Rooms
54 rooms. Each tells a story of business history in chapters, with a summary, and leads to the lives connected to it.
Features of Jewish Community in Economy
Since most of the Jewish men were literate they had a comparative advantage in the skilled, high paid occupations demanded in the urban centers.
10 chapters · 279 livesTrade with West Indies
Trade with the West Indies started with Christopher Columbus’ discovery of Americas. In 1492 he was sponsored by the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, to find a new…
7 chapters · 193 livesLivery Companies
Today some Livery Companies still have considerable interest and influence in their respective trades, while some have nothing to do with their traditional craft but serve mostly as charitable…
4 chapters · 172 livesMedieval trade
The outbreak of Crusades in the 11th century, which aim was to recover the Holy Land of Christendom from the Muslims, sparked the economic growth of the Medieval Europe which was often described as…
7 chapters · 166 livesThe book trade
To have a substantial book production first some preconditions had to be fulfilled. Basically the production had to be cost and labor efficient. These problems were solved by printing press and with…
5 chapters · 152 livesEnglish East India Company
The rise of the East India Company to position of one of the most powerful mercantile organization in history was gradual and enabled by the mixture of diplomacy, politics and business proficiency.…
9 chapters · 145 livesHistory of money
Money can be defined as any permanent commodity generally accepted as a medium of exchange and measure of value. Throughout the history when most of the population was illiterate money was often used…
7 chapters · 100 livesHistory of mining
Mineral products such as gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc and other were highly prized and required in history. They were used for weapons, monetary standards, jewelry and ornaments. Since its…
7 chapters · 85 livesMedieval banking
In Medieval Europe the Catholic Church exercised significant social and political authority. On economic plan, it hampered the development of banking and big enterprises which depended on loans by…
6 chapters · 79 livesThe arms trade throughout history
For its close connections with war, arms trade is considered one of the most controversial enterprises in the history of business. With the development of the concept of private property trade in…
5 chapters · 76 livesAfrica in precolonial period
The civilization of ancient Egypt that developed 5000 years ago in North Africa was one of the wealthiest economies of ancient world. Many other powers in the coming times, such as the Phoenicians,…
7 chapters · 74 livesEconomy of Ancient Mesopotamia
For the highly developed civilization that flourished between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, already the ancient Greeks used name “Mesopotamia” meaning “the land between the rivers”. From the need…
6 chapters · 74 livesThe Dutch East India Company
To keep the prices of spices high VOC even destroyed already imported spices by burning them, most notably in Middelburg where, on such occasions, the air in the city and surrounding area was filled…
6 chapters · 74 livesSlave trade
In ancient Greece the development of slavery went, ironically, hand in hand with development of famous Greek freedom and liberty. As the citizens of Athens began to participate in shaping of…
3 chapters · 64 livesCaravan trade
Caravan trade can be described as shipment of goods on the backs of pack animals across long distance. For a long time caravans accounted for a large percentage of the world’s long-distance trade,…
6 chapters · 41 livesThe Canton Trade System
Since ancient times, China has been a part of the distinctive cultural and economic network that linked the Far East with the western parts of the world. Oriental luxury commodities were highly…
5 chapters · 36 livesThe Venetian Republic
The Republic of Venice is known as one of the greatest maritime and trading powers during the Medieval and Renaissance period. Ruled by the oligarchic class of wealthy merchants the Venetian Republic…
6 chapters · 30 livesThe Silk Road
Great trade route known as the Silk Road connected countries from China to Mediterranean, enabling commercial and cultural exchange of Eurasia.
6 chapters · 27 livesThe Hanseatic League
For more than 400 years (mid-13th up to the mid-17th century) trade in the Baltic and North Seas was dominated by a confederation of northern German merchant guilds and towns known under the name…
7 chapters · 23 livesThe Genizah Merchants
During the rule of Fatimid caliphate (10th-12th centuries) Egypt was the commercial hub of international trade between Europe and India. Eastern spices and luxury items travelled from India via Aden…
5 chapters · 18 livesEconomy of Ancient Egypt
Agriculture was the base of Ancient Egypt’s wealth. The most important economic event in ancient Egypt was the annual flooding of the Nile floodplain which determined whether the harvest will be…
7 chapters · 15 livesThe Medici Bank
Originally of Tuscan peasant origin the highly ambitious Medici family have managed through banking and commerce to become virtual rulers of Florence and the wealthiest family of Europe in the 15th…
6 chapters · 15 livesTrade in the Roman world
The ancient Romans during their millennium long history created one of the greatest empires in world history. At its heights in the 2nd century the Empire stretched from Britannia and Gaul on the…
7 chapters · 15 livesEconomy of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire is known as one of the largest and most powerful empires of the time. From the capital city in Istanbul the Ottoman sultans at the heights of power in the 15th and 16th centuries…
7 chapters · 14 livesTrade in Ancient Greece
As the first sophisticated civilization on European soil the ancient Greece was named “the birthplace of Western civilization”. The homeland of Greeks was made of many autonomous city-states…
7 chapters · 10 livesThe rise of the House of Rothschild
Before he died in 1812, Mayer Rothschild left strict rules for his descendants on how they should handle the family's finances. In order to keep the fortune within the family the Rothschilds…
4 chapters · 9 livesBanking in Ancient Greece
By inventing coins in the 7th century BC Lydia the ancient Greeks gave a new impetus to the development of banking. It was not long after that almost every Greek city-state (“poleis”) began to forge…
6 chapters · 6 livesZaibatsu
The Yasuda Zaibatsu founded by Yasuda Zenjirō in 1880 was the fourth largest group that dominated the Japanese economy until the mid-20th century with focus on finance-related companies, insurance…
6 chapters · 6 livesBanking in Ancient Rome
The ancient Romans created one of the largest and most populous empire of Antiquity. At its heights, the Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean on the west all the way to the Euphrates River…
5 chapters · 5 livesShanxi merchant guild
Conducting business in China was strongly influenced by moral principles of Confucian teaching. An idea that business should be conducted in accordance with the moral code of – honesty, trust,…
3 chapters · 5 livesJagat Seths
Hiranand’s business success was explained by a legend in which he finds an enormous wealth in an old palace in the woods. But even in legends Hiranand was shrewd, instead of taking the entire wealth…
5 chapters · 4 livesThe House of Egibi
The House of Egibi was one of the most powerful and affluent families in ancient Babylonia that ran a sophisticated family business in Mesopotamia from the late 6th through the 5th century BC.…
4 chapters · 4 livesAmerican fur trade
Furs did not enjoy the same popularity in all periods. During the Middle Ages it was believed that flea-infested furs were responsible for spreading the Black Death across Europe in the 14th century.
4 chapters · 3 livesThe Phoenicians
The Phoenicians occupied narrow and infertile area between the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains of Lebanon where they developed confederation of maritime city-states that…
6 chapters · 2 livesChina's Treasure Fleet
The originator of these voyages that were incomparable in history was a third ruler of the Ming dynasty, the Emperor Zhu Di, also known as Yongle, remembered as a ruler of an extraordinary energy and…
5 chapters · 1 livesThe Fugger family
The family’s rise to prominence began with Hans Fugger who in the second half of the 14th century moved from the village of Graben to Augsburg, one of the leading centers of textile production and…
5 chapters · 1 livesBenedetto Cotrugli
Considered to be one of the most famous products of “the Pearl of Adriatic”, Benedetto Cotrugli was the 15th century merchant, diplomat, and humanist known as the author of the oldest known book on…
4 chaptersCommerce through the territory of Kievan Rus’
Dirhams were imported into northern Europe from the 9th until the close of the 10th century. Just during the 10th century 125 million whole Samanid dirhams or 3,750 kilograms of silver was imported…
6 chaptersFeudalism
“Homage” was a ceremony by which a person became a vassal of a lord in feudal society. The vassal surrender to the lord was symbolized by his kneeling and giving his joined hands to the lord, who…
4 chaptersHistory of accounting methods and bookkeeping
Simply speaking, accounting is a system for recording, managing and summarizing business activities. The use of accounting, on the one hand, facilitated the management of state affairs, while on the…
6 chaptersHistory of taxation in the Medieval and Early modern period
Medieval and early modern systems of taxation were shaped by two factors – the feudal system which limited the rulers’ base of tax payers, since the nobility and the Church were virtually exempt from…
9 chaptersHistory of taxation in the ancient world
Tax (from the Latin “taxo”, “rate”) can be defined as a financial charge or other levy imposed upon taxpayer by state to fund various public expenditures. Basically, taxes may be classified as direct…
7 chaptersHow commodities shaped the world
Some commodities were, and are, traded out of necessity, such as grain for food, wood for shipbuilding and fire, textiles for clothing, metals for production of tools and weapons. Most of the…
5 chaptersInternational trade through Tsardom of Russia
The period of Russian history known as the Tsardom of Russia was the period running from Ivan IV’s (1530 – 1584) claim to be the tsar and grand prince of all Russia in 1547 to the foundation of the…
5 chaptersKarimi merchants
Karimi merchants were Egyptian entrepreneurs who were one of the most important merchant groups from the 12th until 15th century. As importers of spices, they were mostly involved in intermediary…
4 chaptersKongō Gumi
History of Kongō Gumi began in the late 6th century Japan with the building of the Japan’s first Buddhist temple named Shitennō-ji. From that time onward the Kongō Gumi worked on some of the most…
4 chaptersMountain of Silver
It is estimated for late 1500s and most of the 17th century that the Far East received 90% or more of the American bullion.
6 chaptersOldest companies in the world
Maybe the fact that the oldest companies in the world are family companies is less surprising when we take into account that the family is the basic unit of every society. During the history family…
4 chaptersThe Byzantine economy
The Byzantine Empire derived from the Roman Empire. Because of the size of the Roman Empire, emperors found it difficult to govern it alone and from the late 3rd century there were efforts to divide…
5 chaptersThe Five Hundred Lords of Ayyavole
During the medieval era the international trade flourished in the Indian Ocean attracting merchants from the East Africa on the West, across Arabia and Persia to China and Japan on the Far East.…
3 chaptersThe Pochteca
The Aztecs, who called themselves the Mexica were founders of the last great native Mesoamerican civilization which flourished in the Mexico valley from the beginning of the 14th century to the…
5 chaptersThe Republic of Dubrovnik
As a place of unique cultural and historical relevance, Dubrovnik was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.
3 chaptersTrade between Han Dynasty and Roman Empire
During the antiquity, both the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty of China were the largest empires on each end of the Eurasia. These empires were well aware of each other, although there was no…
6 chaptersTrade between the Roman Empire and India
During the antiquity Egypt was a key point in lucrative trade between Europe and East. Long and dangerous coasting voyages were greatly facilitated by the discovery of the use of monsoons and were…
6 chapters