in there as well So they go down the coast of Africa, initially it sort of pays for itself in terms of the The resources they find that there thiss gold isn't there. They enslave Africans and bring them back and start that brutal trade At what stage do they think, hang on a minute, We might get into the Indian Ocean here. We might get the spices because that's the real ball game, isn't it? Absolutely. they were looking for gold and there indeed was gold and Marlely And they brought back some kinds of spices, but nothing very impressive So eventually they reached point where They discoverred that there's an end to Africa in about late fourteen nineties and comes back with this knowledge. Very weirdly, it's not recorded in any Portuguese because There's a climate of secrecy going on here. They do not want interlopers on their territory and the only reason that we know this guy Batlemy O Dch had actually found his way round the Cape The crew wouldn't go any further. They were frightened they were going to fall off the edge of the world Well The only reason we know about this is that Columbus was in Portugal at the time and made a marginal note in his da. This is the point at which suddenly we've learned something about the world that we didn't know. that yes, there is a way around Africa. Ptolemy's geography, which thought that land wrapped all the way around the Indian Ocean, you couldn't get into it. Suddenly, they realizeed they could get into it. And this is now the springboard for a major attempt to work its way into what would be known as the Indian Ocean and to try and get to the source of spices And let's just quickly talk about sppice once again We're talking pepper, cloves, nutmeg How rare had those things been in Europe before this The rarest would have been clothes and nutme because they came from the furthest away, but they were expensive. Th things were expensive. The markup could be a thousand percent from source to consumer It's very difficult for us now to understand exactly why spice has had this magical attraction for people and it's a whole range of things They thought they were analgesics that they were antisptics they aphrodysis that they conune it up an idea of paradise out there better world. and behind this, of course, we have to factor in the influence of Marco Polo's travels of the world out there that was rich and stuff and another Italian called Lord of Eico du Vema at the end of the fifteienth century who wrote an account of gettingting to the Sy Islands There was in the minds of these people an idea of an Eden of a paradise So all these things wrapped around it. Also, I think on some level, it just cheered up very dull food, but it's difficult for us to comprehend the kind of magnetic hold this paradise of perfume of gorgeous things the spice trade conunjured up and they just sniffed at a very expensive price Well haaving eaten a bit of medieval food, I'm aware of just how valuable those spice must have been cheer it up a bit. my goodness me.. But you've also got this hey, hey, intoxicating combination of if you head into the Indian Ocean, not only can you getet spices, cut out the middleman and make a gigantic markup just slightly less than the thousand percent markup that's already going on. So you make a lot of money You also Drain trade and wealth away from your great strategic and religious competitor, the Islamic world And in fact possibly outflank them and maybe even get to Jerusalem. I mean, this is exciting stuff as the Portuguese are heading into the Indiancean You're right, There are two things going on here. One is just getting the stuff. This is going to make us all extraordinarily wealthy, but Manuel the second king of Portugal had a Messianic mission. behind this. was by outflanking Islam going back to the beginning here, the idea that Europe was being throttled by Islam by the Oppermans along North Africa and so on, but outflanking Islam Manuel had the idea that they could sail up the Red Sea, capture the body of the prophet Muhammad, hold it to ransom and recapture Jerusam. So there is there's a mixture of trade and crusading going on here And the Portuguese were nuts about crusading this Their other hobby apart from sailing was crusading in Morocco which eventually will lead to the total wiping out of the whole of the Portuguese nobility and including the King at the end of the fifteenth century. So there are two things there and they're definitely linked together But generally on the whole, the average Joe soap going out there wasn't terribly interested in crusading. They were much more interested in getting some stuff And I think them Royal Geo strategy was confined pretty much to the Well, not entirely, but there are certainly some horrible acts of Violence by Portuguese in the Indian Ocean against Muslim ships and people. So the two go hand in hand You listen to Dan Snow's History in Don't give up aostrressia. There's more coming So the spice race is now on. The idea that European hulls can go round to the source of the spices fill up brring it all back and sell it cheaper, but still for a lot of money than all those spices coming overland across Eurasia pending global trading networks. I mean, it's one of the great revolutions in history. That race is on initially and there's going to be two great competitors initially, Portugal and Spain. and Portugal makes all the early running, as we've been saying Portugal pushes beyond Cape Town, beyond Southern Africa, at Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian Ocean and they make some There's enough spice in those early expeditions to think, right this is a goer. What do the and to the Portuguese Do they dream of empire at this point? or they just they see themselves as merchants, they just want to pay money, pick up spice and come home there is an element, certainly of empire I tend to think of the Indian Ocean as much nicer case far the Portuguese came along. It was kind of a tradeing commommonwealth and it was said the sea is held in common This is a say of Sindbad with a tremendously rich cultural life going on peopleeople being swept back and forth across from Africa to India and back again by the monsoon. The Portuguese Their aim is to really control rather ambitiously The Indian Ocean, twenty eight million square miles of ocean or something like that They are the only people in the Indian nation who have talons and therefore they introduce a high level of violence They very quickly try to create monopoly trading to drive out the Islamic merchants which leads to quite high levels of violence along the coast of India. their ambitions are huge They develop almost like a proto model of the kind of No seafaring state maritime empire which is They rank the Indian Ocean in force key strategic places on the coasts of India The mirth of the Persian Gulf Aiden Zntiba along the Swahili coast There never very many of them, never more than about two thousand Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in the Vly. period of the sixteenth century but they worked out that you could more or less control trade. if you control the hubs and The guy who workokeed this up was a very bright nobleman called Afonso de Alba Kk who works out that actually, you know, we don't need to have boots on the ground because there aren't very many of us. But if we build fortified Encampments at critical nodle points we can control the trade And that was what they were hell bent on doing. and driving Islam out should the sea and making it effectively a Portuguese monopoly One of the greatest upsets and surprises in world history of all countries to establish egemony over the Indian Ocean. It's Portugal. I mean, you couldn' make it up. Okay. so we got Vaskadog Gam people have heard of. fourteen ninety eight, he gets to India, Albuquerque you just mentioned fifteen eleven, he goes even further, he gets to Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. Why is the Malacca strait? We're all talking about straits in the world at the moment through which trade flows. Well whyy does the Malacca strait matter in fifteen eleven Malaca is one of those critical trading hubs in the whole network of Indian ocean trade and spice trade. It's the gateway to The Malay archipelago, Sumatra Java Philippines where the most valuable spices came from cloves and nutmeg And Malaca is one of those key trading points to which Islamic merchants came and merchants from further east came buy and sell spices and particularly these two very rare Highly prized bothices Nutmega and clove Just give us a sense. I mean, the amount of global wealth being generated by these tiny volcanic islands places like Banda. I mean, we're used to now everything growing everywhere, but this is the only place on Earth that you can get things like nutmeg Yes, the islands of the Malay archipelago were kind of a laboratory of evolution and The nineteenth century biologist Alfred Wallace more or less worked out the theory of evolution simultaneously downarw in there There's a kind of notional line through the middle of this archipelago called the Wallace line where species from Oceania from the Pacific Ocean meets species from the Malay peninsula and the extraordinary kind of weird freaky evolutionary products of this were Banda sea, which is a sea in the middle of this huge array of islands. There were just three tiny islands in the world where nutmeg grew and a bit further north, a group called the Malacos in what I know the Philippines where cloves grew and these were the only places in the world It is quite extraordinary. It's evolutionary freak It's an important point, isn't it that No one's discovering anything. These are just ships arriving from Europe asking locals where to go and what to buy and then shipping it all home. There's sophisticated trade networks happening already that Europeans have turn up with slightly bigger ships and critically ships that have installed cannon on them. I mean that is it You're exactly right. I mean, they introduce a level of violence into procedures almost immediately and There are no unified states effectively The random evolutionary scattering relates to peoples as well. Islands five miles apart from each other could not speak to each other in the Malaccas because they spoke different languages So, you know, it's a completely extraordinary situation Let's talk about Spain now, particular of Europeans, because Spain is entering the spice race I suppose it considered it into the sppice race a bit earlier because fourteen ninety two Cumbus sails across the ocean looking for Asia to access silkon, spice and all the rest of it The Spanish have ote, unquote, discovered Central America And North America and South America They are colonizing it, they're looking for gold, they're looking for but they haven't found any spice, have they? They haven't found the trade that they were looking for quite yet. And so what do they do No, they weren't. I mean, Colomus comes back with something that declares that he's very close to Bs, but if not the Portuguese get to these sppice islands first They send a man called Fenal Seral. Soo, we don't know how we know this writes back to his chum for now Magalish, otherwise known as Maggellan, Portugif and says, you ought to come out here. You can live like a raajer out here But Magllan is out of favour with the Portuguese court. so he hops across the frontier to Castile. and persuade the young very young king of Spain, Charles I to invest in a venture. Now, he has to fail in the other direction because of a deal which was done in the end of the fifteenth century dividing up as spheres of influence along an imaginary line through the Atlantic ocean call them L Tota Fth line. So Magelon has to sail west and find a route r the Americas Nobody knows if there is a way around the Americans. this is one of the great mystery to compete for the slice trade. So while the Portuguese are sailing east around India The Spanish are sailing west around the Americas McGanon does find a way around the Americas We still don't know how this happens around the bottom of American, what is now called the Migelan Stras. and then has to tackle the Pacific Ocean. Nobody knows how big the Pacific Ocean is. They thought that it would be a short hop till they got to the Spice Islands It's nine and a half thousand miles And although it's an easy sail because the wind carries you across, it's also extremely dangerous becausecause if you're out of land for three months, and you haven't got any vitamin C Your crew are going to start dying with scurvy. So it was kind of pretty tough Magellan turns up in the Spice Islands, or in fact he doesn't himself turn up because he's killed in the Philippines doing a kind of crazy fight with the locals. Joan Tastian El Cano makes it chse by silence And at this point We're starting to see a conflict between the Portuguese and the Spanish in these tiny little islands fighting each other probably across about five hundred yards straight on the other side of the world. And this is going to be A running fight that's going to go on for several decades. is a very, very weird little battle between two micro armies to try and control the spice trade of these most valuable commodities So we should say that McGillan expedition, he dies on the beach in the Philippines killed by a man now widely regarded as one of the first Filipino indigenous hero fighting colonization. Lappoo Lapoo. But his ship, Victoria, one of his ships gets back to Spain, doesn't it, with Ecano on board the first circle navigation of the world. So that prompted by that desire to find spice Absolutely. and suddenly, the world has been proved to be circular in all kinds of ways. And it's redefined people's ideas of the planet immediately, absolutely, immediately We've encircled the globe. Elcano gets a very fine coat of arms with The globe on it and above it, the globe is saying, You have circumnavigated me. We now own you, I think, The globe is very small on the coat of arms. know this is a sign of European Conquests of the world So they're both in the Spice Islands, the Spanish and the Portuguese How does Spain and Portugal T and resolve this I believe they're going to divide the world up between them. It's like nothing anyone's ever seen before Warfare goes on for quite a long period The Portuguese can sail quite easily to the space island For the Spanish, it's much, much more tricky because They have to sail across the Pacific Ocean The route around South America is very tough and after a while they start shipbuilding on the west coast of Mexico under Cortz and sending expeditions over to the Spice Islands. The problem for the Spanish is that they can sail over there very easily, but they find it impossible to sail back They haven't worked out the pattern of the whims. So repeatedly, the Spanish expeditions sail over there. There's a bit of fighting goes on, they can't sail back. Portuguese captured them and repatriated them on their own ships. So the Pacific Ocean is like a lobster pot, if you like for the Spanish. It's a trap that they can't get out of This is a conundrum which they can't solve. And for quite a long time, it leaves the Portuguese in complete control all the spice tray. You listen to Dan Snows History, there's more coming So you should ask what are the Spanish, What are the Portuguese doing when they arrive at these places? Are they just paying for goods and services and taking the spice with them? or why are they being drawn into First of all, brutality and then conquering coercion, building fortresses, trade rapidly gets overtaken by empire building trade does rapidly get over to takaking by emmpire building. and there are two things going on here really. One is that the Portuguese send out governance on four year contracts. And the aim of these guys is to get as rich as possible as they can in their four years They are extremely exploitative of the local population. One governor who stands out was a man called Antonio Galval. who observes the terrible things that the Portuguese are doing And really he says spices are the source of all evil because it was just for quick Get as rich as you can and go home. We're not interesting the local people. We're exploiting them as much as we can. It's early colonialism on a grand scale The Spanish are doing more or less the same thing. So it's really a kind of early example of European plunder of the world, I think, and those who were sensitive to it such as Galval were horrified by what the Portuguese were doing and the consequences of it and the Spanish in place like the Philippines, I guess as well. It's such an interesting story it's the birth of globalization, isn't it? It really is the first time that all continents have been buil into the same trading and political networks But it's such a violent foundation of that, isn't it It is a violent foundation. It certainly is. I mean, I think we're seeing a European colonialism starting to take hold and it will spread effectively in a way the spice trade in the Malacas becomes a springboard for further and further encroachments into the world of the East The Spanish eventually create their own hub in Manila, in the Philippines, where they drive out the local ruling class And we're starting to see Europeans spreading their wings, if you like, across further and further into the far East There are some places which are actually impenetrable to them Portuguese get a very bloody nose when they try and do trade with China. They think they can just turn up and speak to the Emperor of China. It doesn't work like that They tried to build forts and colonize little bits of China they are brutally expelled and killed So you know it doesn't go all the way. But what we see happening in the far East is a nodal set of networks which allow trade to spread in all directions. So By middle of and sixteenth century, the Portuguese have got to place a little hold in Japan in Nagasaki in Macau. in Manila G. across the Pacific Ocean because eventually Spanish learned to sail back across the Pacific Ocean and then we're starting to see a very Finally web trading networks stretching across the whole world off the springboard of the spice trade exploration Well just another little example. those Portuguese ships trying to get to the Indian Ocean, they end up hitting Brazil by mistake. so they quote discover Brazil and then you see vast numbers of Enslaved Africans taken to Brazil to work plantations in the West Indies. So yeah, the world being radically reordered and these commodities flowing from one continent to the next, a recognizably modern world, which is why Historians have described this as one of the most important sort of events, revolutions in our history. I see sixteenth century as the age of acceleration. As you've said, we get this very deep webs of connection, we'd start to seeing plant species being moved around. across the Pacific Ocean, what they call the Magellan exchange where you start seeing crops being introduced into the Philippines, you've seen new types of rice being introduced into China, which is going to increase the the health of the Chinese nation we see goods traveling in all the directions We see the Chinese now exporting Ming China across the world We see all kinds of goods, ideas, images, And a lot of this in Europe is Expressed in the development of printing in the sixteenth century, we start to see I think something like one hundred fifty million books were printed in the sixteenth century in Europe robably more writing than ever been done in the whole of the world before And a lot of this was about exploration, about places. and people could visualize the world in a different way. You could have a globe, you could see the world yourself. you could have a pocket atlas of the world The world is mine oyster. As Shakare said which I with my sword will open. So we're seeing the development, I think, of the springboard of Europe's unfortunately in many ways launch across the world happening in this century. It is absolutely fascinating and along with it go a whole range of other developments. We see the development of cryptography because people are trying to keep their information secret. the Portuguese tried to redact as much of the material that they had written as possible. Unfortunately this they failed because the Dutch managed to steal and map of all the trading routes to the Spice Islands and get there themselves, where they behaved far more brutally. than the Portuguese and Spanish had, the Dutch had no interest in converting people to Christianity. They just wanted the stuff. for a long period The Dutch had monopoly of the spice trade. And when you look at Amsterdam or you look at Rembrandtts or Vermeer's or something. These are all paid for by spices The Dutch managed to Monopolize As we move into the seventeenth century It's a very, really interesting period. Such you mention apart of many other developments. And one of the other ones is the modern joint stock company. You know the idea of buying and selling shares on stock markets of gigantic multinational corporations, that all starts Absolutely, you could going for arbitrage because the Chinese change their tax system to silver and You could do very well by turning your silver into gold If you knew what you were doing So there are all kinds of games and opportunities going on here. and One of the things that I discovered and that totally blew me away was the discovery of the largest silver mine in the world in the Bolivian Andes at a place called Poto Si. just at the moment that the Chinese were changing their tax system to silver and Potterse became the biggest mining boom in history It ended up with a population of about one hundred eighty thousand people. It was as large as London because everybody flocks there to make their fortunes. and silver becomes the global currency because the Chinese sort of then as now they wanted the money and they exported the goods. Ming Pottery, particularly was incredibly coveted If you're a Portuguese nobleman, you could order a a m dinner set with your coat of arms from China and have it delivered rather slowly a long period of time. And silver becomes the currency, it becomes the dollar of its day. So we can start to see the emergence of all kinds of trends which are very familiar to us now out of this wonderully rich period. I wouldn't say it was wonderful in terms of the faith and many of the peoples of the world, but it was springboards for The modern world in many ways Roger you put it perfectly. Thankk you let's end it right there. Well, you've probably got a couple of books that s have of touch on this period, but tell us which ones people can read to follow up on. Well, the book that relates to this one is just called Spies, the sixteenth century contest which shaped the modern world Thank you so much coming the podcast Roger. Thank you very much, Dan Well that's it folks. Thank you very much to Roger Crowley, expert storyteller as ever. And if you missed it, we released an episode earlier this year with Roger where he told the story of the rise and fall of the Venetian Republic. One of the great maritime powers leading up to this period, a maritime power whose fortunes would be radically changed by what was going on in the distant