The literature on early-modern monetary history is vast and rich, yet overly Eurocentric. This book takes a global approach. It calls attention to the fact that, for example, Japan and South America were dominant in silver production, while China was the principal end-market; key areas for transshipment included Europe and Africa, India and the Middle East. Europeans were often just middlemen. Other monetized substances - gold, copper and cowries - must also be viewed globally. The interrelated trades in metals and monies are what first linked worldwide markets, and disequilibrium within the silver market in the 16th and 17th centuries was an active cause of this global trade.
The guide to returning to a gold standard All that glitters is gold and gold has never glittered so much as it has in the last decade, reaching staggering new prices in recent years. The definitive modern argument to returning to a gold standard, The New Gold Standard succinctly and clearly explains the nature of sound money, the causes and cures of inflation and deflation, the importance of fiscal responsibility within a sound monetary system, and the reasons for recessions and depressions. Little has been written beyond academic histories of the gold standard, but gold standard expert Paul Nathan fills that void for the first time Written for beginning and professional investors, the book provides guidance on how a gold standard will strengthen the dollar, reduce debt, and help stabilize the economy, offering easily applied strategies for investing in gold now and in the future The degree of depressions and recessions and the boom bust cycle can be avoided with a sustainable, stable monetary policy The international return to gold is not a fad but a sign of a world in monetary transition As long as governments continue to print money and deficits continue to rise, gold will be a hot commodity. As inflation creeps up, more and more talk will turn to returning to some version of the gold standard, and The New Gold Standard is the first major work to explicitly address the challenges and benefits of such a move.
This volume documents recent efforts to track the transformation and trajectory of silver during the early modern period, from its origins in ores located on either side of the Atlantic to its use as currency in the financial centres of continental Europe. As a point of comparison, copper mining and its monetary use in the early modern Atlantic World will also be considered. Contributors rely mainly on economic and economic history methodologies, complemented by geographical and cultural history approaches. The use of novel software applications as tools to explain economic-historical episodes is also detailed.
Moving From The Early Stage Of Capitalist Development To That Of High Imperialism And Beyond, This Volume Investigates How The World Economy Was Governed By The Needs Of Merchant Capital And High Imperialism From 1500 To 1750, And By Shifts In The Process Of Industrial Revolution In The Subsequent Period, From The 1870S To The 1940S.
In a series of brief vignettes the authors bring to life international trade and its actors, and also demonstrate that economic activity cannot be divorced from social and cultural contexts. In the process they make clear that the seemingly modern concept of economic globalisation has deep historical roots.
Gold Wars: Battle for the Global Economy addresses the grotesque, growing and unsustainable imbalances in the financial system. As gold is the barometer of systemic ills, a war on gold–to drive down its price—is taking place to hide the negative impacts of fiat currency, shadow banking and central banking on the global financial system. Starting with an introductory discussion on the nature of money and the bizarre fractional reserve structure currently in place, Mitchell moves on to address the massive, but little known systemic pivot point: the Petrodollar standard. Tying dollars to oil, this mechanism undergirds the dollar’s reserve status. But soon it will fail with paradigm shifting consequences. Next, Mitchell addresses the twins of shadow banking and central banking (with a quick interlude to look at the traits of physical gold). Then, with the stage set and the distortions, corruptions and levers of power in better view, he examines a few historical precedents and likely outcomes through deflationary/inflationary effects and their combinations. Gold Wars features a detailed breakdown of the gross manipulations in the gold market - from nonexistent paper gold, smackdowns, high-frequency trading, and ETF’s to Central Bank games like swapping/leasing, shell accounting, midnight raids, clandestine gold movements and regulatory attacks on investors. Mitchell offers a prediction of the results for the gold market: when the manipulation fails, paper and physical prices will separate, with the physical selling for multiples of paper. Similarly silver, with its own unique characteristics for industry and investment, is also targeted as a potential refuge for flight from paper, though strangely, above-ground gold is now more plentiful than silver. Add to this a silver short position rolling from one institution to another as each fails, a 4-year foot dragging investigation into market fraud, and a class action suit for manipulation and the market has a recipe for a pressure cooker at maximum. Western banks, lacking the gold to cover their obligations, will eventually declare a force majeure—an event supposedly the result of the elements of nature, as opposed to one caused by human behavior—as a pretext for settling their obligations in increasingly valueless paper. Where is the resistance to this distortion and corruption of value? Power is flowing East as China and Russia have drawn in massive amounts of gold while denyin
Using tax and mintage records, this book provides a district-by-district annual accounting of the gold and silver officially produced and minted in colonial Latin America, placing that output within the context of the emerging early-modern world economy.
Guiding the reader through the many guises of global economic history, this book uncovers its key issues, debates and subjects. With contributions from leading scholars around the world, it delves into the economic histories of Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas from the 16th to the 20th centuries. From the environment to The Great Divergence, finance, consumption, trade, industrialisation, commodities and labour regimes, it demonstrates the global nature of economic history, and highlights how indispensable it is and has been. Updated throughout, this new edition boasts an expanded introduction and four new chapters on capitalism and political economy, European empires and colonialism, North Africa and the Middle East, and the North American Economy. A comprehensive introduction to global economic history, this textbook provides students with a confident grasp of the field, its key debates and essential issues.
European traders first appeared in India at the end of the fifteenth century and began exporting goods to Europe as well as to other parts of Asia. In a detailed analysis of the trading operations of European corporate enterprises such as the English and Dutch East India Companies, as well as those of private European traders, this book considers how, over a span of three centuries, the Indian economy expanded and was integrated into the pre-modern world economy as a result of these interactions. The book also describes how this essentially market-determined commercial encounter changed in the latter half of the eighteenth century as the colonial relationship between Britain and the subcontinent was established. By bringing together and examining the existing literature, the author provides a fascinating overview of the impact of European trade on the pre-modern Indian economy which will be of value to students of Indian, European and colonial history.
