The familiarity of strangers : the Sephardic diaspora, Livorno, and cross-cultural trade in the early modern period / Francesca Trivellato.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Trivellato, Francesca, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Italy--Livorno--History--18th century.

Jews.

Sephardim--Italy--Livorno--History--18th century.

Sephardim.

Jews--Italy--Livorno--Economic conditions--18th century.

Sephardim--Italy--Livorno--Economic conditions--18th century.

Sephardim--Italy--Livorno--Social conditions--18th century.

Sephardim--Italy--Livorno--Social life and customs--18th century.

Jewish merchants--Italy--Livorno--History--18th century.

Jewish merchants.

Livorno (Italy)--Commerce--History--18th century.

Livorno (Italy).

Livorno (Italy)--Ethnic relations--History--18th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (480 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Taking a new approach to the study of cross-cultural trade, this book blends archival research with historical narrative and economic analysis to understand how the Sephardic Jews of Livorno, Tuscany, traded in regions near and far in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Francesca Trivellato tests assumptions about ethnic and religious trading diasporas and networks of exchange and trust. Her extensive research in international archives-including a vast cache of merchants’ letters written between 1704 and 1746-reveals a more nuanced view of the business relations between Jews and non-Jews across the Mediterranean, Atlantic Europe, and the Indian Ocean than ever before. The book argues that cross-cultural trade was predicated on and generated familiarity among strangers, but could coexist easily with religious prejudice. It analyzes instances in which business cooperation among coreligionists and between strangers relied on language, customary norms, and social networks more than the progressive rise of state and legal institutions.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on Terminology and Units of Measurement

Introduction

1. Diasporic Families and the Making of a Business Partnership

2. Livorno and the Western Sephardic Diaspora

3. A New City, a New Society? Livorno, the Jewish Nation, and Communitarian Cosmopolitanism

4. Between State Commercial Power and Trading Diasporas: Sephardim in the Mediterranean

5. Marriage, Dowry, Inheritance, and Types of Commercial Association

6. Commission Agency, Economic Information, and the Legal and Social Foundations of Business Cooperation

7. Cross-Cultural Trade and the Etiquette of Merchants’ Letters

8. Ergas and Silvera’s Heterogeneous Trading Networks

9. The Exchange of Mediterranean Coral and Indian Diamonds

10. The “Big Diamond Affair”: Merchants on Trial

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-35210-5

9786612352102

0-300-15620-0

OCLC:

586098244