Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World: Spanish Merchants and Their Overseas Networks

摘要

International trade is usually approached through statistics, and studies are typically focused on bilateral or triangular transactions between countries. Yet international trade should also be looked upon as a series of transactions between individuals. In the eighteenth century, Spanish trade was conducted by real people, but little has been written about them. Studies on trade and trust are few and far between. This book, by focusing on the importance of trust in building up trade networks (and, more broadly speaking, facilitating economic and social exchange) sheds very welcome light on how Spaniards and foreign merchants in Spain traded with other markets.