The Age of Commerce

In an ambitious, revisionist interpretation of European commercial life, Pierre Gervais argues that the early modern economy has been misunderstood as simply the prelude to our modern industrial capitalist world. Instead, it was structured around monopolistic groups controlling market accesses and pushing for aggressive expansion, including overseas. This 'Age of Commerce' gave rise to complex societies, ranging from a wealthy European centre to a ferociously exploited, slave-based colonial periphery. But by the eighteenth century, commercial competition had become increasingly destructive, with commerce-based European empires battling for world supremacy and non-merchant social groups rebelling against an increasingly intolerable merchant exploitation. Industrial capitalism was born from this crisis, as innovative producers implemented cost controls and productivity gains. Through a clearer understanding of how European economies became powerful, Gervais breaks down claims of innate technical or moral superiority, and demonstrates the historically contingent nature of capitalist business practices held to be self-evident today.