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CÖ¡tia Antunes. Globalisation in the Early Modern Period: The Economic Relationship between
Amsterdam and Lisbon, 1640-1705. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2004. Illustrations + index. $29.95
(paper), ISBN 978-90-5260-164-9.
Reviewed by Susan R. Boettcher (Department of History, University of Texas at Austin)
Published on H-Low-Countries (November, 2006)
A Historical Example of Globalization?
Globalization has been a much-abused term for approximately the last decade, and it has often been remarked that historians have been relatively late in examining a concept that sociologists, political scientists
and cultural studies scholars monopolized until quite recently. The present volume understands itself as a contribution to the historical study of globalization, first to
test the utility of the idea, and secondly to consider out
the applicability of a series of theories typically associated with the term. It treats the Amsterdam-Lisbon trade
in the second half of the seventeenth century on the basis
of very thin archival sources from Lisbon and a tiny sample of the available sources for Amsterdam; in chapter 1,
the author justifies this selection in a rational way, but of
course the small proportion of sources from Amsterdam
does suggest that the results are provisional. The detailed
discussion of trade and financial networks based on this
archival sample is nonetheless convincingly presented.
nineteenth-century (thick) and twentieth-century (diffused) globalization. Antune indicates the probability of
reconsidering the spatio-temporal aspects of these models, a crucial moment in her argument to be discussed
further below. Antunes isolates five factors relevant to
early modern globalization: geography, trade, producermarket relationships, capital and people, and her chapters are organized to follow this framework. Chapter 3
treats the respective demographic, urban and geographical structures of the two cities; it is unclear, in the absence of comparisons to other port cities that might have
been greater or lesser poles of globalization, why this
discussion, which is reproduced primarily on the basis
of secondary literature, is necessary to the book. Chapter 4 moves us onto the territory of globalization proper
by considering the two metropoles as locations of urban
trade networks. Antunes traces the central location of
these cities in regional networks (as mobilizers of goods,
transportation, and communication), showing that AmChapter 2 discusses the available models of historical
sterdam was a stronger partner in its regional economy
globalization, focusing particularly on Fernand Braudel than was Lisbon. This is interesting information, but tells
and Immanuel Wallerstein (and their critics) as a model us relatively little about the character of the Amsterdamfor a history informed by global themes. Conceding Lisbon relationship as an example of globalization; in orthe inadequacy of Wallerstein in particular, Antunes der to understand the significance of this data, it would
turns to the definition of historical globalization in one
have been more useful to see a comparison to other cities
of the most well-known textbook surveys of the pheof similar financial power but lesser globalizing reach.
nomenon, Global Transformations (1999).[1] Held et al. Antunes concludes that these cities entered into interis a valuable for resource for historians seeking to come national trade at least to some extent in order to bolster
to terms with the mass of literature on this topic; the the efficiency of their regional trade networks. Chapter 5
book divides world history programmatically into four moves the book’s analysis into the nitty-gritty of archival
parts: medieval (or “thin”), early modern (“expansive”),
sources and provides a discussion of financial networks.
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Here Antunes affirms Held et al., with the exception of
one crucial matter: the question of the intensity of early
modern globalization. Chapter 6 deals with human capital and the personnel networks of globalization. The conclusions from these chapters are woven together in a narrative in chapter 7 that explains how considering these
factors as aspects of globalization enhances our knowledge of the period’s history. (Here she mourns the lack
of a study of the sort of personal relationships that constituted Dutch trade networks; the studies of Julia Adams
might have been helpful).[2] In this chapter, Antunes unfolds a true narrative gift, skillfully weaving her narrative of globalization into the high diplomacy and international relationships of the period. Chapter 8 then returns
to the evaluation of Held et al. as a model for understanding this specific case of historical globalization.
picious of models oriented toward anything that looks
like “progress,” which globalization does; and they like
best to measure clear changes and transformations over
time rather than gradations, for, as Antunes would agree,
the notion of “more” or “less” is inherently slippery and
difficult to establish in absolute terms. If Held et al. is
to work as model for historians, either the model will
have to abandon its insistence on relative gradations, or
historians will have to abandon their reservations about
the large-scale teleology of the model, which postulates
a constantly growing interconnection (with hiccoughs
now and then) in the development of the world. In light
of the insights from her study, then, it would be just as
easy to argue on the basis of Antunes’s evidence that
globalization is not an adequate model for the conceptualization of historical developments. What use is a definition if we throw out one of the primary terms it uses
to establish a model?
The question of the utility of globalization models for
understanding history has been forcefully argued, and in
the minds of leading scholars, definitely established in
broader studies that preceded this one, as have critiques
of world-systems theory, so Antunes’s assertion that “it
[is] useful to use the concept of historical globalization
to explain the way historical processes develop” (p. 187)
is not especially significant as a programmatic move.[3]
It remains interesting as a test case of the quadripartite
model of globalization postulated by Held et al., which is
the one that non-historians are most familiar with, so that
Antunes’s study potentially provides a bridge between
history and the vocabulary of the other disciplines. Held
et al. describe early modern globalization as characterized by high extensity, low intensity, low velocity and
high impact. Antunes objects that her study shows a high
intensity of trade, which she believes can be measured in
absolute terms. The problem is that the model given by
Held et al. is clearly comparative (intensity was higher
than in the medieval world but lower than the nineteenth
century), and Antunes concedes this point. She also objects to the characterization of velocity as low, although
here she is willing to accept that velocity of exchange
cannot be measured absolutely, stating that “the necessary gradation in the use of the adjectives ’high’ and ’low’
calls for a serious revision of the model” (p. 189). This
statement appears paradoxical to me in light of her earlier support for the model. Globalization as Held et al.
formulate it is inherently comparative; Antunes reformulates their definition of globalization as “the increasing world interconnectedness of all aspects of social life”
(p.1). Consequently spatio-temporal adjectives are inherent to the model, which is precisely the matter that makes
it so difficult for historian to use it. Historians are sus-
The strengths of this book lie in its proximity to the
sources, its consideration of a particular historical case
along the lines of widely-known theoretical models, as
well as in its discrete chapters. It is strongly and commandingly narrated. Although the story it tells about
Amsterdam fits within the general picture of Dutch commercial enterprise in this period, it does make a contribution to the relatively thin secondary literature in English
on early modern Portuguese economic history. Its weaknesses lie in its understanding of its own significance, as
well as its often overly formulaic style and its inability
to make a true rejoinder to the theoretical model with
which it most closely engages, or to move from a critique of that model to a truly interesting intervention.
It is simply not clear how considering this material under the aegis of globalization leads to any different story
from the one that would have been told by conventional
economic history of the Amsterdam-Lisbon trade. Finally, the schematics will be difficult for anyone not already initiated into the sort of diagrams that appear in
books on globalization to understand; they are poorly
captioned. Unfortunately, the book also suffers from inadequate copyediting. Some readers will find themselves
distracted by frequent errors of grammar, vocabulary and
punctuation.
Notes
[1]. David Held, Anthony G. McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathon Perraton, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).
[2]. Julia Adams, “Trading States, Trading Places: The
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Role of Patrimonialism in Early Modern Dutch Development,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36
(1994): pp. 319-355; Julia Adams, “The Familial State,”
Theory and Society 23 (1994): pp. 505-539, and now
her book summarizing this research, The Familial State
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).
[3]. Two works that anticipated Antunes’s claims are
A.G. Hopkins, ed., Globalization in World History (London: Pimloco, 2002) and Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels
Petersson, Geschichte der Globalisierung (Munich: C.H.
Beck, 2003). See now also the forthcoming volume: A.G.
Hopkins, ed., Global History: Interactions between the
Universal and the Local (New York: Palgrave, 2006).
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Citation: Susan R. Boettcher. Review of Antunes, CÖ¡tia, Globalisation in the Early Modern Period: The Economic
Relationship between Amsterdam and Lisbon, 1640-1705. H-Low-Countries, H-Net Reviews. November, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12472
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