Session Abstract

In order to realize the potential profits of long distance trade across oceans, early modern Europeans needed to confront a range of special problems.  They had to select goods for distant customers with unfamiliar tastes; cultivate trading partners and information networks; monitor the behavior of overseas agents; maintain good relations with the political rulers of the lands to which they traded; and protect their assets from political, legal, and even military threats.  Large firms – especially the joint-stock giants such as the Dutch East India Company or mercantile consortia like the English Levant Company – could seem to have the advantage in dealing efficiently with these challenges, though well-managed smaller concerns could duplicate these advantages.  This panel brings together three papers that examine the methods by which European firms of various sizes attempted to solve the problems inherent in early modern global commerce.