Global Trade and Commercial Networks:
Eighteenth-Century Diamond Merchants
Tijl Vanneste
Perspectives in Economic and Social History
978 1 84893 087 2: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 84893 088 9
At the heart of this study on cross-cultural trade lies a concrete case-study of a network of diamond-traders operating in the early eighteenth century. This network was only successful due to the trust placed in each trader. This trust was formed, over time, by the exchange of correspondence, allowing commercial friendships and a system of reciprocity to emerge. Such trusted exchange also allowed a system of credit – used for almost all trading agreements as well as becoming important in itself – to develop.
All the traders examined in this study are outsiders: an English Catholic in Antwerp, Sephardic Jews in London and French Huguenots in Lisbon. Traditionally, such diasporas have been seen as key to the development of a globalized economy. Vanneste argues that whilst this is generally correct, it is nonetheless hard to reconcile the idea of such intricate, trusted relationships with people who are detached from their surrounding societies. Vanneste suggests that these diasporas must be embedded in the social environment of the host society in a more profound way than previously assumed, and that such cohesion allowed the development of trusted trading networks and an early modern globalization.
Readership
Economic History, Eighteenth-Century Studies and Jewish Studies
Contents
1 A History of Commerce and Network Analysis
2 A Cross-Cultural Diamond Trade Network
3 Competition and the Ashkenazi Kinship Network
4 Cross-Cultural Encounters, Society and National Interest
5 Trade, Global History and Human Agency