Cities of Commerce develops a model of institutional change in European commerce based on urban rivalry. Cities continuously competed with each other by adapting commercial, legal, and financial institutions to the evolving needs of merchants. Oscar Gelderblom traces the successive rise of...

"The Merchant Republics" analyzes the ways in which three major economic powerhouses - Amsterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg - developed dual identities as 'communities of commerce' and as republics over the course of the long eighteenth century (c.1648-1790). In addition to discussing the qualities...

"As the dynamo of South Africa's economy, Johannesburg commands a central position in the nation's imagination, and scholars throughout the world monitor the city as an exemplar of urbanity in the global South.This richly illustrated study offers detailed empirical analyses of changes in the...