Global History of Early Modern Violence ed. by Erica Charters et al. (review)

emergence of Anglo-Dutch business corporations was either premised on or reflective of any sense of moral superiority. The trade-off for a broad synthesis is an occasional lack of detail. Since Harris relies heavily on the nature of cross-cultural differentials, it would have been useful for him to have fleshed out the relationships between rulers and other elites on the one hand and the trading methods and institutions which arose from their cultures on the other. Lines of political influence and degrees of direct and indirect economic benefit from these arrangements were intertwined and the extent to which they were essentially different sometimes seems blurred. Nonetheless, this is a provocative, innovative, and persuasive expansion of multiple lines of historical analysis. Like the merchants he describes, Ron Harris covers a wide swath, visits disparate outposts (of historical study), and weaves together a network (of methods, cases, and insights) to bring the goods safely home.