Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- LAST REVIEWED: 18 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 14 April 2011
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0091
- LAST REVIEWED: 18 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 14 April 2011
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0091
Introduction
Most European intercontinental trade passed through the Atlantic during the Early Modern period, with the exception of Mediterranean trade and caravan trade through the Eurasian landmass, both in relative decline. Both the rise to primacy of the European economy and the increase in Atlantic trade have been momentous events in the history of the world. The temptation to link these two events has been very high in both popular and scholarly history since the 19th century. The debate about their relationship is not yet settled, because there is no general agreement on either the causes and characteristics of the divergence of Europe from other Old World economies or the benefits that intercontinental trade have provided to European economies. This bibliography provides sources that discuss the effect of Atlantic trade on European economies. Consideration of Europe as a whole is probably misleading in that every country—and probably every region—had a specific interaction with the Atlantic. This entry provides readings on the experience in Britain, Denmark-Norway, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and Spain. The experience of Britain is so important to the history of the European economy that this entry would not be complete without some readings on the effect of the Atlantic trade on the British Industrial Revolution.
General Overviews
Acemoglu, et al. 2005 has convinced many economists that Atlantic trade was an important catalyst of economic growth in Early Modern Europe. Few studies provide an overview of the whole European experience with Atlantic trade. Braudel 1992 and Wallerstein 1974–2001 are two meta-narratives of European growth and its relation with the rest of the world that are more impressive as descriptive works than as analyses. Findlay and O’Rourke 2007 is a good recent synthesis that can be used as a starting point to the rest of the literature. Emmer, et al. 2006 gathers different sources that provide good starting points for the study of each country’s experience. O’Brien and Prados de la Escosura 1998 did the same over a longer time period. This collection of papers is more focused, but does not treat the Scandinavian countries. Socolow 1996 and Black 2006 are reprint collections of important papers on, respectively, the slave trade and the other trades in the Atlantic. Magnusson 2008 is a useful collection of 17th- and 18th-century mercantilist texts arguing for the importance of trade for the prosperity of European economies.
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. “The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic Growth.” American Economic Review 95.3 (2005): 546–579.
Provides an econometric test to the hypothesis that Atlantic trade was important for European growth because it encouraged the rise of good institutions in countries where initial institutions were good enough.
Black, Jeremy, ed. The Atlantic Slave Trade. 4 vols. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006.
The four volumes gather reprints of numerous articles on Atlantic slave trade in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th century, respectively. Most articles, dating from 1940 to 2004, are available online, but the selection work is very valuable.
Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
Each volume treats one of three levels of economic activity: material life (routine activities of consumption and production, e.g., new consumption goods coming from Atlantic trade), market economy (exchange activities where market rules prevail: focus is on profits from Atlantic trade), and capitalism (large-scale exchange activities dominated by politics, monopolies, and high profits: focus is on the history of the European Atlantic expansion). The book argues that colonial trade and Atlantic trade are central to the development of capitalism in the world economy.
Emmer, Pieter, Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, and Jessica Roitman, eds. A Deus Ex Machina Revisited: Atlantic Colonial Trade and European Economic Development. Atlantic World 8. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
Provides a thorough approach vis-à-vis the role of Atlantic trade in Europe, including both articles on specific countries (Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Denmark-Norway, and Sweden) and more general articles, e.g., about the statistics of colonial trade and its importance in meta-narratives of the Great Divergence.
Findlay, Ronald, and Kevin H. O’Rourke. Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton Economic History of the Western World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
A very interesting general work on world trade and its economic role from 1000 to now. Chapters 4 to 7 cover trade with the New World and its effect on Europe up to the 19th century, with specific discussion about the flow of species, mercantilism, and the relationship between trade and the British Industrial Revolution.
Magnusson, Lars, ed. Mercantilist Theory and Practice: The History of British Mercantilism. 4 vols. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008.
A collection of facsimile texts from the 17th and 18th centuries along with editorial comments. Volumes 2 and 3 (Foreign Trade: Regulation and Practice, and The Colonial System) provide texts discussing the advantages of Atlantic trade for the prosperity of European nations. It is too bad that no equivalent source exists for other countries.
O’Brien, Patrick K., and Leandro Prados de la Escosura, eds. Special issue: The Costs and Benefits of European Imperialism from the Conquest of Ceuta, 1415, to the Treaty of Lusaka, 1974. La Revista de Historia Económica 16.1: 1998.
Collection of articles prepared for the Session AI, Twelfth International Economic History Congress, Madrid, 24–28 August 1998, along with a long and interesting introduction by the editors. Covers much of Europe, except for the Scandinavian countries. Available online to subscribers.
Socolow, Susan M., ed. Atlantic Staple Trade. 2 vols. Expanding World 9. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1996.
The first volume gathers reprints on commerce and politics (especially the trade competition between the different actors of the Atlantic economy). The second volume gathers case studies of staple and luxury trade (e.g., logwood, rice, tobacco, cochineal).
Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System. 3 vols. Studies in Social Discontinuity. New York: Academic Press, 1974–2001.
The first volume treats the 16th century, the second one the mercantilist era (1600–1750), and the last one the Industrial Revolution. The main thesis is that the central place of Europe in the “modern world system” and its relations with the periphery are at the center of its successful economic divergence.
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets