The Free Port of Livorno and the Transformation of the Mediterranean World, 1574-1790
The Free Port of Livorno and the Transformation of the Mediterranean World, 1574-1790

Author: Corey Tazzara

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 0198791585

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In the twilight of the Renaissance, the grand duke of Tuscany--a scion of the fabled Medici family of bankers--invited foreign merchants, artisans, and ship captains to settle in his port city of Livorno. The town quickly became one of the most bustling port cities in the Mediterranean, presenting a rich tableau of officials, merchants, mariners, and slaves. Nobody could have predicted in 1600 that their activities would contribute a chapter in the history of free trade. Yet by the late seventeenth century, the grand duke's invitation had evolved into a general program of hospitality towards foreign visitors, the liberal treatment of goods, and a model for the elimination of customs duties. Livorno was the earliest and most successful example of a free port in Europe. The story of Livorno shows the seeds of liberalism emerging, not from the studies of philosophers such as Adam Smith, but out of the nexus between commerce, politics, and identity in the early modern Mediterranean.

Crossing The Strait
Crossing The Strait

Author: James Brown

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2012-04-19

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 9004208933

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Using new archival evidence, this book examines the links between Morocco and Gibraltar, focusing on the period around 1750-1850. It shows how these connections challenge existing assumptions about the perceived division between opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century
Italian Jewish Networks from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century

Author: Francesca Bregoli

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-26

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 3319894056

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The volume investigates the interconnections between the Italian Jewish worlds and wider European and Mediterranean circles, situating the Italian Jewish experience within a transregional and transnational context mindful of the complex set of networks, relations, and loyalties that characterized Jewish diasporic life. Preceded by a methodological introduction by the editors, the chapters address rabbinic connections and ties of communal solidarity in the early modern period, and examine the circulation of Hebrew books and the overlap of national and transnational identities after emancipation. For the twentieth century, this volume additionally explores the Italian side of the Wissenschaft des Judentums; the role of international Jewish agencies in the years of Fascist racial persecution; the interactions between Italian Jewry, JDPs and Zionist envoys after Word War II; and the impact of Zionism in transforming modern Jewish identities.

The Great Sea
The Great Sea

Author: David Abulafia

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 849

ISBN-13: 019975263X

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Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it. Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. He stresses the remarkable ability of Mediterranean cultures to uphold the civilizing ideal of convivencia, "living together." Now available in paperback, The Great Sea is the definitive account of perhaps the most vibrant theater of human interaction in history.

Xenocracy
Xenocracy

Author: Sakis Gekas

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2016-12-01

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 180539391X

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Of the many European territorial reconfigurations that followed the wars of the early nineteenth century, the Ionian State remains among the least understood. Xenocracy offers a much-needed account of the region during its half-century as a Protectorate of Great Britain—a period that embodied all of the contradictions of British colonialism. A middle class of merchants, lawyers and state officials embraced and promoted a liberal modernization project. Yet despite the improvements experienced by many Ionians, the deterioration of state finances led to divisions along class lines and presented a significant threat to social stability. As author Sakis Gekas shows, the ordeal engendered dependency upon and ambivalence toward Western Europe, anticipating the “neocolonial” condition with which the Greek nation struggles even today.

Commerce and Culture
Commerce and Culture

Author: Robert Lee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-23

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 1317163893

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Considerable attention has recently been focused on the importance of social networks and business culture in reducing transaction costs, both in the pre-industrial period and during the nineteenth century. This book brings together twelve original contributions by scholars in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and North America which represent important and innovative research on this topic. They cover two broad themes. First, the role of business culture in determining commercial success, in particular the importance of familial, religious, ethnic and associational connections in the working lives of merchants and the impact of business practices on family life. Second, the wider institutional and political framework for business operations, in particular the relationship between the political economy of trade and the cultural world of merchants in an era of transition from personal to corporate structures. These key themes are developed in three separate sections, each with four contributions. They focus, in turn, on the role of culture in building and preserving businesses; the interplay between institutions, networks and power in determining commercial success or failure; and the significance of faith and the family in influencing business strategies and the direction of merchant enterprise. The wider historiographical context of the individual contributions is discussed in an extended introductory chapter which sets out the overall agenda of the book and provides a broader comparative framework for analysing the specific issues covered in each of the three sections. Taken together the collection offers an important addition to the available literature in this field and will attract a wide readership amongst business, cultural, maritime, economic, social and urban historians, as well as historical anthropologists, sociologists and other social scientists whose research embraces a longer-term perspective.

The Autumn of Italian Opera
The Autumn of Italian Opera

Author: Alan Mallach

Publisher: UPNE

Published: 2007-11-30

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9781555536831

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The first full-length study of the last great era of Italian opera