The Atlantic Coast of German Trade: German Rural Industry and Trade in the Atlantic, 1680–1840

Abstract

Throughout the last decade a number of rather detailed studies on eighteenth-century Atlantic merchants and merchant colonies in Atlantic port cities has been published. The works ofJacob Price, David Hancock, Jonathan Israel, Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, and Manuel Bustos Rodríguez demonstrate the growing historical interest in maritime trade and Atlantic studies. All of these works carry on the investigative traditions of the authors respective countries, represented, for example, by Bernard Bailyn's works on the New England merchants, Pierre and Huguette Chaunu's and Paul Butel's studies on the economies of the Spanish and French Atlantic, and the investigations of Antonio García-Baquero González on the topic of Spanish Atlantic trade. As a pervasive pattern within this field of research it can be observed that, since the foundations had been laid with these classical studies, the focus of historical inquiry has shifted from quantitative investigations (that is, those on the currents of ships, goods, and precious metals) and from studies on the legal frameworks regulating the Atlantic trades to detailed studies of the individuals responsible for this trade. Arising from their countries colonial pasts, it is not surprising that most of these author's works concentrate on the colonial trade of the Western European sea powers, thus neglecting the central and eastern interiors of the continent. In the 1960s and 70s, some German historians, notably Hermann Kellenbenz and Hans Pohl, published studies in this area, but it has lain fallow ever since. The aim of this article is to shed some light on the perspectives that might open up by reconsidering the influence of Atlantic trade on Central Europe in the Early Modern period.

plata hispanoamericana y el rol del nuevo mundo en la economía global premoderna 1500-1800

“…De esos altos diferenciales de precios sale también la idea que el sistema comercial español era antieconómico, cerrado y organizado para beneficio del rey y los comerciantes metropolitanos, todo aquello que perjudicó el desarrollo de la región. Sin embargo, la composición de este comercio -sobre todo de la reexportación de bienes europeos no españoles a Américaes pobremente conocida por falta de detalles de los cargamentos (para un análisis diferentes Weber, 2002). En realidad, los exportadores españoles en el Pacífico y el Atlántico eran tomadores de precios cuando cambiaban bienes por plata en Hispanoamérica, debido a las instituciones que organizaban el comercio colonial en América.…”

Hanseatic Merchants and the Procurement of Palm Oil and Rubber for Wilhelmine Germany’s New Industries, 1850–1918

“…Officially controlled linen exports from Silesia, including destinations, 1748-1788. Currency: Taler 11. Procurement of Palm Oil and Rubber materials and staple goods needed for manufacture or consumption in the German territories.…”