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8 - Entrepreneurs, families, and companies

from Part Two - Trade, Exchange, and Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Charles H. Parker
Edited by
Jerry H. Bentley ,
Sanjay Subrahmanyam  and
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Jerry H. Bentley
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
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Summary

The early modern period was truly 'an age of commerce' in which long-standing Afro-Eurasian trading zones incorporated American commodities into the first genuinely global mercantile networks. Merchants who moved staples and luxury items across long distances in the early modern period utilized routes within distinct commercial zones that had endured for many centuries. Family partnerships drew on the benefits of blood ties that fostered trust, provided access to capital and credit, and increased the reach of commercial ventures. Relations served as agents, investors, brokers, and employees that enabled entrepreneurs to initiate or expand projects beyond their initial capacities. Trade in Asia, Africa, and North America largely remained in the hands of indigenous merchants until the second half of the eighteenth century when most maritime commercial outposts began to come under colonial rule. Nevertheless, joint-stock companies occasionally used armed trading to secure leverage over indigenous merchants and political leaders or to control the production of local goods.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History , pp. 190 - 212
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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References

Further Reading

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