Underground Wealth of Nations - On the Capitalist Origins of Silver Mining, A.d. 1150-1450

Silver mining was a capitalist business long before the supposed origin of modern capitalism. Hundreds of years before a sixteenth-century crisis in European agriculture led to the origins of capital, investment, and finance, the silver mining industry exhibited many of the features of modern capitalism. Silver mines were large-scale businesses that demanded large investments and steady cash flow, achieved by spreading that risk through fungible shares and creating legal structures to protect entrepreneurs from financial disaster. Jeannette Graulau argues that mining preceded agriculture as the first true capitalist enterprise of the modern world.

About the author

Jeannette Graulau is associate professor of political science at Herbert H. Lehman College, The City University of New York.

Summary

Silver mining was a capitalist business long before the supposed origin of modern capitalism

Product details

• Authors: Jeannette Graulau
• Publisher: Yale University Press Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2019
• EAN: 9780300218220
• ISBN: 978-0-300-21822-0
• No. of pages: 392
• Series: Yale Series in Economic and Financial History; Yale Series in Economic and Fi; Yale Economic and Financial Hi; Spare
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Middle Ages; Social sciences, law, business > Business > Economics; Europe, European History, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / European, Economic history, Political science & theory, Medieval History, Political science and theory, European history: medieval period, middle ages, HISTORY / Europe / Medieval