The underground wealth of nations : on the capitalist origins of silver mining, A.D. 1150-1450 / Jeannette Graulau.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Graulau, Jeannette, author.

Series:

Yale series in economic and financial history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Silver mines and mining--Europe--History--To 1500.

Silver mines and mining.

Capitalism--Europe--History--To 1500.

Capitalism.

History.

Europe.

Physical Description:

xvi, 373 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2019]

Summary:

Silver mining was a capitalist business long before the supposed origin of modern capitalism. Hundreds of years before a sixteenth-century crisis in European agriculture led to the origins of capital, investment, and finance, the silver mining industry exhibited many of the features of modern capitalism. Silver mines were large-scale businesses that demanded large investments and steady cash flow, achieved by spreading that risk through fungible shares and creating legal structures to protect entrepreneurs from financial disaster. Jeannette Graulau argues that mining preceded agriculture as the first true capitalist enterprise of the modern world.

Contents:

1 Mining the Underground Wealth of Nations: A Word on Theory and History p. 1

2 World Mining Regions before the Rise of Modern Capitalism p. 30

3 Digging the Underground Wealth of Europe p. 73

4 Capitalist Profits of Mining Corporations p. 138

5 A 'Lengthy Digression': Why Mining Lagged Elsewhere p. 163

6 Capitalist Mining in West European Development p. 207.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0300218222

9780300218220

OCLC:

1090011511