Journal of Early Modern History, Volume 20, Twentieth Anniversary Issue, 2016

From Long-Distance Trade to the Global Lives of Things: Writing the History of Early Modern Trade and Material Culture

by Prof Anne Gerritsen

Until quite recently, the field of early modern history largely focused on Europe. The overarching narrative of the early modern world began with the European “discoveries,” proceeded to European expansion overseas, and ended with an exploration of the factors that led to the “triumph of Europe.” When the Journal of Early Modern History was established in 1997, the centrality of Europe in the emergence of early modern forms of capitalism continued to be a widely held assumption. Much has changed in the last twenty years, including the recognition of the significance of consumption in different parts of the early modern world, the spatial turn, the emergence of global history, and the shift from the study of trade to the commodities themselves.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Denny who has received one of the ten fellowships to attend the 2015 International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR) at Monash University in Australia.

Congratulations to Emilia Antiglio has won the 2015 World History Association/Phi Alpha Theta Undergraduate Paper Prize with the essay 'The Diffusion of porcelaine des Indes in Eighteenth-Century France: from Lorient to Paris and beyond, 1720-1775'.

 
Many congratulations to Professor Giorgio Riello, winner of the 2014 World History Association Bentley Book Prize for Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (CUP 2013).

Please also see the other publications of the Centre members.
 

On Monday 15 July 2013, Professor Jan de Vries was awarded an honorary degree of letters from the University of Warwick. Please see the full text of the speech he delivered and the full text of the laudatio delivered by Professor Maxine Berg.