The book The Edge of the World by Michael Pye published by Penguin Books, London, UK, 2014  is about the countries and events of the North Sea in Europe. If you went back to Roman times, all the maps would be centered around either Rome or Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea. To go beyond would be to fall off the edge of the world? at this time of the world, in many circles the world was considered flat. We often believe the world is centered this way and trade routes came from China to Constantinople (Istanbul) to Venice and then made its way to Paris and in reality much of the trade did go that way. In the book about the North Sea – another trade route is discussed which ended up in Dorestad which is now in the Netherlands. For a time in the 700 and 800’s, Dorestad was the second most active mint and was one of the main customs posts for the empire founded by Charlemegne. The goods flowed from the Danube to the Rhine and then to  Dorestad and then sent around the North Sea. Another trading route was from the Black Sea north via the Dnieper River then a connection made to Lovat finally into Sweden.

In time, the Vikings were an interesting aspect to the story, they came from Scandinavia and their great invention was the ship. Their ships combined a single sail, rowing and a flat bottom to travel up rivers. The ships were faster than what existed in the other ports and allowed the Vikings to cross the sea rather than clinging to the coasts. An interesting story is the Vikings learned how to sail so the curve of the earth would hide them from land. (if you thought the earth was flat, then the Vikings were using every advantage a round earth offered) and they knew where they were going. The reason the Vikings went into Russia was silver or money. The silver came from Arab states and the Vikings were determined to go where they mined the silver. At this time, countries often sent people to other countries for silver, think of the immigrants sending money to their hometowns. Some worked, some were slaves.

For generations, the clothes on your back symbolized your wealth. In some countries if you dress more than earned you were taxed. More interesting stories are in the book.

If you went to the Netherlands today, you would likely see many dykes around the North Sea to hold the salt water back and increase farm production. It started easy enough, the land was peat and one time there was a drought and people could see if they drained the water with ditches with the tools all the peasants owned, the land could be used for  agricultural production. This worked too well, peat that is soggy will hold plant stuff with little decay, peat that is without water is fluffy and a tenth of its original volume. The land was lowered, a storm came and salt water was not good for crops. The new idea the water had to managed, not drained. This simple idea, the digging of peat, changed a culture, redefined how the world thought of a people, changed the way money makes things happen, remade a whole landscape and turned peasant farmers to men with international connections.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, how we look at the world and our investments can change. If we need to make enormous capital gains, then larger risks must be taken. If we focus on dividends and the total return, then we should be taking less risk and still making money.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.