Beck 269: "In his history of global capitalism, The Long Twentieth Century, Giovanni Arrighi explains that between 1450 and 1650, 'the Italian city-states in general and Venice in particular' were able to seize 'monopolistic control over a crucial link in the chain of commercial exchanges that connected Western Europe to India and China via the world of Islam'"
"As the cumulative profits from the twinned practices of banking and trade accumulated, they could be invested back into the further expansion of banking and trade. As a result, the city-states emerged as the first recognizably capitalist powers in history"