Reasons for European Exploration

Between the 1300’s to the 1500’s, Europeans wanted to explore. There are four major reasons why Europeans wanted to explore Asia. The reasons included economy, culture, politics, and technological advances.The European were looking for new ideas to bring back to Europe. The first reason for exploration is economics. Europeans wanted spices, perfumes, silks, precious stones, exotic foods, and tightly woven colorful rugs. Asia had all of these goods. European Merchants realized that they could make a fortune selling these goods back at home.However, Arab merchants acted as middlemen, receiving a cut of the profits made selling these goods. The European merchants wanted to cut out the middleman so that they could make a larger profit. The trade between European merchants and Arab merchants was known as the East West trade.
The second reason for exploration is politics. The reason being, Europeans had a growing interest in the classics: Greeks and Romans, with an interest in philosophy, science, and poetry. This time period of Intellectual artistic creativity was known as the Renaissance. The popularity of the Renaissance reached Spain and northern Europe by the 1400’s. The Renaissance helped pave the way to explore distant lands.
The third reason for exploration is politics. During the 1400’s powerful nations emerged like Spain, Portugal, England, & France. Each of these countries had strong monarchies. Each monarch nation established national laws, courts and armies. They hoped to increase their population and make more money. The Monarchs were also ambitious to increase trade and become stronger nations. Finally, there were technological advances that allowed Europeans to explore Asia.. One of these advances being the movable print and the printing press. These tools give easier access to books, therefore, they were able to gain new information.
Another technological reason why Europeans explored Asia was geography. Early maps were inaccurate or drawn from