DR CLARE ROSE - TRADE

 Global Trade

Trade has been traced back as early as the 400AD, from a group of Catholics who produced the official vulgate text of the Bible translating it into Latin from Hebrew,there is said to be a reference of India and the goods and products that are harvested and produced over there. India's products were valued just as much as precious stone, so the Europeans started to demand after Indian textiles because they saw them as incredibly valuable trading pieces, as they new other countries were in demand for them, they would take the Indian textiles over to Africa to trade it for Gold and other rare materials.There was an trading advantage however for India in the 1557 the first European trading post was set up in China, so people in order to sail from Europe to china would of have to go via India, by the 1600 Europeans were starting to set up companies in India, India's products started to become very valuable, South east Asia started to become interested in there textiles which the Europeans would trade for tea, coffee, and exotic spices, they used the Indian Textiles as substitutes for Linen and woven silk, spices and textiles.
 Europeans were in demand for products that couldn't exist in there countries,such as cotton and cashmere,Muslin, which was very very fine and much lighter than the linen the Europeans were used to.
Chintz was another hugely sought after product  for its unique Indian qualities and bright colours. Chintz was very popular in England for furnishings, garments,people liked it because it was cheap and easy to get hold of the Indian's would customise there chintz to the according market,for example there are elements in Indian print of french poetry, another reason for the demand of chintz was its unique quality that you could wash it without the colours running unlike European linens,however in the 1700 there was a ban on Indian Chintz being sold, used or even printed in England, you can imagine the up roar, because of the enforced bans, England started a new printing technique in 1742 called - China blue and by 1757 the English East India company became the main colonial power in India.
 In 1800 Europe started to change its style of dress and interiors.It was called the neoclassical, which had influences of ancient Greece and Rome, which at the time were becoming increasingly fashionable, however it was not very comfortable or flattering so they would use Kashmir and Indian muslin to produce a more flattering comfortable version of neoclassical design.  
By the 1770's things had turned around in  trading, England was now the country in advantage because of it being so ahead of other countries, England had invented a water powered cotton spinning machine called the'spinning jenny'and than shortly after the roller printing was invented and by the end of the 1800's steam power was being used to drive these spinning machines.
Britain was now printing its own cloth and fast, they even started selling to India,by the 1860 they were trading in multiple countries  Africa,china and more,as you can imagine this made a huge impact on local markets and stores. Britain was expanding big, they had taken over India as a major world exporter of printed cotton cloth and by the late 1800 the British government was in direct rule over India.

Some lecture notes on trade