Table of Contents
Foreword 1 THE INSTRUMENTS OF EXCHANGE Europe: the wheels of trade at the lowest level Ordinary markets like those of today, Towns and markets, Markets increase in number and become specialized, Intervention by the towns, The example of London, Some statistics, From England to Europe, Markets and markets: the labour market, Markets as watersheds, Beneath the level of the market, Shops, Specialization and hierarchies, How shops came to rule the world, Some explanations of the boom in shopkeeping, Pedlars, Peddling: an archaic trade? Europe: the wheels of trade at the highest level Fairs: ancient instruments forever being re-tuned, Fair-time, carnival-time, Development of the fairs, Fairs and communications, The decline of the fairs, Warehouses, depots, stores, granaries, The Exchanges, The Amsterdam stock market, London: a repeat performance, Paris: is a visit really necessary?, Exchanges and paper money. The world outside Europe Markets and shops: world-wide phenomena, The variable area of the elementary market zones, A world of pedlars or of wholesalers?, Indian bankers, Few Exchanges but many fairs, Europe versus the rest of the world?. Concluding hypotheses 2 MARKETS AND THE ECONOMY Merchants and trade circuits Return journeys, Circuits and bills of exchange, No closure, no deal, On the problems of the return journey, Collaboration between merchants, Networks, conquests, trading empires, Armenians and Jews, The Portuguese in Spanish America: 1580-1640, Conflicting networks and networks in decline, Controlling minorities. Trading profits, supply and demand Trading profits, Supply and demand: which came first?, Demand in isolation, Supply in isolation. Markets and their geography Firms and their catchment areas, The catchment area of town or city, The market in primary commodities: sugar, Precious metals. National economies and the balance of trade The 'balance of trade', Interpreting the figures, France and England before and after 17oo, England and Portugal, East Europe, West Europe, Overall balances, India and China. Locating the market The self-regulating market, The market through the ages, Can the present teach us anything? 3 PRODUCTION: OR CAPITALISM AWAY FROM HOME Capital, capitalist, capitalism The word 'capital', Capitalist and capitalists, Capitalism: a very recent word, Capital: the reality, Fixed capital, circulating capital, Trying to calculate capital in the past, The value of sector analysis. Land and money The pre-conditions of capitalism, The peasant masses: numbers, inertia, productivity, Poverty and survival, Long-term stability does not mean absence of change, In West Europe, the seigniorial regime was not dead, Montaldeo, Overcoming the barriers, From the margins to the heart of Europe, Capitalism and the 'second serfdom', Capitalism and the American plantations, The plantations in Jamaica, Back to the heart of Europe, The outskirts of Paris: Brie in the days of Louis XIV, VeBérénice and the Terraferma, The deviant case of the Roman Campagna in the early nineteenth century, The poderi of Tuscany, Advanced areas: the minority, The case of France. Capitalism and pre-industry A fourfold classification, Is Bourgin's classification valid outside Europe? No gulf between agriculture and pre-industry, Industry: providential refuge from poverty, An unsettled workforce, From country to town and back again, Were there key industries?, Merchants and guilds, The Verlagssystem, The Verlagssystem in Germany, Mines and industrial capitalism, Mining in the New World, Salt, iron and coal, Manufactories and factories, The Van Robais enterprise in Abbeville, The finances of capitalist enterprise, On the profits from industry, Walter G. Hoffmann's law (1955). Transport and capitalist enterprise Overland transport, River traffic, At sea, Working out costs: capital and labour. A rather negative balance sheet 4 CAPITALISM ON HOME GROUND At the top of the world of trade The trade hierarchy, Specialization: at ground level only, Success in trade, Who put up the money?, Credit and banking, Money: in circulation or in hiding. Capitalist choices and strategies The capitalist mentality, Long-distance trade: the real big business, Education and communication, 'Competition without competitors', Monopolies on an international scale, A monopoly venture that failed: the cochineal market in 1787, Currency and its snares, Exceptional profits, exceptional delays. Individual firms and merchant companies Individual firms: the beginnings of a development, Limited partnerships, Joint stock companies, A limited development, Forerunners of the great merchant companies, The rule of three, The English companies, Companies and short-term economic fluctuations, The companies and free trade. Back to a threefold division 5 SOCIETY: 'A SET OF SETS' Social hierarchies The pluralism of societies, Vertical elevation: the privileged few, Social mobility, How can one detect change?, The synchronization of social change in Europe, Henri Pirenne's theory, In France: gentry or noblesse de robe?, From city to state: luxury and ostentation, Revolutions and class struggles, Workers' revolts: some examples, Order and disorder, Below subsistence level, Climbing out of hell. The all-pervasive state The tasks of the state, Maintaining law and order, When expenditure exceeded income: borrowing money, The juros and asientos of Castile, The English financial revolution: 1688-1756, Budgets, economic change and national product, The financiers, France: from the traitants to the Ferme générale, State economic policies: mercantilism, The state vis-à-vis society and culture an incomplete entity?, State, economy and capitalism. Civilizations do not always put up a fight Cultural transmission: the Islamic model, Christendom and merchandise, the quarrel over usury, Puritanism equals capitalism?, Retrospective geography: a good explanation, Capitalism equals rationalism?, Florence in the Quattrocento, a new art of living, Other times, other world views. Capitalism outside Europe The miracles of long-distance trade, The ideas of Norman Jacobs, Politics and society, especially society. BYWAY OF CONCLUSION Notes Index