Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T06:34:15.693Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Seventeenth-Century Crisis and the Unity of Eurasian History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Niels Steensgaard
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen

Extract

The seventeenth-century crisis concept served the research in European history well, it deepened and broadedned and broadened our understanding of well-studied issues, even though we were far from agreeing on a definition of what the seventeenth-century crisis was or is. This is the kind of conceptual embarrassment which baffles our colleagues in the social sciences, but which the historian takes in his stride.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

This is a revised version of a paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., in March 1989.

1 Trevor-Roper, H. R., ‘The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, Past and Present 16 (1959),CrossRefGoogle Scholar reprinted in Aston, Trevor (ed.), Crisis in Europe, 1566–1660 (London, 1965).Google Scholar

2 Hobsbawm, Eric, ‘The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, Past and Present 5–6 (1954), repriinted in Aston, Crisis in Europe.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Mousnier, Roland, Les XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Paris, 1953).Google Scholar

4 Rabb, T. K., The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 1976).Google Scholar

5 See e.g. de Vries, Jan, The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis (Cambridge, University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

6 Steensgaard, Niels, ‘Det syttende århundredes krise’, (Da.) History Tidsskrift, rk. 12, vol. IV (1970),Google Scholar in Engl. translation ‘The Seventeenth Centure crisis’ in Parker, Geoffrey and Smith, Lesley M. (eds), The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1978).Google Scholar

7 Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘The Incorporation of the Indian Subcontinent into the Capitalist World-Economy’ on Chandra, Satish (ed.), The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commmerce and Politics (New Delhi/Newbury Park/London, 1987), pp. 223–4 and 251–2.Google Scholar

8 Perlin, Frank, ‘Precolonial South Asia and Western Penetration in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries: A Problem of Epistemological Status’, Review IV (1980).Google Scholar

9 Reid, Anthony, ‘The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Southeast Asia’, pp. 639–59.Google Scholar

10 For a classical statement of the dogma see van Leur, J. C., Indonesian Trade and Society (the Hague, 1955), pp. 284–5,Google Scholarcf. my ‘Asian Trade 15th – 18th Centuries: Continuity and Discontinuities’ in XVe Cogrès International des Sciences Historiques, Rapports II (Bucarest, 1980), pp. 499500.Google Scholar

11 Reid, Anthony, ‘Trade and State Power in the 16th and 17th Century Southeast Asia’, in Seventh IAHA Conference, Proceedings I (Bangkok, 1977);Google Scholarcf. Lieberman, Victor B., ‘Europeans, Trade and the Unification of Burma c. 1540–1620’, Oriens Extremus 27 (1980),Google Scholar and Kathirithamby-Wells, J., ‘Royal Authority and the Orang Kaya in the Western Archipelago, circa 1500–1800’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies XVII (1986).Google Scholar

12 Reid, , ‘The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Southeast Asia Trade and State Power’, pp. 645–6.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 657.

14 Before 1630 300 per cent had been paid out to the participants. After 1630 the annual dividends rarely went below 12.5 per cent. Steensgaard, Niels, ‘The Dutch East India Company as an Institutional Innovation’ in Aymard, Maurice (ed.), Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism (Cambridge, University Press, 1982), p. 250.Google Scholar

15 Atwell, William S., ‘A Seventeenth-Century “General Crisis” in East Asia?’, pp. 665–6.Google Scholar

16 Atwell, William S., ‘Some Observations on the “Seventeenth-Century Crisis” in China and Japan’, Journal of Asian Studies XLV (1986), p. 224.Google Scholar

17 Richards, John F., ‘The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in South Asia’, p. 630.Google Scholar

18 Raychaudhuri, Tapan and Habib, Irfan (eds), The Cambridge Economic History of India, I (Cambridge, University Press, 1982), passim.Google Scholar

19 Moreland, W. H., From Akbar to Aurangzeb (London, 1920).Google Scholar

20 Richards, , pp. 000–00.Google Scholar

21 See also Geoffrey Parker and Lesey M. Smith in their introduction to The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.

22 See my survey of the literature referred to above n. 10 and my ‘The Indian Ocean Network and the Emerging World Economy, c. 1500–1750’ in Chandra, Satish (ed.), The Indian Ocan (n. 7 above). Among the more recent contributions especially the studies by K. N. Chaudhuri, Frank Perlin and Sanjay Subrahmanyam deserve attention.Google Scholar

23 Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘The Incorporation of the Indian Subcontinent’, p. 252.Google Scholar

24 Moosvi, Shireen, The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595 (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 395406.Google Scholar

25 Goldstone, Jack A., ‘East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political Crises in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey and Ming ChinaComparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988), p. 104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 133.

27 Huang, Ray, Taxation and Government Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China (Cambridge, University Press, 1974);Google ScholarMote, Frederick W. and Twitchett, Denis (eds), The Cambridge Histroy of China, Vol. 7 (Cambridge, University Press, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 Keiji, Nagahara and Yamamura, Kozo, ‘The Sengoku Daimyo and the Kandaka System’Google Scholar and Hall, John W., ‘Hideyoshi's Domestic Policies’ both in Hall, John W., Keiji, Nagahara and Yamamura, Kozo (eds), Japan before Tokugawa (Princeton, University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

29 Moosvi, Shireen, Economy of the Mughal Empire;Google ScholarHabib, Irfan, Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556–1707) (Bombay, 1963);Google ScholarThe Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. I.Google Scholar

30 Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia (Princeton, University Press, 1961), pp. 228–35.Google Scholar

31 Röhrborn, Klaus, Provinzen und Zentralgewalt Persiens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1966);CrossRefGoogle ScholarJackson, Peter and Lockhart, Laurence (eds), The Cambridge Histoy of Iran, vol. 6 (Cambridge, University Press, 1986), pp. 344–5, 364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 McGowan, Bruce, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600–1800 (Cambridge, University Press, 1981), p. 57.Google Scholar

33 Braudel, Fernand, The Medidterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. 2 (New York, 1973), pp. 695–6.Google Scholar

34 Barkan, Ömer Lutfi, ‘The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: A Turing Point in the Economic History of the Near East’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975), p. 303.Google Scholar

35 Between 1565 and 1600 the weight of the akçe was reduced from 0.681 grams of silver to 0.323, Sahillioglu, Halil, ‘The Role of International Monetary and Metal Movements in Ottoman Monetatry History: 1300–1750‘, in Richards, J. F. (ed.), Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds (Durham, 1983).Google Scholar

36 Wolfe, Martin, The Fiscal System of Renaissance France (New Haven and London, 1972), p. 76–7.Google Scholar

37 Parker, Geoffrey, ‘The Emergence of Modern Finance in Europe: 1530’, in Cipolla, Carlo M. (ed.), The Fontana Economic History of Europe, vol. 2, The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1974), p. 563.Google Scholar

38 Castillo, A., ‘Dette flottante et dette consolidée en Éspagne, 1557-1600’, Annales E.S.C. XVIII (1963), p. 757.Google Scholar

39 Teacy, James D., A Financial Revolution in the Habsburg Netherlands (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985), p. 22.Google Scholar

40 Braudel, , The Mediterranean, p. 698.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 686.

42 Attman, Artur, American Bullion in the European World Trade 1600–1800 (Göteborg, 1986), pp. 1215.Google Scholar

43 Moosvi, , Economy of the Mughal Empire, p. 198–9.Google Scholar