The James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has among its various holdings on the history ol European expansion a collection ol papers that emanated Irom the prominent Dutch DeMey van Streefkerk family. The papers were obtained by curator John Parker from the Amsterdam antiquarian firm B.M. Israel in 1958. The documents are all in Dutch and they pertain primarily to plantation affairs ol the Dutch colony of Surinam for the years 1717–1830. Due to the language barrier and the lack of a suitable inventory of the documents, little use has been made ol the papers thus far. Recently, this author has prepared a comprehensive inventory of the collection, which can be obtained from the James Ford Bell Library. The inventory is fourteen pages in length, in condensed print; and, thanks to modern computer techniques, is available in both a catalogue and a chronological listing.

The author of the following paper is not an economic historian. As a general modern historian when teaching history under more global perspective, he became increasingly aware of the importance of the intercontinental longdistance trade by his interests in African history and the history of European expansion overseas. When working on a more elementary, but systematic introduction into world history for undergraduate students and high school pupils (‘Geschichte griffbereit.’ 6 vols. Reinbek b. Hamburg 1979/1983), he was struck by the frequent occurrence of long-distance trade in general, of what is here called ‘intercontinental long-distance trade’ in particular: even in the most superficial treatment of many regions, countries, places of historical importance (cities, ports, straits, isthmuses, rivers, isles and peninsulas) longdistance trade played a central role. If examined closely, it emerges that surprisingly much is known about long-distance trade in general. Direct and indirect consequences of the intercontinental long-distance trade are so manifold and complex in many spheres of history — economic, of course, but also political, naval, military history, history of ideas and religions — that it should become useful to make it a major theme of its own.

The Columbian legacy also involved catastrophic demographic collapse and brutal exploitation. Within fifty years of Spanish occupation, native populations of the Caribbean archipelago verged on extinction; after eighty years, demographic decline in Mexico and Central America may have reached ninety percent. Although epidemiological transfers devastated American Indians, other aspects of inter-hemispheric biological exchange substantially enhanced the world's capacity to support human life. Eurasian grazing stock (goats, cattle, pigs, sheep) as well as animals of burden (horses and oxen) were introduced to the Americas while native American plants — not least, the potato, maize, tomato, various beans, and squash — were transferred to the Eastern Hemisphere. Precious metals were also conveyed to the Old World with effects that continue to be debated upon European economic growth, the distribution of wealth, the organization of power, and the conduct of war. Africa's portion of the Columbian legacy was to supply 5/6ths of the human migrants from the Eastern to the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1775 and to experience the domestic transformations dictated by the Atlantic slave trade. Taken together, the convergence of continents in the age of discovery would appear to have shaped the modern world, as Abbe Raynal implied. But did it? From Raynal's time to our own, how have historians related these developments to the advent of modernity or to the establishment of Europe's global economic paramountcy? Did the development of the Old World hinge upon the discovery of the New?

My interest in this period of imperial history arose first from attempts to find a more general context within which to understand the British conquest of India between 1790 and 1820 and second from an uneasy feeling that our overseas history in Cambridge before 1880 was simply disappearing, and that this would result in the fatal weakening of much of the rest. By ‘overseas history’ I mean: finding a broader context of debate and comparison within which to set more detailed work on particular regions. It is perhaps the very success of such generalising and comparison for the later 19th century — the partition of Africa debate — and the twentieth century debates on the ‘crisis of empires’, ‘depression to independence’ and the new nation states which has had this effect on foreshortening.

The publication of Africa and the Victorians in 1961 challenged the prevaling orthodoxy regarding the European scramble for territory during the last decades of the nineteenth century. In it, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher argued that what had been traditionally viewed as qualitatively new was merely a difference ol degree and not kind. Subsequent studies, especially the work of David Fieldhouse, effectively laid to rest the assumption that new developments in Europe were the cause of the rush for colonies after 1880. And yet historians generally have been reluctant to abandon the ‘age of imperialism’ as an appropriate epithet for late-Victorian Europe. The sheer amount of territory conquered by Europeans in so short a span ol time seemingly compels teachers ol modern history survey courses to view the period 1880–1914 from a traditional perspective and with resort to established nomenclature. Does the historical rubric, ‘age of imperialism’, still have pedagogic value? The answer is a qualified affirmative, provided that its chronological moorings are anchored elsewhere.

Senegal's relationship with France from the very beginning was marked by dependency. Economic, political and cultural life in Senegal revolved around the metropole — the highly centralized administrative and political institutions of France located in Paris dominated the Senegalese periphery. But Senegal's dependency was not merely economic or political. French policies towards Senegal primarily aimed at intellectual and cultural goals and were in some cases economic and political liabilities to the metropole. In this respect, the Senegalese case did not correspond to traditional theories of dependency which stress the overall importance of economic interests. Furthermore, the nature of this dependency does not appear to have significantly altered, although the political orientation of the French government has changed greatly since the colonization of Senegal. The character and development of this phenomenon, along with its implications for current French policy, will be considered here in light of the French world view, with particular reference to the Cartesian ideal.

The expansion of Portugal has never aroused as much interest in Italy as has the expansion of Spain. It is enough to mention the role of such charismatic figures of Italian origins like Christopher Columbus and the intensity of commercial relations between Italy and Spain to understand why Spain has dominated the Italian'view of the expansion of Europe. Nevertheless, some Italian scholars have worked on aspects of Portuguese expansion, and it is the purpose of this essay to review what has been done over the last fifteen years.