Compare and contrast the political, economic, and social conditions of Portugal, Italy, England, and France at the onset of the Age of Exploration. What permitted Spain to be able to gain an advantage in westward expansion by 1492?

Question

Answer:

Answer 1

An ideal answer will:
1. Discuss the efforts of Prince Henry the Navigator to organize a long series of expeditions that sailed farther and farther south along the coast of Africa in the wake of the adverse trading consequences created by the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks.
2. Discuss the establishment by Portugal of a string of trading colonies in India, China, and Indonesia and a massive new African trade in gold and slaves.
3. Discuss how the division of Italy into many competing, independent free cities, principalities, and small kingdoms that spoke different and incomprehensible languages hampered the initiation of significant organized external explorations by these Italian entities.
4. Discuss how the influence of the destruction of war, including the Hundred Years War (1137-1453) and civil wars in England and France, and plague left little time, money, or national energies to devote to overseas exploration.
5. Evaluate how Spanish political divisions and battles between Christian and Muslim armies initially severely limited the ability of the separate Christian and Muslim kingdoms of Spain to engage in overseas exploration from 1400 until the late 1400s.
6. Analyze how the completion of the Reconquista and the unification of Spain under Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492 permitted Spain to mobilize its significant economic and technological resources to follow and eventually exceed Portugal's successes in overseas explorations and trade.
7. Write a concise and effective conclusion.