Cross-Cultural Trade in World History

by Philip D. Curtin

• ISBN13: 9780521269315
• ISBN10: 0521269318
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1984-05-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A single theme is pursued in this book - the trade between peoples of differing cultures through world history. Extending from the ancient world to the coming of the commercial revolution, Professor Curtin's discussion encompasses a broad and diverse group of trading relationships. Drawing on insights from economic history and anthropology, Professor Curtin has attempted to move beyond a Europe-centred view of history, to one that can help us understand the entire range of societies in the human past. Examples have been chosen that illustrate the greatest variety of trading relationships between cultures. The opening chapters look at Africa, while subsequent chapters treat the ancient world, the Mediterranean trade with China, the Asian trade in the east, and European entry into the trade with maritime Asia, the Armenian trade carriers of the seventeenth century, and the North American fur trade. Wide-ranging in its concern and the fruit of exhaustive research, the book is nevertheless written so as to be accessible and stimulating to the specialist and the student alike.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	viii
Preface	ix
Trade diasporas and cross-cultural trade	1	(14)
Trade diasporas	1	(2)
Life histories: trade diasporas over time	3	(2)
Merchants and their hosts	5	(1)
Merchant settlements and their relations with one another	6	(5)
Cultural blends	11	(1)
Alternate models of cross-cultural trade	12	(3)
Africa: incentives to trade, patterns of competition	15	(23)
Incentives to trade	16	(1)
Salt, iron, and fish	17	(4)
Camels, dates, and the trans-Sahara trade	21	(4)
From the desert to the forest	25	(1)
Trade to the tropical African coasts	26	(2)
Transit markets	28	(4)
Side-by-side competition	32	(2)
East Africa: the evolution of trade networks	34	(4)
Africa: traders and trade communities	38	(22)
Protection costs, coercion, and the state	41	(5)
From blood brotherhood to treaty	46	(3)
The exclusive and comprehensive functions of religion	49	(4)
Landlords, brokers, and caravan leaders	53	(4)
Coastal markets and European traders	57	(3)
Ancient trade	60	(30)
Mesopotamian trade	61	(6)
Assyrian traders into Anatolia	67	(4)
Ancient trade in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean	71	(4)
Greeks and Phoenicians	75	(6)
Pre-Columbian trade in the Americas	81	(6)
A sequence in early forms of exchange?	87	(3)
A new trade axis: the Mediterranean to China, circa 200 B.C.--A.D. 1000	90	(19)
Early Chinese trade and the opening across central Asia	91	(5)
Trade by sea in the western Indian Ocean	96	(5)
Early trade to Southeast Asia	101	(2)
The Mediterranean after the fall of Rome: the new universal empires	103	(3)
Indian Ocean trade and the rise of Islam	106	(3)
Asian trade in Eastern seas, 1000--1500	109	(27)
The ``economic miracle'' of early Song China	109	(2)
Ecumenical trade in the Muslim Mediterranean, 970--1250	111	(4)
The ways of trade: the Christian Mediterranean, 1000--1500	115	(4)
Readjustments in Asian trade, 1250--1500	119	(8)
The way of trade in Eastern seas	127	(9)
The European entry into the trade of maritime Asia	136	(22)
The Portuguese trading-post empire	137	(7)
Sixteenth-century responses of the Asian traders	144	(5)
North European competition for the Portuguese	149	(3)
The VOC in practice	152	(3)
The English East India Company	155	(3)
Bugis, banians, and Chinese: Asian traders in the era of the great companies	158	(21)
Trade diasporas from South Sulawesi	159	(8)
The trade of the China Seas	167	(5)
Renegades and banians	172	(4)
Urban networks	176	(3)
Overland trade of the seventeenth century: Armenian carriers between Europe and East Asia	179	(28)
The Armenians in early commerce	182	(3)
The Armenian diaspora to the sixteenth century	185	(1)
The Armenians and Safavid Persia	186	(2)
Overland trade from Persia through Russia	188	(4)
Relations within the Armenian community	192	(6)
Communities of the Armenian diaspora	198	(9)
The North American fur trade	207	(23)
The North American setting: epidemiology and culture	207	(7)
The North American setting: geography and the strategy of access from the ocean	214	(5)
The first phase on the Saint Lawrence, 1600--49	219	(3)
The opening of the bay	222	(3)
The fur trade and the price-fixing market	225	(5)
The twilight of the trade diasporas	230	(25)
Industrialism and the shifting balance	230	(4)
Distant reflections of the industrial age: secondary empires in Africa	234	(6)
Informal empire and the new trading posts: Singapore	240	(2)
Hong Kong and the treaty ports	242	(3)
Consular representation	245	(2)
Fringe Westernization	247	(4)
The tools of European dominance	251	(4)
Bibliography	255	(20)
Index	275