This book shows how England's conquest of Mediterranean trade proved to be the first step in building its future economic and commercial hegemony, and how Italy lay at the heart of that process. In the seventeenth century the Mediterranean was the largest market for the colonial products which were exported by English merchants, as well as being a source of raw materials which were indispensable for the growing and increasingly aggressive domestic textile industry. The new free port of Livorno became the linchpin of English trade with the Mediterranean and, together with ports in southern Italy, formed part of a system which enabled the English merchant fleet to take control of the region's trade from the Italians. In her extensive use of English and Italian archival sources, the author looks well beyond Braudel's influential picture of a Spanish-dominated Mediterranean world. In doing so she demonstrates some of the causes of Italy's decline and its subsequent relegation as a dominant force in world trade.
This delightful book by John Stoye allows us to accompany the seventeenth-century traveler on his journeys into France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands
In English Trade and Adventure to Russia in the Early Modern Era, Maria Salomon Arel revisits Anglo-Russian trade in first half of the seventeenth century. Drawing on largely neglected Russian and English sources, she reconstructs the history of the Muscovy Company in a period of expanding opportunities for foreigners in Russia and of tightening links between regional markets across the globe. In her strongly revisionist telling, the Company successfully rebuilt in the aftermath of the devastating Time of Troubles, securing its uniquely privileged position in the Russian market at the hands of a newly installed tsar and Romanov dynasty keen to revive the country’s decimated economy through the stimulus of foreign trade. Meanwhile, on the London end of a trade clearly deemed relevant to commercial and shipping interests increasingly dependent on Russian naval stores and invested in the Russian re-export trades to and from the Mediterranean and Asia, the Company restructured its organization and finances with crucial royal support in furtherance of the ‘public good’ and early Stuart dynastic honor. As Arel documents, by the 1630s-40s, English trade to Russia was flourishing, as seen in the growing number of Muscovy Company men active all along the Moscow-Archangel route, their substantial commercial infrastructure, extensive supply networks among a broad swath of Russian merchants and traders, and prominent role in the exploitation of monopoly trades established to fill the tsar’s coffers with specie. The picture drawn by Arel overturns a traditional narrative on the Russia trade that has relegated the English to the shadows, demonstrating the tenacity and continued development of their enterprise at the intersection of English commercial expansion, Russian economic growth, and advancing globalization processes. Taking the narrative even further, the book opens up new perspectives and research directions by pointing to an incipient link between the Russian and transatlantic markets, while shifting the lens on the Anglo-Dutch relationship in the Russia trade away from the time-worn dichotomy of cutthroat competition to a more nuanced understanding of mutual cooperation and business association between merchants on the ground, even in the face of commercial and territorial competition between nations.
Britain and its Neighbours explores instances and periods of cultural contact and exchanges between communities in Britain with those in other parts of Europe between c.500 and 1700. Collectively, the twelve case studies highlight certain aspects of cultural contact and exchange and present neglected factors, previously overlooked evidence, and new methodological approaches. The discussions draw from a broad range of disciplines including archaeology, history, art history, iconography, literature, linguistics, and legal history in order to shine new light on a multi-faceted variety of expressions of the equally diverse and long-standing relations between Britain and its neighbours. Organised chronologically, the volume accentuates the consistency and continuity of social, cultural, and intellectual connections between Britain and Continental Europe in a period that spans over a millennium. With its range of specialised topics, Britain and its Neighbours is a useful resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in cultural and intellectual studies and the history of Britain’s long-standing connections to Europe.
This collection addresses Anglo-Italian influences, correspondences and relationships through the lens of an expansive notion of eighteenth-century political history, explored in its fecund dialogue with cultural history. Its multifaceted approach fleshes out the idea of the Enlightenment community of people linking and sharing different forms and structures of knowledge into a comprehensive picture of the Age of Reason. This book probes fields of great relevance for the cultural interpretation of historical experience, and composes a lively, and as yet unexplored, map of an interconnected European world. Anglo-Italian encounters are explored here primarily through the interweaving of political and cultural history, adding a valuable cog to contemporary insight into the cosmopolitan nature of Enlightenment Europe. The essays here range in scope from the public economy and international trade to finance, moral philosophy, the ethics and politics of translation, travel, the cosmopolitan impact of Italian music and taste, and the art of gardening.
This book—the sixth volume in The Great Cultural Eras of the Western World series—provides information on more than 400 individuals who created and played a role in the era's intellectual and cultural activity. The book's focus is on cultural figures—those whose inventions and discoveries contributed to the scientific revolution, those whose line of reasoning contributed to secularism, groundbreaking artists like Rembrandt, lesser known painters, and contributors to art and music. As the momentum of the Renaissance peaked in 1600, the Western World was poised to move from the Early Modern to the Modern Era. The Thirty Years War ended in 1648 and religion was no longer a cause for military conflict. Europe grew more secularized. Organized scientific research led to groundbreaking discoveries, such as the earth's magnetic field, Kepler's first two laws of motion, and the slide rule. In the arts, Baroque painting, music, and literature evolved. A new Europe was emerging. This book is a useful basic reference for students and laymen, with entries specifically designed for ready reference.
Livorno fu una creazione postmedievale di notevole successo. Diventò il più grande porto di transito del Mediterraneo e creò il concetto di porto franco in Europa. Costruita dai Granduchi Medici, prosperò come la più importante base commerciale nel Mediterraneo per i Poteri nord-atlantici. Tra questi il principale fu inglese, la cui Royal Navy garantì il suo successo commerciale e il predominio britannico nel Mediterraneo – un’area che era ancora la fonte di prodotti e beni di lusso e che forniva un mercato popoloso per le manifatture, i metalli, il pesce, le riesportazioni coloniali ed i servizi di trasporto inglesi. Questo volume raccoglie quattordici contributi che danno prove materiali della relazione della Gran Bretagna con Livorno e la Toscana. Livorno was a remarkably successful post-medieval creation, which became the greatest transit port in the Mediterranean and pioneered the concept of the free port in Europe. Built by the Medici Grand Dukes, it prospered as the main commercial base in the Mediterranean for north Atlantic powers. Principal amongst these were the English, whose Royal Navy ensured their commercial success and Britain’s dominance of the Mediterranean – an area which was still the source of luxury produce and goods and provided a populous market for British manufactures, metals, fish, colonial re-exports and shipping. This volume brings together fourteen papers highlighting the material evidence of Britain’s relationship with Livorno and Tuscany.
Against the backdrop of England's emergence as a major economic power, the development of early modern capitalism in general and the transformation of the Mediterranean, Maria Fusaro presents a new perspective on the onset of Venetian decline. Examining the significant commercial relationship between these two European empires during the period 1450–1700, Fusaro demonstrates how Venice's social, political and economic circumstances shaped the English mercantile community in unique ways. By focusing on the commercial interaction between Venice and England, she also re-establishes the analysis of the maritime political economy as an essential constituent of the Venetian state political economy. This challenging interpretation of some classic issues of early modern history will be of profound interest to economic, social and legal historians, and provides a stimulating addition to current debates in imperial history, especially on the economic relationship between different empires and the socio-economic interaction between 'rulers and ruled'.
WINNER OF THE 2023 RALPH GOMORY BOOK PRIZE "A superb book."--Jerry Brotton "Wonderfully wide-ranging and deeply-researched."--William Dalrymple "Sharply observed, innovatively analysed, and always accessible."--Nandini Das A new history of English trade and empire--revealing how a tightly woven community of merchants was the true origin of globalized Britain In the century following Elizabeth I's rise to the throne, English trade blossomed as thousands of merchants launched ventures across the globe. Through the efforts of these "mere merchants," England developed from a peripheral power on the fringes of Europe to a country at the center of a global commercial web, with interests stretching from Virginia to Ahmadabad and Arkhangelsk to Benin. Edmond Smith traces the lives of English merchants from their earliest steps into business to the heights of their successes. Smith unpicks their behavior, relationships, and experiences, from exporting wool to Russia, importing exotic luxuries from India, and building plantations in America. He reveals that the origins of "global" Britain are found in the stories of these men whose livelihoods depended on their skills, entrepreneurship, and ability to work together to compete in cutthroat international markets. As a community, their efforts would come to revolutionize Britain's relationship with the world.
