The Rise of the Atlantic Economy and the North Sea / Baltic Trades, 1500-1800

These conference proceedings from the XVth World Economic History Congress discuss the economic relationship between the Atlantic World and the North Sea/Baltic region in the pre-industrial period. Yet, the relationship is not seen only in terms of commodity and capital flows. Different patterns of trade and political economies of early modern states are in focus, too. The individual contributions pay attention to institutional conditions of trade, as well as cross-cultural entrepreneurship. The role of Atlantic colonial commodities for the transformation of the Baltic and North Sea trades is examined. Economic policies are stressed as crucial for a more thorough understanding of such phenomena as the shift of Scotland's trade from the east to the west, and for the success of Danish and Swedish shipping businesses during the period.
In this way the editors hope that the volume will act as a trigger for further studies on a topic that has been hitherto neglected vis-à-vis an ever-growing body of literature on the early modern Atlantic economies: An impartial and comprehensive understanding of the Atlantic can only be achieved by factoring the Baltic into the picture.