The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State Power and World Trade, 1350–1750 (Studies in Comparative Early Modern History)

Cambridge University Press, 1/30/1992
EAN 9780521410465, ISBN10: 0521410460

Hardcover, 516 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.3 cm
Language: English

The Political Economy of Merchant Empires focuses on why European concerns eventually achieved dominance in global trade in the period between 1450 and 1750, at the expense, especially in Asia, of well-organised and well-financed rivals. The volume is a companion to The Rise of Merchant Empires, also edited by James Tracy, which dealt with changes in the growth and composition of long-distance trade during the same period.

Acknowledgements
Introduction James D. Tracy
1. Institutions, transaction costs and the rise of merchant empires Douglass C. North
2. Merchants and states M. N. Pearson
3. The rise of merchant empires, 1400–1700
a European counterpoint Thomas A. Brady Jr
4. Europe and the wider world, 1500–1700
the military balance Geoffrey Parker
5. The pirate and the emperor
power and the law on the seas, 1450–1850 Anne Pérotin-Dumon
6. Transport costs and long-range trade, 1300–1800
was there a European 'transport revolution' in the early modern era? Russell R. Menard
7. Transaction costs
a note on merchant credit and the organization of private trade Jacob M. Price
8. Evolution of empire
the Portuguese in the Indian ocean during the sixteenth century Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Luís Felipe F. R. Thomaz
9. Comparing the Tokagawa Shogunate with Hapsburg Spain
two silver-based empires in a global setting Dennis O. Flynn
10. Colonies as mercantile investments
the Luso-Brazilian empire, 1500–1808 José Jobson de Andrade Arruda
11. Reflections on the organizing principle of pre-modern trade K. N. Chaudhuri
Selected bibliography of secondary works
Index.