In the early modern period, trade became a truly global phenomenon. The logistics, financial and organizational complexity associated with it increased in order to connect distant geographies and merchants from different backgrounds. How did these merchants prevent their partners from dishonesty in a time where formal institutions and legislation did not traverse these different worlds? This book studies the mechanisms and criteria of cooperation in early modern trading networks. It uses an interdisciplinary approach, through the case study of a Castilian long-distance merchant of the sixteenth century, Simon Ruiz, who traded within the limits of the Portuguese and Spanish overseas empires. Early Modern Trading Networks in Europe discusses the importance of reciprocity mechanisms, trust and reputation in the context of early modern business relations, using network analysis methodology, combining quantitative data with qualitative information. It considers how cooperation and prevention could simultaneously create a business relationship, and describes the mechanisms of control, policing and punishment used to avoid opportunism and deception among a group of business partners. Using bills of exchange and correspondence from Simon Ruiz's private archive, it charts the evolution of this business network through time, debating which criteria should be included or excluded from business networks, as well as the emergence of standards. This book intends to put forward a new approach to early modern trade which focusses on individuals interacting in self-organized structures, rather than on States or Empires. It shows how indirect reciprocity was much more frequent than direct reciprocity among early modern merchants and how informal norms, like ostracism and signalling, helped to prevent defection and deception in an effective way. This book will be of interest to all early modern historians, especially those with an interest in economic history and the history of international trade.--

In the early modern period, trade became a truly global phenomenon. The logistics, financial and organizational complexity associated with it increased in order to connect distant geographies and merchants from different backgrounds. How did these merchants prevent their partners from dishonesty in a time where formal institutions and legislation did not traverse these different worlds? This book studies the mechanisms and criteria of cooperation in early modern trading networks. It uses an interdisciplinary approach, through the case study of a Castilian long-distance merchant of the sixteenth century, Simon Ruiz, who traded within the limits of the Portuguese and Spanish overseas empires. Early Modern Trading Networks in Europe discusses the importance of reciprocity mechanisms, trust and reputation in the context of early modern business relations, using network analysis methodology, combining quantitative data with qualitative information. It considers how cooperation and prevention could simultaneously create a business relationship, and describes the mechanisms of control, policing and punishment used to avoid opportunism and deception among a group of business partners. Using bills of exchange and correspondence from Simon Ruizs private archive, it charts the evolution of this business network through time, debating which criteria should be included or excluded from business networks, as well as the emergence of standards. This book intends to put forward a new approach to early modern trade which focusses on individuals interacting in self-organized structures, rather than on States or Empires. It shows how indirect reciprocity was much more frequent than direct reciprocity among early modern merchants and how informal norms, like ostracism and signalling, helped to prevent defection and deception in an effective way. This book will be of interest to all early modern historians, especially those with an interest

In the early modern period, trade became a truly global phenomenon. The logistics, financial and organizational complexity associated with it increased in order to connect distant geographies and merchants from different backgrounds. How did these merchants prevent their partners from dishonesty in a time where formal institutions and legislation did not traverse these different worlds? This book studies the mechanisms and criteria of cooperation in early modern trading networks. It uses an interdisciplinary approach, through the case study of a Castilian long-distance merchant of the sixteenth century, Simon Ruiz, who traded within the limits of the Portuguese and Spanish overseas empires. Early Modern Trading Networks in Europe discusses the importance of reciprocity mechanisms, trust and reputation in the context of early modern business relations, using network analysis methodology, combining quantitative data with qualitative information. It considers how cooperation and prevention could simultaneously create a business relationship, and describes the mechanisms of control, policing and punishment used to avoid opportunism and deception among a group of business partners. Using bills of exchange and correspondence from Simon Ruiz?s private archive, it charts the evolution of this business network through time, debating which criteria should be included or excluded from business networks, as well as the emergence of standards. This book intends to put forward a new approach to early modern trade which focusses on individuals interacting in self-organized structures, rather than on States or Empires. It shows how indirect reciprocity was much more frequent than direct reciprocity among early modern merchants and how informal norms, like ostracism and signalling, helped to prevent defection and deception in an effective way. This book will be of interest to all early modern historians, especially those with an interest

Trading Companies and Travel Knowledge in the Early Modern World explores the links between trade, empire, exploration, and global information trans>fer during the early modern period. By charting how the leaders, members, employees, and supporters of different trading companies gathered, pro>cessed, employed, protected, and divulged intelligence about foreign lands, peoples, and markets, this book throws new light on the internal uses of information by corporate actors and the ways they engaged with, relied on, and supplied various external publics. This ranged from using secret knowl>edge to beat competitors, to shaping debates about empire, and to forcing Europeans to reassess their understandings of specific environments due to contacts with non-European peoples. Reframing our understanding of trading companies through the lens of travel literature, this volume brings together thirteen experts in the field to facilitate a new understanding of how European corporations and empires were shaped by global webs of information exchange

Drawing on an impressive range of archival material, this monograph delves into the careers of two businessmen who worked for Nordic chartered monopoly trading companies to illuminate individual entrepreneurship in the context of seventeenth-century long-distance trade. The study spans the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, examining global entanglements through personal interactions and daily trading activities between Europeans, Asian merchants and African brokers. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of the role of individuals and their networks within the great European trading companies of the early modern period. This unique book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of economic history, business history, early modern global history and entrepreneurship.

This book attends to the most essential, lucrative, and overlooked business activity of early modern Europe: the trade of paper, uncovering its hotspots and trade routes, usual dealings, and recycling economies.

Merchant organisation was a global phenomenon in the early modern era, and in the growing contacts between peoples and cultures, merchants may be seen as privileged intermediaries. This collection is unique in essaying a truly global coverage of mercantile activities, from the Wangara of the Central Sudan, Mississippi and Huron Indians, to the role of the Jews, the Muslim merchants of Anatolia, to the social structure of the mercantile classes in early modern England. The histories of merchant communities are not their histories alone, but also the histories of assumptions concerning their contexts. From the comparative perspective adopted here, it emerges that in markets where Western European merchants vied for place with competitors from the Near East, South Asia or East Asia, they were very often unsuccessful.