| Description |
1 online resource (xvi, 373 pages) |
| Series |
Yale series in economic and financial history |
|
Yale series in economic and financial history.
|
| Contents |
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- List of Tables -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Mining the Underground Wealth of Nations: A Word on Theory and History -- 2. World Mining Regions before the Rise of Modern Capitalism -- 3. Digging the Underground Wealth of Europe -- 4. Capitalist Profits of Mining Corporations -- 5. A 'Lengthy Digression': Why Mining Lagged Elsewhere -- 6. Capitalist Mining in West European Development -- Appendix A. German Loanwords in Mining Statutes -- Appendix B. Carbon Yield and Charcoal Characteristics -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index |
| Summary |
Silver mining was a capitalist business long before the supposed origin of modern capitalism. Hundreds of years before a sixteenth-century crisis in European agriculture led to the origins of capital, investment, and finance, the silver mining industry exhibited many of the features of modern capitalism. Silver mines were large-scale businesses that demanded large investments and steady cash flow, achieved by spreading that risk through fungible shares and creating legal structures to protect entrepreneurs from financial disaster. Jeannette Graulau argues that mining preceded agriculture as the first true capitalist enterprise of the modern world |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Silver mines and mining -- Europe -- History -- To 1500
|
|
Capitalism -- Europe -- History -- To 1500
|
|
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Economic History.
|
|
Capitalism
|
|
Silver mines and mining
|
|
Europe
|
| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780300249576 |
|
0300249578 |
|
