[PEN-L:11380] A forward on why they didn't ?

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

El 18 Sep 99 a las 19:13, Charles Brown nos dice(n):

>
>
>
> Barkley writes:
>
> >Of course this does not answer the crucial question as to
> >why the Chinese
> did not go around the Cape of Good Hope in the 1400s while
> the Portuguese did in 1497 with Vasco da Gama.  Thus we
> had the Portuguese in Goa and Macau rather than the
> Chinese in Cadiz and Lisbon.<

Well, we would also think of something so obvious that it
may seem stupid: the Chinese were _the rich ones_, they
were _the core_.  They were not as interested in getting to
Europe by sea as the Portuguese were in getting to the
East. If I do not recall wrongly, Blaut himself makes this
point. Long distance seafaring was more appealing to the
Europeans. It was _others_ who had the valuable goods, and
it was _on them_ to look for a way to get to these goods.

Nestor.