Traces the maritime expansion of England through descriptions of a multitude of sea voyages from 1480 through 1630. Analyzes exploration, trading enterprise ventures and piracy and reveals how the attempts to create British settlements overseas resulted in the founding of the first New World colonies.

"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"--

This groundbreaking account of the development of American business from the colonial period to the present explains that the history of the United States can best be understood not as a search for freedom—but as a search for wealth and prosperity. The Land of Enterprise charts the development of American business from the colonial period to the present. It explores the nation’s evolving economic, social, and political landscape by examining how different types of enterprising activities rose and fell, how new labor and production technologies supplanted old ones—and at what costs—and how Americans of all stripes responded to the tumultuous world of business. In particular, historian Benjamin Waterhouse highlights the changes in business practices, the development of different industries and sectors, and the complex relationship between business and national politics. From executives and bankers to farmers and sailors, from union leaders to politicians to slaves, business history is American history, and Waterhouse pays tribute to the unnamed millions who traded their labor (sometimes by choice, often not) or decided what products to consume (sometimes informed, often not). Their story includes those who fought against what they saw as an oppressive system of exploitation as well as those who defended free markets from any outside intervention. The Land of Enterprise is not only a comprehensive look into our past achievements, but offers clues as to how to confront the challenges of today’s world: globalization, income inequality, and technological change.

The essays in this book focus on the controversies concerning Britain's economic performance between the mid-nineteenth century and the First World War. The overriding theme is that Britain's own resources were consistently more productive, more resilient and more successful than is normally assumed. And if the economy's achievement was considerable, the influence on it of external factors (trade, international competition, policy) were much less significant than is normally supposed. The book is structured as follows: Part One: The Method of Historical Economics Part Two: Enterprise in Late Victorian Britain Part Three: Britain in the World Economy, 1846-1913.

“A sprightly and clear-eyed testimonial to the value of globalization” (The Wall Street Journal) as seen through six surprising everyday goods—the taco salad, the Honda Odyssey, the banana, the iPhone, the college degree, and the blockbuster HBO series Game of Thrones. Trade allows us to sell what we produce at home and purchase what we don’t. It lowers prices and gives us greater variety and innovation. Yet understanding our place in the global trade network is rarely simple. Trade has become an easy excuse for struggling economies, a scapegoat for our failures to adapt to a changing world, and—for many Americans on both the right and the left—nothing short of a four-letter word. But as Fred P. Hochberg reminds us, trade is easier to understand than we commonly think. In Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word, you’ll learn how NAFTA became a populist punching bag on both sides of the aisle. You’ll learn how Americans can avoid the grim specter of the $10 banana. And you’ll finally discover the truth about whether or not, as President Trump has famously tweeted, “trade wars are good and easy to win.” (Spoiler alert—they aren’t.) Hochberg debunks common trade myths by pulling back the curtain on six everyday products, each with a surprising story to tell: the taco salad, the Honda Odyssey, the banana, the iPhone, the college degree, and the smash hit HBO series Game of Thrones. Behind these six examples are stories that help explain not only how trade has shaped our lives so far but also how we can use trade to build a better future for our own families, for America, and for the world. Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word is the antidote to today’s acronym-laden trade jargon pitched to voters with simple promises that rarely play out so one-dimensionally. Packed with colorful examples and highly digestible explanations, Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word is “an accessible, necessary book that will increase our understanding of trade and economic policies and the ways in which they impact our daily lives” (Library Journal, starred review).

The University of Michigan Press is pleased to announce the first volume in an annual series, The World Trade Forum. The Forum's members include scholars, lawyers, and government and business practitioners working in the area of international trade, law, and policy. They meet annually and discuss integration issues in international economic relations, focusing on a new theme each year. The central topic of the first World Trade Forum is state trading. To what extent has trade liberalization, as we have experienced it over the last fifty years, affected property ownership? Contributors to the 1998 World Trade Forum explore this question, examining both state practice and the regulatory framework. Their discussions are divided into three parts: Part 1 looks at the World Trade Organization's legal framework for state trading enterprises, taking on such issues as monopolies and state enterprises, the WTO Antidumping Agreement and the economies in transition, and relationship of state trading and the Government Purchasing Act. Part 2 deals with regional experiences in state trading (for the EC, United States, Canada, Japan, China, and Russia). Part 3 examines conceptual issues such as auctions as a trade policy instrument and rule-making alternatives for entities with exclusive rights. The conclusion synthesizes the foregoing chapters in discussing the reach of modern international trade law. Contributors are Frederick Abbott, Ichiro Araki, Christian Bach, Jacques H. J. Bourgeois, Thomas Cottier, William J. Davey, Vladimir Dbrentsov, Toni Haniotis, Bernard M. Hoekman, Gary Horlick, Henrik Horn, Robert Howse, Patrick Low, Will Martin, Mitsuo Matsushita, Petros Mavroidis, Aaditya Mattoo, Patrick Messerlin, Constantine Michalopoulos, Kristin Heim Mowry, Stilpon Nestor, Damien Neven, N. David Palmeter, Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, André Sapir, Diane P. Wood, and Werner Zdouc. Petros Mavroidis is Professor of Law, University of Neuchatel. Thomas Cottier is Professor of Law, Institute of European and International Economic Law, University of Bern Law School.

When the United States began to consider claiming territory to the Pacific Coast, Captain William Sturgis (1782-1863) had a unique perspective on the issue. As a mariner, he had circumnavigated the globe under sail four times and spent months trading with Northwest Coast Indians. As a merchant, he managed many of the vessels traveling to the Pacific in the first half of the nineteenth century, including the brig Pilgrim, on which Richard Henry Dana Jr. made the voyage documented in Two Years Before the Mast. Sturgis began to argue against American claims to territory on the Columbia River in 1822 in a series of letters to the Boston Daily Advertiser. Between 1845 and 1850, he gave the four lectures included in this book, the most influential of which was ¿The Oregon Question.¿ Though Sturgis devised the border that was eventually adopted, he did not support the expansion of either the U.S. or Britain. Sturgis argued that those territories belonged to the native people who already lived there, and in that he was a unique voice for his time.