4.4 Maritime Empires Established

By the seventeenth century, the process of exploration and exchange had given rise to a new kind of political power: the maritime empire. Unlike the land-based empires of Asia and Eastern Europe, which expanded through territorial conquest, the maritime empires of Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the Netherlands projected their influence through control of the seas. These empires transformed global trade, reshaped political hierarchies, and laid the foundations for modern capitalism.