The Rise of Merchant Empires
Long Distance Trade in the Early Modern World 1350–1750

This volume examines the rise of the many different trading empires from the end of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.

James D. Tracy (Edited by)

9780521457354, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 October 1993

464 pages
23.1 x 15.5 x 3 cm, 0.68 kg

'It provides an excellent starting point for those who seek to understand the economic relationship between Europe and the rest of the world and adds considerably to our understanding of long-distance trade in the early modern period.' Teaching History

European dominance of the shipping lanes in the early modern period was a prelude to the great age of European imperial power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet in the present age we can see that the pre-imperial age was in fact more an 'age of partnership' or an 'age of competition' when the West and Asia vied on even terms. The essays in this volume examine, on a global basis, the many different trading empires from the end of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.

Acknowledgements
Introduction James D. Tracy
1. Structural changes in European long-distance trade, and particularly in the re-export trade from south to north, 1350–1750 Herman van der Wee
2. The growth and composition of trade in the Iberian empires, 1450–1740 Carla Rahn Phillips
3. The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch republic before 1750 Niels Ateensgaard
4. France, the Antilles, and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: renewals of trade Paul Butel
5. Productivity, profitability and costs of private and corporate Dutch shipping in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Jaap R. Bruijn
6. The Dutch and English East India Companies compared: evidence from the stock and foreign exchange markets Larry Neal
7. World bullion flows, 1450–1800 Ward Barrett
8. Merchant communities (1350–1750) Frederic Mauro
9. Economic aspects of the eighteenth century Atlantic slave trade Herbert S. Klein
10. Marginalisation, stagnation, and growth: the trans-Saharan caravan trade in the era of European expansion, 1500–1800 Ralph A. Austen
11. The 'decline' of the central Asian caravan trade Morris Rossabi
12. Merchant communities in pre-colonial India Irfan Habib
13. Merchants without empire: the Hokkien sojourning communities Wang Gungwu.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]