European Exploration Consequences

Introduction It was near the end of 18th century that the geographical map of the world was fully navigated as a result of European exploration that initiated a series of changes to the global system today. The exploration started in the early 15th century with the Portuguese discoveries of Atlantic archipelagos and Africa, all the way to the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, followed by the major exploration of the various parts of the world by European explorers. To the European surprises, the newly navigated areas were inhabited by respective ingenious populations long before their arrival. A lot of the explorers encountered various degrees of civilization, ideas and beliefs that differed greatly to the European perception

The direct encounter between the European explorers and the native population had had consequences on numerous issues and their interaction led to dominance of the ideas and beliefs. In the context of Columbian Exchange, the old world, roughly consisting of the western countries gained in a number of ways-discoveries of new supply of metals and new prosperous crops and vast arable land (Qian, 2010). The consequences from their interaction gave rise to the improvement in trade as a result of exploring new routes to promote trade and the scientific exploration which eventually allowed Europe to stand out in the global system in the late 17th century. However, along with those improvements, there are many negative consequences that arose as a result of European exploration that still have devastating impacts on the world system today and which are still highly debated