1500s
1600s
16th century
17th
A01=Robert K. Batchelor
absolutism
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asia
Author_Robert K. Batchelor
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bombay
britain
cambridge
cartography
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=RGC
Category=RGV
city
COP=United States
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development
economics
england
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eq_nobargain
globalization
growth
history
hugo grotius
john selden
joint stock company
Language_English
london
map
merchants
monarchy
newtonian system
ogilby
oxford
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Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
silver
softlaunch
sovereigns
taiwan
trade
translation
urban
Product details
- ISBN 9780226080659
- Weight: 595g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 06 Jan 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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If one had looked for a potential global city in Europe in the 1540s, the most likely candidate would have been Antwerp, which had emerged as the center of the German and Spanish silver exchange as well as the Portuguese spice and Spanish sugar trades. It almost certainly would not have been London, an unassuming hub of the wool and cloth trade with a population of around 75,000, still trying to recover from the onslaught of the Black Plague. But by 1700 London's population had reached a staggering 575,000-and it had developed its first global corporations, as well as relationships with non-European societies outside the Mediterranean. What happened in the span of a century and a half? And how exactly did London transform itself into a global city? London's success, Robert K. Batchelor argues, lies not just with the well-documented rise of Atlantic settlements, markets, and economies. Using his discovery of a network of Chinese merchant shipping routes on John Selden's map of China as his jumping-off point, Batchelor reveals how London also flourished because of its many encounters, engagements, and exchanges with East Asian trading cities.
Translation plays a key role in Batchelor's study-translation not just of books, manuscripts, and maps, but also of meaning and knowledge across cultures - and Batchelor demonstrates how translation helped London understand and adapt to global economic conditions. Looking outward at London's global negotiations, Batchelor traces the development of its knowledge networks back to a number of foreign sources and credits particular interactions with England's eventual political and economic autonomy from church and king. London offers a much-needed non-Eurocentric history of London, first by bringing to light and then by synthesizing the many external factors and pieces of evidence that contributed to its rise as a global city. It will appeal to students and scholars interested in the cultural politics of translation, the relationship between merchants and sovereigns, and the cultural and historical geography of Britain and Asia.
Robert K. Batchelor is associate professor of history at Georgia Southern University.
