A single theme is pursued in this book - the trade between peoples of differing cultures through world history. Extending from the ancient world to the coming of the commercial revolution, Professor Curtin??'s discussion encompasses a broad and diverse group of trading relationships. Drawing on insights from economic history and anthropology, Professor Curtin has attempted to move beyond a Europe-centred view of history, to one that can help us understand the entire range of societies in the human past. Examples have been chosen that illustrate the greatest variety of trading relationships...

From the beginning of European trade and conquest overseas, Europeans have known they died from the effect of the strange "climate." Later, they came to understand that it was disease, not climate, that killed, but the fact remained that every trading voyage, every military expedition beyond Europe, had its price in European lives lost. For European soldiers in the tropics at the beginning of the nineteenth century, this added cost in deaths from disease--the "relocation cost"--meant a death rate at least twice that of soldiers who stayed home. This book is partly a statistical exposition of...

From 1815 to 1914, death rates of European soldiers, serving both at home and abroad, dropped by nearly ninety percent. But this drop applied mainly to soldiers in barracks. Soldiers on campaign, especially in the tropics, continued to die from disease at rates as high as ever. This book examines the practice of military medicine during the conquest of Africa, especially in the 1880s and 1890s. Curtin examines what was done, what was not done, and the impact of doctors' successes and failures on the willingness of Europeans to embark on imperial adventures.

Over a period of several centuries, Europeans developed an intricate system of plantation agriculture overseas that was quite different from the agricultural system used at home. Though the plantation complex centered on the American tropics, its influence was much wider. Much more than an economic order for the Americas, the plantation complex had an important place in world history. These essays concentrate on the intercontinental impact.

Over a period of several centuries, Europeans overseas developed an intricate system of plantation agriculture - a plantation complex - that was different from the agricultural institutions they normally used at home. This economic and political order, centered on slave plantations in the New-World tropics, reached a peak in the 18th century but its earliest origins can be traced back to the medieval Mediterranean. Its end came only with the abolition of slavery in Brazil and Cuba in the late 1880s, and many aspects lasted well into the 20th century.

This book is a study of the interaction of the Western societies of Europe and America with others around the world in the past two centuries--the age of European empire. Through a variety of case studies, it considers the European threat and the non-Western response, but the focus is on the ways in which people in Asia, African, and Indian America have tried to adapt their ways of life to the overwhelming European power of the period.

This book is a study of the interaction of the Western societies of Europe and America with others around the world in the past two centuries--the age of European empire. Through a variety of case studies, it considers the European threat and the non-Western response, but the focus is on the ways in which people in Asia, African, and Indian America have tried to adapt their ways of life to the overwhelming European power of the period.