Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Honors Theses University Honors Program 5-1996 Route to Glory: The evelopmeD nts of the Trans- Saharan and Trans-Mediterranean Trade Routes Kari A. Staros Follow this and additional works at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/uhp_theses Recommended Citation Staros, Kari A., "Route to Glory: The eD velopments of the Trans-Saharan and Trans-Mediterranean Trade Routes" (1996). Honors Theses. Paper 74. This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the University Honors Program at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. R 0 UTE T 0 G LOR Y THE DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TRANS-SAHARAN AND TRANS-MEDITERRANEAN TRADE ROUTES Kari A. Staros Professor E. o 'Day History 492 7 May, 1996 The Renaissance in Europe has been described as a time of intellectual awakening and cultural prosperity. Voltaire characterized the time between the early fourteenth to the late sixteenth centuries as one of the greatest ages of human cultural achievement. This time period, known as the Renaissance, was qualified in the nineteenth century as a distinct historical period, the birth of the modern era, characterized by the rise of humanism, scientific inquiry, geographical exploration and the growth of secular values. Today the concept of "Renaissance" is firmly established as one of the most well known cultural and intellectual movements of Europe.' The causes for such a strong movement in European society have been fuel for debate as long as the early modern period of European history has been studied by historians.