The Essence of Commodification: Caffeine Dependencies In the Early Modern World
Through the Filter of Tobacco: The Limits of Global Trade in the Early Modern World
MATTHEW P. ROMANIELLO
History, University of Hawa’i
In 1663, an English Embassy lead by the Earl of Carlisle traveled to Muscovite Russia. Failing to make any significant breakthroughs in Anglo-Russian trade relations, a member of the Earl’s Embassy observed that the Russians “will Intime leave off that rustick and barbarous humor, which is so natural to them, and learn by degrees to live with more civility And were they under a gentler Government, and had a free Trade with every body, no doubt but this Nation would in short time be taken with our civility and decent way of living.”
Even in this short passage, the plan for English economic expansion was clear. The first step was the establishment of free trade between the countries, which would produce widespread cultural change as the Russians adopted the superior English customs. In the end, a transformed Muscovy would become a natural market for English goods, producing only increased profits. This plan remained essentially unchanged from the beginning of regularized trade between England and Muscovy in the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth, despite the lack of success in changing Muscovite culture in the direction of an English-inspired model.
Of the China Root: A Case Study of the Early Modern Circulation of Materia Medica
Anna E. Winterbottom*
Summary.
The early modern rise of syphilis provoked similar anxieties to those that more recently ac-companied the global spread of HIV/AIDS. It also stimulated global demand for remedies.
Smilax species, known collectively as ‘Sarsaparilla’. I examine the economic, political and cultural dynamics of this process and draw from them some conclusions about the early modern drugs trade and its effects on medical thought.
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