Global Commerce and Economic Conscience in Europe, 1700-1900

Distance and Entanglement

Edited by Felix Brahm and Eve Rosenhaft

Studies of the German Historical Institute, London

Draws on new and original research
Situates urgent current discussions of modern slavery, supply chain transparency, and ethical consumption and investment in historical perspective

Global Commerce and Economic Conscience in Europe, 1700-1900

Distance and Entanglement

Edited by Felix Brahm and Eve Rosenhaft

Studies of the German Historical Institute, London

Description

In the twenty-first century, acting in the economic sphere in order to avoid or reduce harm to others is widely acknowledged as an ethical imperative. Ethical investment and fair trade, the politics of boycott, and corporate 'greenwashing' are well established in the repertoire of corporate and individual action and public debate. This repertoire has a history; neither moral indifference nor ethical engagement is 'natural' or self-evident. How and when do (and did) people come to see themselves as answerable for the well-being of distant others, and in particular to see that their commercial activity - as consumers, investors, or managers in global businesses - endows them with both power and responsibility to take moral action? The essays in this volume examine some key cases in the evolution of this kind of economic conscience in Europe, from the emergence of the modern global system, based on the growth of joint-stock maritime trading companies, the financial revolution, and transatlantic slavery, to the age of high imperialism and industrial capitalism. From a range of disciplinary perspectives, they consider how changing structures of sentiment and knowledge made possible new articulations between moral obligation, locality, the spaces of humanity, and the 'economic', but also the ways in which colonialism and imperialism re-framed and channelled impulses to ethical and humanitarian action. Ten essays, focusing mainly on British and German actors at home and overseas, are framed by a wide-ranging introduction and a reflection on the historical dimensions of current debates on slavery in business supply chains.

Global Commerce and Economic Conscience in Europe, 1700-1900

Distance and Entanglement

Edited by Felix Brahm and Eve Rosenhaft

Studies of the German Historical Institute, London

1:Introduction
2:The Lure and Evils of the International Market: German Cameralists and the Modern Economy
3:Framing John Law: G(u)ilt, Fiction, and Finance
4:Morals on the Margins: Commerce, Trust, and Public Service in Louisbourg, 1758-1760
5:Virtue in Progress: Morality, National Character, and the East India Company
6:Political Economy, Moral Philosophy, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel: Tobias Smollett's Vision of Global Commerce in the Scottish Enlightenment
7:'For how could we do without sugar and rum?': Anti-Consumption, Commodity Substitution, and the Global Expansion of Plantation Production
8:'Oh, wonderful sugar beet! You are the death of the bloody sugar cane': The German Debate on the Morality of the Consumption of Sugar Produced by Slave Labour around 1800
9:John Holt's Economic Conscience
10:Moralizing the Liquor Trade in German West Africa, 1884-1914
11:The Moral Economy of Modern Pearling
12:Westminster and the Eradication of Slavery in Business Supply Chains: Past, Present, and Future

Global Commerce and Economic Conscience in Europe, 1700-1900

Distance and Entanglement

Edited by Felix Brahm and Eve Rosenhaft

Studies of the German Historical Institute, London

Author Information

Edited by Felix Brahm, Deputy Professor of Global History, University of Hamburg, and Eve Rosenhaft, Professor Emerita of German Historical Studies, University of Liverpool

Felix Brahm is Deputy Professor of Global History at the University of Hamburg. His publications include Slavery Hinterland: Transatlantic Slavery and Continental Europe 1680-1850 (edited with Eve Rosenhaft, 2016) and Merchandise of Power: Arms Trade and Control between Europe and East Africa, 1850-1919 (forthcoming 2021).

Eve Rosenhaft is Professor Emerita of German Historical Studies at the University of Liverpool. Her most recent publications include Slavery Hinterland: Transatlantic Slavery and Continental Europe 1680-1850 (edited with Felix Brahm, 2016) and Mnemonic Solidarity-Global Interventions (edited with Jie-Hyun Lim, 2021).

Contributors:

Alex Balch, University of Liverpool
Felix Brahm, University of Hamburg
William G. Clarence-Smith, SOAS University of London
Joyce Goggin, University of Amsterdam
Aaron Graham, University College London
Claire Hannibal, Liverpool John Moores University
Joe Kelly, Independent scholar
Sarah Lentz, University of Bremen
Deborah J. Neill, York University, Toronto
Justus Nipperdey, Saarland University
Eve Rosenhaft, University of Liverpool
Jordan Smith, Widener University, Pennsylvania
Laura Tarkka, University of Turku
Kim Sebastian Todzi, University of Hamburg
Yusuke Wakazawa, Keio University, Tokyo