Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce A.D. 300-900

ISBN-13: 9780521661027 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 1130 str.

Michael McCormick

Opis

This is the first comprehensive analysis of the economic transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages in over sixty years. It brings fresh evidence to bear on the fall of the Roman empire and the origins of the medieval economy. The book uses new material from recent excavations, and develops a new method for the study of hundreds of travelers to reconstitute the communications infrastructure that conveyed those travelers--ship sailings, overland routes--linking Europe to Africa and Asia, from the time of the later Roman empire to the reign of Charlemagne and beyond.

Recenzje

'McCormick's book is a masterpiece of craft … McCormick, like Bloch and Pirenne, is writing a different kind of economic history: 'economic history as cultural history' … McCormick has carried the best work of the early twentieth century on into the twenty-first - not just by adding more lanes, but by carving out a whole new route.' New Republic

Spis treści

Commerce, communications and the origins of the European economy; Part I. The End of the World: 1. The end of the ancient world; 2. Late Roman industry: case studies in decline; 3. Land and river communications in late antiquity; 4. Sea change in late antiquity; The end of the ancient economy: a provisional balance sheet; Part II. People on the Move; 5. A few western faces; 6. Two hundred more envoys and pilgrims: group portrait; 7. Byzantine faces; 8. Easterners heading west: group portrait; 9. Traders, slaves, and exiles; People on the move; Part III. Things that Travelled: 10. Hagiographical horizons: collecting exotic relics in early medieval France; 11. 'Virtual' coins and communications; 12. 'Real money': Arab and Byzantine coins around Carolingian Europe; Things on the move; Part IV. The Patterns of Change: 13. The experience of travel; 14. Secular rhythms: communications over time; 15. Seasonal rhythms; 16. Time under way; 17. 'Spaces of sea': Europe's western Mediterranean communications; 18. Venetian breakthrough: Europe's central Mediterranean communications; 19. New overland routes; The patterns of change; Part V. Commerce: 20. Early medieval trading worlds; 21. Where are the merchants?: Italy; 22. Merchants and markets of Frankland; 23. Connections; 24. Where are the wares?: eastern imports to Europe; 25. European exports to Africa and Asia; At the origins of the European economy; Appendices; Bibliography.