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Trade in the ancient Mediterranean : private order and public institutions / Taco Terpstra.

By: Terpstra, Taco T [author.]Material type: TextTextSeries: Princeton economic history of the Western worldPublisher: Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Description: viii, 275 pages : illustrations, maps, 25 cmContent type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 0691172080; 9780691172088Subject(s): 1517-1789 | Public institutions -- Mediterranean Region | Commerce | Public institutions | Handel | Infrastruktur | Staat | Öffentliche Einrichtung | Mediterranean Region -- Commerce -- History | Mediterranean Region -- History -- 1517-1789 | Mediterranean Region | MittelmeerraumGenre/Form: History.DDC classification: 382.091822 | 930 LOC classification: HF3750.7 | .T47 2019
Contents:
Public Institutions and Phoenician Trade -- King's Men and the Stationary Bandit -- Civic Order and Contract Enforcement -- Economic Trust and Religious Violence.
Summary: From around 700 BCE until the first centuries CE, the Mediterranean enjoyed steady economic growth through trade, reaching a level not to be regained until the early modern era. This process of growth coincided with a process of state formation, culminating in the largest state the ancient Mediterranean would ever know, the Roman Empire. Subsequent economic decline coincided with state disintegration. How are the two processes related? In Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean, Taco Terpstra investigates how the organizational structure of trade benefited from state institutions. Although enforcement typically depended on private actors, traders could utilize a public infrastructure, which included not only courts and legal frameworks but also socially cohesive ideologies. Terpstra details how business practices emerged that were based on private order, yet took advantage of public institutions. Focusing on the activity of both private and public economic actors--from Greek city councilors and Ptolemaic officials to long-distance traders and Roman magistrates and financiers--Terpstra illuminates the complex relationship between economic development and state structures in the ancient Mediterranean.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
Books Books The BIAA David H. French Library
Shelf 37 - Main Room
G1c TERPS 32517 Not for loan BOOKS-000000025395

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-260) and index.

Public Institutions and Phoenician Trade -- King's Men and the Stationary Bandit -- Civic Order and Contract Enforcement -- Economic Trust and Religious Violence.

From around 700 BCE until the first centuries CE, the Mediterranean enjoyed steady economic growth through trade, reaching a level not to be regained until the early modern era. This process of growth coincided with a process of state formation, culminating in the largest state the ancient Mediterranean would ever know, the Roman Empire. Subsequent economic decline coincided with state disintegration. How are the two processes related? In Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean, Taco Terpstra investigates how the organizational structure of trade benefited from state institutions. Although enforcement typically depended on private actors, traders could utilize a public infrastructure, which included not only courts and legal frameworks but also socially cohesive ideologies. Terpstra details how business practices emerged that were based on private order, yet took advantage of public institutions. Focusing on the activity of both private and public economic actors--from Greek city councilors and Ptolemaic officials to long-distance traders and Roman magistrates and financiers--Terpstra illuminates the complex relationship between economic development and state structures in the ancient Mediterranean.