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Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2019
Most works cited here include abundant bibliographies of classic and recent scholarship. Essays in The Rise of Merchant Empires. Long-distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750, ed. Tracy, James (Cambridge, UK, and New York, 1990), consider general issues and specific empires; some need supplementing with more recent works. Part I of Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400–1800, eds. Bethencourt, Francisco and Curto, Diogo Ramada (Cambridge, UK, and New York, 2007), surveys that empire’s economy. Chapter 2 of Costa, Leonor Freire, Lains, Pedro, and Miranda, Susana Münch, An Economic History of Portugal, 1143–2010 (Cambridge, UK, and New York, 2016), discusses Portugal’s globalizing economy but slights discussion of slaving. Smith, Edmond, “The Global Interests of London’s Commercial Community, 1599–1625: Investment in the East India Company,” Economic History Review 71 (2016): 1–29, corrects earlier interpretations.
Vries, Jan de, “Connecting Europe and Asia: A Quantitative Analysis of the Cape-route Trade, 1497–1795,” in Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470–1800, eds. Flynn, Dennis O., Giráldez, Arturo, and Glahn, Richard von (Aldershot, UK, 2003), 35–106, assesses European-Asian trade and compares it with Atlantic traffic. Willis, John E., Jr., “Maritime Asia, 1500–1800: The Interactive Emergence of European Domination,” American Historical Review 98 (1993): 83–105, reviews prior scholarship. For Indian Ocean trade when Europeans arrived, see Hall, Kenneth R., “Ports-of-Trade, Maritime Diasporas, and Networks of Trade and Cultural Integration in the Bay of Bengal Region of the Indian Ocean: c. 1300–1500,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 53 (2010): 109–45. The New Cambridge History of India. II.5. European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India, ed. Prakash, Om (Cambridge, UK, 1998), discusses all participants in the subcontinent’s trade from c. 1500 to c. 1880. Tremml, Birgit, Spain, China, and Japan in Manila, 1571–1644: Local Comparisons and Global Connections (Amsterdam, 2015), and Giraldez, Arturo, The Age of Trade. The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy (Lanham, MD, 2015), are up-to-date accounts; Glahn, Richard von, The Economic History of China. From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, UK, 2016), contains additional material. Allen, Richard B., Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850 (Athens, Ohio, 2015), examines an important if neglected topic.
Birmingham, David, Trade and Empire in the Atlantic, 1400–1600 (London and New York, 2000), is an excellent brief introduction. Ebert, Christopher, Between Empires: Brazilian Sugar in the Early Atlantic Economy, 1550–1630 (Leiden, 2008), examines the organization, financing, operation, and profitability of a large-scale Atlantic trade; lavishly, Daniel Strum’s illustrated The Sugar Trade: Brazil, Portugal, and the Netherlands, 1595–1630 (Stanford, CA, 2013), attends more to European aspects. Stanley, J. and Stein, Barbara H., Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe (Baltimore, MD, 2000), scrutinize Spain’s Americas commerce. Constantly updated, Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database at www.slavevoyages.org/ remains the best source for this fundamental subject. Studnicki-Gizbert, Daviken, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640 (Oxford and New York, 2007), investigates the Atlantic aspects of Europe’s leading commercial “nation.” For detailed studies of transimperial trading networks, see Beyond Empires: Global, Self-Organizing, Cross-Imperial Networks, 1500–1800, eds. Antunes, Cátia and Polónia, Amélia (Leiden, 2016). Religion and Trade: Cross-cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000–1900, eds. Trivellato, Francesca, Halevi, Leor, and Antunes, Cátia (Oxford, 2014), focuses on networks organized by religious affiliation. Silva, Filipa Ribeiro da, Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa: Empires, Merchants and the Atlantic System, 1580–1674 (Leiden, 2011), and Trivellato, Francesca, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven, CT, 2012), examine cross-cultural and cross-imperial exchanges; Merchant Colonies in the Early Modern Period, ed. Zakharov, Victor N., Harlaftis, Gelina, and Katsiardi-Hering, Olga (London, 2012), considers foreign merchant communities that conducted inter-state and inter-imperial trade within Europe.
Gervais, Pierre, “Early Modern Merchant Strategies and the Historicization of Market Practices,” Economic Sociology_The European Electronic Newsletter 15.3 (July 2014), 19–29, is the best introduction to his ground-breaking work on merchant networks and sub-networks. Shipping and Economic Growth 1350–1850, ed. Unger, Richard (Leiden, 2011), provides an overview and detailed studies of intercontinental and European trends. Vries, Jan de and Woude, Ad van der, The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815 (1995; Cambridge, UK, 1997), offer updated data, detailed descriptions, and fresh interpretations; see also Israel, Jonathan I., Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford, 1989). Gelderblom, Oscar, Cities of Commerce: The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250–1650 (Princeton, 2013), emphasizes interurban competition and cooperation. Essays in The Oxford History of the British Empire, I, The Origins of Empire. British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, ed. Canny, Nicolas (Oxford and New York, 1998), examine the development of colonial economies; those in The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America, 1480–1650, eds. Andrews, Kenneth, Canny, Nicholas P. and Hair, P.E.H. (Detroit, 1979), analyze early English privateering, smuggling, and exploration.
Divergent positions on origins and extent of early modern globalization are found in O’Rourke, Kevin and Williamson, Jeffrey, “When Did Globalization Begin?” European Review of Economic History 6 (2002): 23–50; O’Rourke, and Williamson, , “After Columbus: Explaining Europe’s Overseas Trade Boom, 1500–1800,” Journal of Economic History 62 (2002): 417–56 (market integration); Flynn, Dennis O. and Giráldez, Arturo, “Path Dependence, Time Lags and the Birth of Globalization: A Critique of O’Rourke and Williamson,” European Review of Economic History 8 (2004): 81–108 (trade); Vries, Jan de, “The Limits of Globalization in the Early Modern World,” Economic History Review 63 (2010): 710–33.
General works listed after Chapters 1 and 2 analyze many issues discussed in this chapter. Scott, Tom, “The Agrarian West,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History 1350–1750. Volume I: Peoples and Place, ed. Scott, Hamish (Oxford, 2015), 398–427, is the best overview. See also Property Rights, Land Markets and Economic Growth in the European Countryside (Thirteenth–Twentieth Centuries), eds. Béaur, Gérard, Schofield, Phillipp, Chevet, Jean-Michel, and Pérez-Picazo, Maria-Teresa (Turnhout, 2013), for cautionary essays about effects of private property rights and land markets on Continental agriculture. Town and Countryside from the Late Middle Ages to the 19th Centuries: Supply and Demand of Food, eds. Van Cruyningen, Piet and Thoen, Erik (Turnhout, 2012), discusses operation and integration of food markets. Beyond Lords and Peasants: Rural Elites and Economic Differentiation in Pre-modern Europe, eds. Aparisi, Frederic and Royo, Vicent (Valencia, 2014), focuses on Belgium, England, and Spain; The Management of Common Land in North West Europe, c. 1500–1850, eds. De Moor, Martina, Shaw-Taylor, Leigh, and Warde, Paul (Turnhout, 2002), on lands bordering the North Sea. Rural History in the North Sea Area. An Overview of Recent Research Middle Ages–Twentieth century, eds. Thoen, Erik and Molle, Leen Van (Turnhout, 2006), surveys agricultural, peasant, and rural history in England, France, Germany, and the Low Countries, with excellent bibliographies.
The Castilian Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: New Perspectives on the Economic and Social History of Seventeenth-century Spain, ed. Thompson, I. A. A. and Casalilla, Bartolomé Yun (Cambridge, 1994), includes long sixteenth-century material, as does Álvarez-Nogal, Carlos, Escosura, Leandro Prados de la, and Santiago-Caballero, Carlos, “Spanish Agriculture in the Little Divergence,” European Review of Economic History 20 (2016): 452–77. Costa, Lains, and Miranda, An Economic History of Portugal, draws on recent scholarship. For Italy, see Federico, Giovanni and Malanima, Paolo, “Progress, Decline, Growth: Product and Productivity in Italian Agriculture, 1000–2000,” Economic History Review 57 (2004): 437–64, and the insightful Aymard, Maurice, “From Feudalism to Capitalism in Italy. The Case That Doesn’t Fit,” Review 6 (1982): 131–208.
French agricultural history boasts a distinguished tradition of regional studies; Histoire de la France rurale 2, eds. Neveux, Hugues et al. (Paris, 1975), provides a synthesis needing updating. In English, see Hoffman, Philip, Growth in a Traditional Society. The French Countryside, 1450–1815 (Princeton, NJ, 1996). German scholars, too, often write regional studies; see Scott, Tom, Town, Country, and Regions in Reformation Germany (Leiden, 2005), especially Chapter 7, for a fine overview; Sreenivasan, Govind P., The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487–1726. A Rural Society in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, UK, 2004), for a stimulating monograph. Essays in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia. Volume II, 1520–1870, eds. Kouri, E. I. and Olesen, Jens E. (Cambridge, UK, 2016), present up-to-date surveys.
The Agrarian History of England and Wales. IV. 1500–1640, ed. Thirsk, Joan (Cambridge, UK, 1967), remains the best inclusive account; a longer overview is Overton, Mark, Agricultural Revolution in England. The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500–1850 (Cambridge, UK, 1996). Broadberry et al., British Economic Growth 1270–1870, present and analyze multiple quantitative indicators. For debates over enclosure, consult Landlords and Tenants in Britain, 1440–1660: Tawney’s Agrarian Problem Revisited, ed. Whittle, Jane (Woodbridge, UK, 2013); Whittle, Jane, The Development of Agrarian Capitalism: Land and Labour in Norfolk 1440–1580 (Oxford, 2000); and Brown, A.T., Rural Society and Economic Change in County Durham: Recession and Recovery, c. 1400–1640 (Woodbridge, UK, 2015). For the Netherlands, see Peasants into Farmers? The Transformation of Rural Economy and Society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages–19th Century) in Light of the Brenner Debate, eds. Hoppenbrouwers, P.C.M. and Zanden, Jan Luiten van (Turnhout, 2001), and de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, especially 195–210.
For brief surveys that discuss traditional and recent scholarship on east Elbian agriculture, see Edgar Melton, “The Agrarian East,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History 1350–1750. Vol. I, 428–54; Cerman, Markus, Villagers and Lords in Eastern Europe, 1300–1800 (Basingstoke, UK, 2012). Essays in Schiavitù e servaggio nell’economia europea secc. XI–XVIII / Serfdom and Slavery in the European Economy 11th–18th Centuries, ed. Cavaciocchi, Simonetta (Florence, 2014), and in “ Demesne Lordship and Rural Society in Early Modern East Central and Eastern Europe, c. 1500–c. 1800,” Agricultural History Review 59 (2011): 239–327, introduce detailed studies now underway.
Overviews of national and regional economies and of industry and work organization cited at the end of Chapter 2 often contain valuable material on the long sixteenth century. More focused studies include The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and in the Low Countries: Late Middle Ages–Early Modern Times, ed. Wee, Herman Van der (Leuven, 1988); Innovation and Creativity in Medieval and Early Modern European Cities, eds. Davids, Karel and Munck, Bert De (Farnham, UK, 2014); Zell, Michael, Industry in the Countryside. Wealden Society in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, UK, 1994); The New Draperies in the Low Countries and England, 1300–1800, ed. Harte, Negley (Oxford, 1997); Hatcher, John, The History of the British Coal Industry. Vol. I. Before 1700: Towards the Age of Coal (Oxford, 1993); Unger, Richard W., “The Technology and Teaching of Shipbuilding 1300–1800,” in Technology, Skills and the Pre-Modern Economy in the East and the West, eds. Prak, Maarten and Zanden, Jan Luiten van (Leiden, 2013), 161–204; Phillips, Carla Rahn, Six Galleons for the King of Spain. Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century (Baltimore, 1986). Thirsk, Joan, Economic Policy and Projects. The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1978), treats newly developed industries; essays in Consumption and the World of Goods, ed. Brewer, John and Porter, Roy (London, 1993), look at consumers who bought their goods.
Many works noted above and after Chapter 2 also investigate the closely related topics of organizational changes, guilds, artisan life, and technological innovation. See also Salvucci, Richard J., Textiles and Capitalism in Mexico: An Economic History of the obrajes, 1539–1840 (Princeton, 1987); Guilds, Markets and Work Regulations in Italy, 16th-19th Centuries, eds. Guenzi, Alberto, Massa, Paola, and Moioli, Angelo (Aldershot, UK, 1998); Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries. Work, Power, and Representation, eds. Prak, Maarten, et al. (Aldershot, UK, 2006); International Review of Social History 53 Supplement (2008); Sánchez, José Antolín Nieto and Llorente, Juan Carlos Zofío, “The Return of the Guilds: A View from Early Modern Madrid,” Journal of Social History 50 (2016): 247–72; Learning on the Shop Floor. Historical Perspectives on Apprenticeship, eds. De Munck, Bert, Kaplan, Steven L., and Soly, Hugo (New York and Oxford, 2007); The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900, ed. Crossick, Geoffrey (Aldershot, UK, 1997); Farr, James, Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914 (Cambridge, UK, 2000); Belfanti, Carlo, “Guilds, Patents, and the Circulation of Technical Knowledge: Northern Italy during the Early Modern Age,” Technology and Culture 45 (2004): 569–89; Belfanti, Carlo, “Between Mercantilism and Market: Privileges for Invention in Early Modern Europe,” Journal of Institutional Economics 2 (2006): 319–38; Hilaire-Pérez, Liliane and Verna, Catherine, “Dissemination of Technical Knowledge in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era: New Approaches and Methodological Issues,” Technology and Culture 47 (2006): 536–65; Davids, Karel, The Rise and Decline of Dutch Technological Leadership. Technology, Economy and Culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2008); Mokyr, Joel, The Lever of Riches. Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (New York, 1990).
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