[1] Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1981-84) 3 vols.

[2] Even J. M. Blaut, the most articulate recent critic of Eurocentric world history, comments: "Africa, Asia, and Europe shared equally in the rise of capitalism prior to 1492. After that date Europe took the lead. This happened, as I have tried to demonstrate..., because of Europe's location near America and because of the immense wealth obtained by Europeans in America nad later in Asia nad Africa--not because Europeans were brighter or bolder or better than non-Europeans, or more modern, more advanced, more progressive, more rational. These are myths of Eurocentric diffusionism and are best forgotten." J. M. Blaut, The Colonizer's Model of the World (New York: The Guilford Press, 1993) p. 206.

[3] J. H. Parry, The Discovery of the Sea (Berkley: University of California Press, 1981 <1974>) p. 16.

[4] Parry, p. xi.

[5] Johnathan I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade 1585-1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) p. 405.

[6] Israel, p. 411.

[7] The most complete study of the English East India Company remains, K.N. Chaudhury, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660-1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

[8] My estimates based upon population figures given in Braudel, I, 40-49; Paul Demeny, "Population" in B.L. Turner II, et. al. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 42-43; and in Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population History (London: Penguin Books, 1985 <1978>) p. 349. The McEvedy and Jones figure for 1500 is revised upward to adjust for theri underestimate of New World populations.

[9] Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) p. 140.

[10] Braudel, I, 47-48.

[11] John F. Richards, "Land Transformation" in B.L. Turner II, et al. eds. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp. 163-178.

[12] John F. Richards ed. Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1983) pp. 22-23.

[13] McEvedu amd Jones, p. 185.

[14] Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib eds. The Cambridge Economic History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) I, p. 167. Habib draws on a number of estimates made by different scholars for both dates.

[15] Quoted in Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 191 from Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 65-66.

[16] Stephen Dale, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).