Trade and Civilisation
Economic Networks and Cultural Ties, from Prehistory to the Early Modern Era

Provides the first global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilisation from the beginning of civilisation until the modern era.

Kristian Kristiansen (Edited by), Thomas Lindkvist (Edited by), Janken Myrdal (Edited by)

9781108425414, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 July 2018

564 pages, 54 b/w illus. 57 maps
26.1 x 18.6 x 3 cm, 1.5 kg

This book provides the first global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilisation from the beginning of civilisation 3000 BC until the modern era 1600 AD. Encompassing the various networks including the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean trade, Near Eastern family traders of the Bronze Age, and the Medieval Hanseatic League, it examines the role of the individual merchant, the products of trade, the role of the state, and the technical conditions for land and sea transport that created diverging systems of trade and in the development of global trade networks. Trade networks, however, were not durable. The book focuses on the establishment and decline of great trading network systems, and how they related to the expansion of civilisation, and to different forms of social and economic exploitation. Case studies focus on local conditions as well as global networks until the sixteenth century when the whole globe was connected by trade.

1. Theorizing trade and civilization Kristian Kristiansen
2. Cloth and currency: on the ritual-economics of Eurasian textile circulation and the 'origins' of trade, fifth to second millennia BC Toby C. Wilkinson
3. Prices and Values Origins and early history in the Near East David A. Warburton
4. The rise of Bronze Age peripheries and the expansion of international trade 1950–1100 BC Kristian Kristiansen
5. Interlocking commercial networks and the infrastructure of trade in western Asia during the Bronze Age Gojko Barjamovic
6. Mycenaean Glocalism: Greek political economies and international trade Michael L. Galaty
7. Deconstructing civilisation: a 'neolithic' alternative Michael Rowlands
8. Marginalizing civilization: the Phoenician redefinition of power ca. 1300–800 BCE Christopher M. Monroe
9. The birth of a single Afro-Eurasian world-system (second century BC–sixth century CE) Philippe Beaujard
10. On the Silk Road. Trade in the Tarim? Susan Whitfield
11. Trade, traders, and trading systems: macro-modeling of trade, commerce, and civilization in the Indian Ocean Rahul Oka
12. Trade and civilization in Medieval East Africa: socioeconomic networks Chapurukha M. Kusimba
13. Conflictive trade, values, and power relations in maritime trading polities of the tenth to the sixteenth centuries in the Philippines Laura Junker
14. The Hanseatic League as an economic and social phenomenon: archaeo-ceramic case studies in cultural transfer and resistance in Western and Northern Europe, c. 1250–1550 David Gaimster
15. Elliot Smith reborn? A view of prehistoric globalizaton from the island southeast Asian and Pacific margins Matthew Spriggs
16. Trade-light: the political economy of Polynesian and Andean civilizations Timothy Earle
17. Long-distance exchange and ritual technologies of power in the pre-Hispanic Andes Alf Hornborg
18. Empire, civilization, and trade – the Roman experience in world history Peter Bang
19. World trade in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Thomas Lindkvist and Janken Myrdal
20. Postscript: getting the goods for civilization Jonathan Friedman.

Subject Areas: Medieval European archaeology [HDDM], Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Archaeology by period / region [HDD], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], History: earliest times to present day [HBL], European history [HBJD]