history of when the british used warships to force china to open it's borders to trade

history of when the british used warships to force china to open it

The exhibition, 'Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th & 17th Centuries,' is the Sackler's largest to date, with some 250 objects from more than 100 lenders occupying the entire museum and spilling over into the neighboring National Museum of African Art. 'All these cultures that had been separated by huge expanses of sea suddenly had a mechanism of learning about each other.' It was a 'culturally exciting moment,' says Jay Levenson of the Museum of Modern Art, guest curator of the exhibition.

Portugal would establish ports as far west as Brazil, as far east as Japan, and along the coasts of Africa, India and China. In 1488, Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to sail around the southern tip of Africa, and in 1498 his countryman Vasco da Gama repeated the experiment, making it as far as India. The westernmost country in Europe, Portugal was the first to significantly probe the Atlantic Ocean, colonizing the Azores and other nearby islands, then braving the west coast of Africa. It was Portugal that kicked off what has come to be known as the Age of Discovery, in the mid-1400s.

The show, like the nation that is its subject, has brought together art and ideas from nearly all parts of the world. At least that's the conclusion one is likely to reach after visiting a vast exhibition, more than four years in the making, at the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Globalization began, you might say, a bit before the turn of the 16th century, in Portugal.

History of when the british used warships to force china to open it's borders to trade