Read (subscription needed) in the February 2025 issue of the IJMH Anna Knutsson’s review of “Private Enterprise and the China Trade: Merchants and Markets in Europe, 1700–1750” by Meike von Brescius
The book is in open access.
This book examines the European commercial landscape of the early China trade, c.1700–1750. It looks at the foundational period of Sino-European commerce and explores a world of private enterprise beneath the surface of the official East India Company structures. Using rich private trade records, it analyses the making of pan-European markets, distribution networks and patterns of investment that together reveal a new geography of a trading system previously studied mostly at Canton. By considering the interloping activities of British-born merchants working for the smaller East India Companies, the book uncovers the commercial practices and cross-Company collaborations, both legal and illicit, that sustained the growth of the China trade: smuggling, wholesale trading, private commissions and the manipulation of Company auctions.
Private Enterprise and the China Trade – Merchants and Markets in Europe, 1700-1750 | Brill
IMHA 