On the basis of newly-discovered Russian and British archival sources, Prof. Kaplan makes important scholarly contributions to 18th-cent. economic history. He demonstrates that there was not only a symbiotic economic relationship between Russia and Great Britain, but also that Russia contributed greatly to Britain's industrial revolution and its imperial strategic military and political power during the second half of the 18th cent. Kaplan is the first to estimate the real balance of payments between the two countries. Kaplan's meticulous analysis of Anglo-Russian commercial treaties as well as Russian tariffs, which were intended to undermine them, reveals policies that both countries undertook to advance their respective maritime and mercantile power. Charts and tables.
Neither a comprehensive 'life and times' nor a conventional biography, this is an engaging and accessible exploration of rulership and monarchial authority in eighteenth century Russia. Its purpose is to see how Catherine II of Russia conceived of her power and how it was represented to her subjects. Simon Dixon asks essential questions about Catherin'es life and reign, and offers new and stimulating arguments about the Englightenment, the power of the monarch in early modern Europe, and the much-debated role of the "great individual" in history.
Catherine the Great: A Reference Guide to Her Life and Works covers all aspects of her life and work. Empress Catherine the Great was one of the most famous and amazing women in world history. Includes a detailed chronology of Catherine’s life, family, and work. The A to Z section includes the major events, places, and people in Catherine’s life. The bibliography includes a list of publications concerning her life and work. The index thoroughly cross-references the chronological and encyclopedic entries.
The “forgotten majority” of German merchants in London between the end of the Hanseatic League and the end of the Napoleonic Wars became the largest mercantile Christian immigrant group in the eighteenth century. Using previously neglected and little used evidence, this book assesses the causes of their migration, the establishment of their businesses in the capital, and the global reach of the enterprises. As the acquisition of British nationality was the admission ticket to Britain’s commercial empire, it investigates the commercial function of British naturalization policy in the early modern period, while also considering the risks of failure and chance for a new beginning in a foreign environment. As more German merchants integrated into British commercial society, they contributed to London becoming the leading place of exchange between the European continent, Russia, and the New World.
This new volume examines the influence of trade and empire from 1689 to 1815, a crucial period for British foreign policy and state-building.Jeremy Black, a leading expert on British foreign policy, draws on the wide range of archival material, as well as other sources, in order to ask how far, and through what processes and to what ends, foreign p
"This book examines a critical phase in the city's history. Founded by Peter the Great a mere sixty years before Catherine II ascended Russia's throne, St. Petersburg became one of the leading economic and political centers of Europe during her reign. Catherine lavished planning on St. Petersburg. Paradoxically, the city's growth, unprecedented in Europe to that date for such a short span of time, stemmed as much from natural factors as from the government's activity, for planning at times ran counter to natural growth. St. Petersburg also presented a challenge to Russia's legal estate order, inadequate for the city's dynamic social and economic nexus. Moscow was proverbially an overgrown village. St. Petersburg was undeniably a city." "Previous books on St. Petersburg have focused on its foundation and earliest years, or on the nineteenth century, when its cultural dominance within Russia was well established, or on the twentieth century, when the city was cradle to revolutions and subsequently lost its role as capital to Moscow. Catherine's reign largely has been overlooked, despite the fact that much of the city's image in Russian culture was established in that epoch. The city assumed its morphological shape primarily during Catherine's reign. Land-use patterns set in that era continue to characterize the city. A city resident of the late eighteenth century would know his or her way around the city today." "The Most Intentional City is based extensively on heretofore unused archival sources from central archives in St. Petersburg and Moscow as well as regional archives and manuscript collections. These are flavored with published accounts by Russians as well as foreign residents and visitors from a number of countries, including Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and various German states. The rich secondary literature, especially that produced by Russian and Soviet scholars, adds to the interpretation." "It is said that the first wife of Peter the Great once placed a curse on Peter's new city: "May Petersburg be empty!" The city's detractors over the centuries have enumerated many reasons why the city never should have been established and why it should not have grown. Yet grow it did. No other city in the world situated so far north (almost on the sixtieth parallel) is more than a fifth its size. In Catherine's reign the city assumed the vitality, the social and economic strength, the identity in myth and legend, that assured that the curse pronounced against it would remain unfulfilled. The Most Intentional City reveals just how it all took place."--BOOK JACKET.
Between 1756 and 1840, philanthropy in the British world grew from the domain of small, associational committees to a vast enterprise of philanthropic and humanitarian societies with global reach. British Philanthropy in the Globalizing World tells the story of this movement, from its inception in small networks of mercantile and religious entrepreneurs to its signal projects and achievements in the abolition of slavery, in evangelical missionary societies, Bible societies, and in the early indigenous rights movement. It traces the lives and networks of hundreds of philanthropists across four generations, showing how their social, religious, economic, intellectual, and cultural worlds intersected to foster philanthropic innovation through organisational models, transnational networks, and the creation of a unique formative culture. It shows how groups such as the Clapham Sect -- including William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, Hannah More, James Stephen, and others -- emerged in an intergenerational context, and how they sought to effect social and cultural change across multiple spheres. For every headline achievement, there were many failed experiments, inner wrestlings, and long-running intellectual collaborations that left a wide and deep imprint on the cultural and political landscape of the English-speaking world. Drawing on the separate historiographies of metropolitan philanthropy, associational culture, anti-slavery, moral reform, Evangelicalism, colonial missions, and economic thought, the study unites into one analytical frame both the imaginative and organizational realities of philanthropy, offering a dual focus on individual philanthropists -- their inner lives, daily practices, and participation in collaborative communities -- and on mapping the networks that bound philanthropic societies and projects together in metropolitan London and at the far reaches of the British world. In doing so, it offers a very human portrait of these entrepreneurs and evangelicals, as they pursued a philanthropic global vision.
Commercial competition between Britain and Russia became entangled during the eighteenth century in Iran, the Middle East, and China, and disputes emerged over control of the North Pacific. Focusing on the British Russia Company, Matthew P. Romaniello charts the ways in which the company navigated these commercial and diplomatic frontiers. He reveals how geopolitical developments affected trade far more than commercial regulations, while also challenging depictions of this period as a straightforward era of Russian economic decline. By looking at merchants' and diplomats' correspondence and the actions and experiences of men working in Eurasia for Russia and Britain, he demonstrates the importance of restoring human experiences in global processes and provides individual perspective on this game of empire. This approach reveals that economic fears, more than commodities exchanged, motivated actions across the geopolitical landscape of Europe during the Seven Years' War and the American and French Revolutions.
