The Asian trade revolution of the seventeenth century: the East India companies: and the decline of the caravan trade

In this work Neils Steensgaard combines an analytical economic approach with detailed historic scholarship to provide an imaginitive and important analysis of a central incident in modern world history. The event is the breaking of the Portuguese monopoly on Asian trade in the seventeenth century by English and Dutch mercantile interests. This change the author demonstrates, was not simply the triumph of the new powers over the old. Rather, the Dutch--English victory heralded a structural change in international trade: the triumph of entrepreneurial capitalism over the older economic mode of the "peddler-merchant." Professor Steensgaard's study is divided into two major parts. The first examines the economic and political structure of the seventeenth century institutions in the Near East, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands. The author demonstrates that the rise to preeminence of the English and Dutch East India Companies over the Portuguese "State of India" was the result of the superior economic and bureaucratic organization of the former. The eclipse of Portuguese power in general, the author argues, is best understood as an institutional failure–an inability to adapt to changing patterns and demands of economic life. The second part of Professor Steensgaard's study provides a detailed historical account of an important event in the fall of the Portuguese trading empire–the loss of the city of Hormuz in 1622. Hormuz, located at a strategic point at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, was a central port city on the Asian trade route. It fell to an English and Persian force. The author demonstrates why this event exemplifies the Portuguese institutional weaknesses that are discussed in the first part of the book. Frontmatter Preface (page 7) Introduction (page 9) Part I The Fall of Hormuz, a Comparative Study (page 12) Chapter I The Peddling Trade (page 22) Chapter II The Redistributive Enterprizes (page 60) Chapter III The Companies (page 114) Chapter IV The Fall of Hormuz (page 154) Part II The Loss of Hormuz. People and Events (page 209) Chapter V The Dream of a Great Alliance (page 211) Chapter VI Hormuz is the Question (page 253) Chapter VII The Loss of Hormuz (page 305) Part III After Hormuz (page 344) Chapter VIII The Losers (page 345) Chapter IX The Attempt at Redirection of the Silk Trade (page 367) Chapter X Instead of Hormuz (page 398) Conclusion (page 412) Appendix, Currency, and Weights (page 415) Manuscript Sources (page 424) Printed Sources and Modern Works (page 426) Index (page 435) Originally Presented As The Author's Thesis, Copenhagen, Published Under Title: Carracks, Caravans And Companies. Bibliography: P. 426-434.