This book provides the first global analysis of the relationship between trade and civilization from the beginning of civilization around 3000 BC including the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean trade, Near Eastern family traders of the Bronze Age, and the Medieval Hanseatic League, it examines the role of the individual merchant, the products of trade, the role of the state, and the technical conditions for the land and sea transport that created diverging systems of trade and developed global trade networks.

Trade networks, however, were not durable. The contributors discuss the establishment and decline of great trading network systems, and how they related to the expansion of civilization, and to different forms of social and economic exploitation. Case studies focus on local conditions as well as global networks until sixteenth century when the whole globe was finally connected by trade.

Trade and Civilization results from a three-step academic venture. The idea for this book originated in two Swedish interdisciplinary conferences on Global Histories held in 2011 and 2012, where a number of central research themes were identified and discussed. It inspired three editors to propose a carefully prepared international follow-up conference on the theme of trade and civilization that should lead to (this) a book.

Click here to continue reading full book text in PDF.  For the Silo, Christian Christiansen.