David Hancock

The trouble with networks: Managing the scots' early-modern madeira trade

Most studies of the early-modern Atlantic world give its emergence a sense of inevitability. Historians who have tried to understand networks in the early-modern Atlantic have focused solely on their successes, which skews our understanding. This analysis of the role played by Scottish networks in the production, distribution, and consumption of Madeira wine during that products golden age, which lasted from 1640 to 1815, attempts to correct the record. Networks succeeded when they led to profitable sharing of information, goods, and services, and they failed when individuals were unable to get networks to function for them. Problems arose among the parties in the course of negotiating terms for sharing, monitoring the agreements, responding to disasters, and estimating the costs of transactions. At times, networks worked so well that they metamorphosed into other social and commercial forms, helping to establish critical nonmetropolitan links within and between the British and Portuguese empires.

Providence Island, 1630-1641: The Other Puritan Colony.

List of maps Preface Authors note 1. The Providence Island company and its colony: the program 2. Founding a colony on Providence Island 3. Contested authority: the governorship of Captain Philip Bell 4. Frustrated hopes for economic development 5. Land and society: the middling planters 6. Servants into slaves 7. Military requirements and the peoples response 8. The turbulent religious life of Providence Island 9. Governing puritan privateers: the governorships of Robert Hunt and Nathaniel Butler 10. The business history of the Providence Island company 11. The end and persistence of Providence Island Appendixes Biographical essay Index.