The Power and Pains of Polysemy: Maritime Trade, Averages, and Institutional Development in the Low Countries (15th–16th Centuries) by Gijs Dreijer

Read the review (requires subscription) by Jeremy Land in the November 2024 issue of the IJMH

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/08438714241274990

A description of the book is available here:

https://brill.com/display/title/64431

As the fall-out of the Ever Given Suez canal blockage shows, an ancient instrument like General Average (GA) is still highly relevant in redistributing risks and costs in maritime trade. However, bar marine insurance, not much is known about the development of tools of maritime risk management like GA, which redistributes extraordinary costs incurred for the common safety of maritime ventures.

This book investigates the development of General Average and other so-called Averages in the Low Countries on the eve of the early modern period, showing how the various varieties of Averages played a significant role in the development of maritime risk management and the broader institutional development in the Low Countries.