"Hans Holbein's Triumphs (1532-1534), commissioned for the headquarters of the Hanseatic League in London and Kano Naizen's The Portuguese namban ('foreigners') painted in Japan in 1543 are representations of worlds of trade, where wealth, speculation, exploitation, poverty, curiosity,...

The Late Middle Ages (c.1300–c.1500) saw the development of many of the key economic institutions of the modern unitary nation-state in Europe. After the ‘commercial revolution’ of the thirteenth century, taxes on trade became increasingly significant contributors to government finances,...

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...