Search

This article conveys the power of place in global history through the multiple perceptions of space and possession in one small remote locality – Nootka Sound on the Northwest coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. This space was, for a brief period between the 1770s and 1790s, connected with many parts of the world. Microhistorical methodologies applied to the texts of traders and explorers and turned to the study of a locality such as Nootka Sound reveal the close global connections of agents and events and help us to challenge the frameworks of global history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue addresses recent discussions of the potential historical approach of "global microhistory." The six articles gathered here are based in the study of Africa, South Asia, the northwest Pacific coast of North America, and Europe, as well as in the recent methodologies of global history and microhistory. They focus on methodology and on the empirical study of ways of connecting local spaces and networks with global dynamics. All are set in social and economic formations that have too often been bypassed in the cultural and literary approaches of some microhistory and the political approaches of some global history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a global microhistory of the years 1774-1792 at Nootka Sound, exploring exchanges that took place between European merchants and the indigenous people that resided there, the Mowachaht. Much of this commercial exchange was an exchange of sea-otter furs for iron and copper. The author describes what is global about this study: research into a long-distance trade of an individual commodity and what is a micro-analysis: the exploration of a specific locality.

The article discusses the establishment of the organization the International Economic History Association (IEHA) and its significance to dialogue among economic historians during the Cold War and détente. It examines the significance of the IEHA to academic international diplomacy, the motivation of the organizers of the IEHA to keep the group together through Cold War crises, and the role of the field of economic history in international collaborations during the Cold War. It also discusses the roles of scholars Michael M. Postan, Fernand Braudel, and Ernst Söderlund in organizing the IEHA.

The article focuses on the contribution of useful knowledge on the start of industrial revolution in Europe. The book "The gifts of Athena," by Joel Mokyr suggests that useful knowledge provides treatment of industrialization, consumption, and the rise of the new global history in the West. The author stated that useful knowledge acquired by skilled workers stimulated the growth of the crucial intermediate goods industries.

Argues that imports of goods from the East made a difference to the subsequent development of European, but especially British, consumer markets and production technologies in the 18th century. Europeans' response to Asian luxuries by learning from their imports, developing knowledge of markets and adapting processes; Connection between global luxury, European consumerism and industrialization in the 18th century.

Investigates the customs and practices of property-holding, inheritance and guardianship of children as they affected women in two industrial towns in Great Britain, Birmingham and Sheffield. Decline in women's rights and status regarding property over the course of the 18th century to the mid-Victorian era; Impact of industrial expansion in Britain on women across regions; More.

Addresses questions of gender and class in consumer behavior in industrial England. Role of commodities and their significance to practices of middling consumers in the towns of Birmingham and Sheffield; Investigation of qualitative questions of social and emotional significance attached to the goods; Shift from elite consumption of foreign luxuries to demand for consumer novelties.

The article looks at botanist and surgeon James Anderson's silk projects along India's Coromandel coast. Anderson set up an extensive network of correspondents, learning which species of silkworm and mulberry tree were the best options for plantations in Southern India. Ultimately the venture failed, but according to the author it shows how many of English trading company, the East India Company's ventures in India were economically inviable.