Foreword / Malgorzata Mazurek (Columbia University) -- Terms and methods -- Shortage, greed, protest : a short course in the history of the black market in the first half of the 20th century -- The Polish (anti) speculation curve : 1944-1989 -- The (historical) geography of the black market in...

Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The early modern Japanese economy -- The failure of the temp? : reforms and the opening of Yokohama -- The first merchant of Yokohama -- Bakumatsu Japan's trade and Yokohama's place in that trade -- Yokohama and its hinterland -- The producers of...

Introduction -- Africa in the making of an IOW global economy -- Indian Ocean Africa in the first great upswing in the Indian Ocean World global economy, 300 BCE to 300 CE -- Economic instability, ca. 300 to 900 CE -- The second great boom in the IOW global economy ca. 850 to 1250 and its impact...

Machine generated contents note: 1.The Hidden Wound -- 2.This Imperious Company -- 3.Out of the Shadows -- 4.The Bengal Revolution -- 5.The Great East Indian Crash -- 6.Regulating the Company -- 7.Justice Will be Done -- 8.The Toxic Exchange -- 9.A Skulking Power -- 10.Unfinished Business

"In Empire of Commerce, Susan Gaunt Stearns takes readers back to a time when there was nothing inevitable about the United States' untrammeled westward expansion. Her work demonstrates the centrality of trade on and along the Mississippi River to the complex development of the political and...