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SUMMARY: 'Quicksilver Production and Consumption in Early Modern Europe:  
 Reflections on Premodern Commodity and Financial Markets in the Second Pha
 se of Globalization.' - Professor Thomas Max Safley\, History Department\,
  University of Pennsylvania
DTSTART:20091102T170000Z
DTEND:20091102T190000Z
UID:TALK20743@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:D'Maris Coffman
DESCRIPTION:This paper begins with a question born of a bankruptcy.  In 15
 29\, Ambrosius\n and Hans\, the Brothers Höchstetter and Associates\, one
  of the largest\n merchant-banking houses in Europe of its day\, ceased pa
 yments after a failed\n attempt to corner the world market in quicksilver.
   Why did quicksilver lend\n itself to monopoly control\, and why did the 
 attraction prove fatal?  Answers to these questions can be found by consid
 ering the institutional and technological constraints that determined prod
 uction and consumption of this\n commodity in the early modern period.  Th
 e results encourage reflections both\n on the limitations of the price mec
 hanism as a metric for globalization and\n on the influence of state finan
 ce on early modern industry.
LOCATION:Sidgwick G-20\, Newnham College
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