This paper documents the size and timing of the world inter-continental trade boom following the greate voyages in the 1490s of Columbus, da Gama and their followers. Indeed, a trade boom followed over the subsequent three centuries. But what was its cause? The conventionnal wisdom in the world...

Forthcoming in H. Kierzkowski (ed.), From Europeanization of the Globe to the Globalization of Europe (Palgrave, 2002).