Private Enterprise and the China Trade: Merchants and Markets in Europe, 1700-1750

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

This book examines the European commercial landscape of the early China trade, c.1700-1750. It looks at the foundational period of Sino-European commerce and explores a world of private enterprise beneath the surface of the official East India Company structures. Using rich private trade records, it analyses the making of pan-European markets, distribution networks and patterns of investment that together reveal a new geography of a trading system previously studied mostly at Canton. By considering the interloping activities of British-born merchants working for the smaller East India Companies, the book uncovers the commercial practices and cross-Company collaborations, both legal and illicit, that sustained the growth of the China trade: smuggling, wholesale trading, private commissions and the manipulation of Company auctions.

Meike von Brescius, Ph.D., historian of early modern trade and consumption, University of Basel. Combining business and cultural history with material culture approaches, she has published on the East India Companies, private traders, and markets for Asian goods in Europe.