Trading Tastes: Commodity and Cultural Exchange to 1750 by Erik Gilbert

"[This book] examines the general patterns and impact of transcontinental and transoceanic trade from antiquity to the present through its analysis of the production and long-distance trade of four commodities: spice (or spices), salt, sugar, and silk from ancient times to about 1750 C.E. In their introductions and in the primary sources that they have selected for the reader's analysis, the authors demonstrate that until the revolution in long-distance communication that began not much more than a century and a half ago, trade was probably the single most important vehicle for disseminating ideas and other cultural elements from one people to another"--Back cover.