Review of periodical literature for 2022: (iii) 1500–1700

Abstract

Early modern social and economic history remains a healthy field, with no fewer than 34 articles published in wide-ranging journals in 2022. The breadth of the field was notable this year and included articles exploring histories of British expansionism, economic growth through international and domestic trade, municipal development, and socio-economic identity. Reading 2022's glut of articles takes us into local and regional corners of Britain (including London, the Midlands, Devon, Somerset, Cheshire, and the Scottish Highlands), but also onto the stages of colonial expansion and exploitation (Ireland, Virginia and North America, and various outposts of the East India Company). Labour and welfare received attention this year and Scottish economic history was particularly well represented.Starting far from Britain's shores the country's colonial economy received renewed attention this year. Smith's article reframes the creation of the Virginia plantation in the early seventeenth century as a successful venture. Using a combination of sources -archaeological evidence of the colony (including material culture and the built environment), private correspondence of the colony's proponents, and surviving Virginia Company papers -Smith demonstrates the multistranded intentions and efforts by its proponents to create a profitable, self-sufficient colony that was deeply connected to global economy, trade, and empire. Merchant activities in the face of war were the subject of an article by Talbott. Concentrating on merchant correspondence during the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch wars, Talbott challenges the idea that these periods of war were damaging to commercial interests. Instead, she identifies a broad range of (both successful and unsuccessful) coping strategies -from falsifying papers to trading in unfamiliar marketsthat merchants adopted to navigate the obstacles to business that conflict presented. She shows continuity in these strategies across the three periods of war, despite the different nature of each conflict. Though the wars undoubtedly had a negative impact on trade for many, Talbott shows that some proactive merchants benefitted.Themes of opportunity and risk are further explored in Roulston and Scott's article on traders operating in the early seventeenth-century Ulster Plantation. Shedding new light on the economic community that supplied this unsettled province, they identify a luxury goods market -including goods such as marmalade, silk, and French wine -within the region, but