Skip to content

Books
Authors
Subjects
Series
Museums & Partners
Contact
About Us

Books

Authors

On The Site

Advanced Search

Home
Yale Series in Economic and Financial History
business & economics
political science
history
The Underground Wealth of Nations

The Underground Wealth of Nations

The Underground Wealth of Nations

On the Capitalist Origins of Silver Mining, A.D. 1150-1450

Jeannette Graulau

Imprint: Yale University Press

Sales territories:

World

Series: Yale Series in Economic and Financial History

392 Pages, 155.00 x 234.00 x 23.80 mm, 40 b-w illus.

Hardcover

eBook

Hardcover
9780300218220
Published: 26 November 2019

£70.00

eBook
9780300249576
Published: 26 November 2019

£70.00

Download Cover

Description
Authors
Praise

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.

Jeannette Graulau is associate professor of political science at Herbert H. Lehman College, The City University of New York.

"Jeannette Graulau shows how mining was an important locus of the emergence and evolution of economic and political institutions that have come to be understood as capitalist. Mining was not just a feudal backwater, but a dynamic sector in which bankers were able to organize corporations that eventually played a central role in the emergence of modern nation-states."—Christopher Chase-Dunn, University of California, Riverside

"A meticulous excavation of capitalist silver mining in feudal Europe. An original contribution to the study of early modern capitalism and the origins of the specie."—Robert Schaeffer, California Polytechnic State University

Related Books

The Great Transformation

Atlas of Finance

Rich World, Poor World

Just Price in the Markets

The Invention of Scarcity

The Coming of the Railway

Unmaking the East India Company

The Long Shadow of Default

Inspection Copies

Course and Order Information

Inspection copies are books under consideration as required or recommended reading for an upcoming course. Print book inspection copies are only available for certain textbooks. Please choose the eBook inspection copy option if you need your inspection copy quickly (particularly if you are based outside the UK - print books can be subject to shipping and customs delays and, in some cases you may need to pay an import fee to receive your book).

Requested Title

Book Title

ISBN

Email *

Address *

Address Line 1

Address Line 2

City

State / Province / Region

Postal Code

Country

Telephone Number *

Adoption Information

Bookshop stocking your course texts

Current textbook (title and author) *

Number of copies being requested *

Course Details

Course number and title *

Course level *

Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Secondary School
Other

Course level: Other *

Please enter your Course level

Course frequency *

Start date *

Number of students *

How did you hear about this book? *

Yale UP website
Yale UP catalogue
Yale UP email newsletter
Yale UP conference stand
Google
Amazon
Social Media
I read a review
I saw it on the shelf at a bookshop
It was recommended to me
Other

Why did you request an inspection copy of this book? *

The online description
The content aligns with my syllabus
I read a sample online
The title
The cover
Someone recommended it to me
I read a review
The endorsements
I know the author / editor
I am already familiar with this title
Other

Comment

Additional information

Sign up to the Yale newsletter for book news, offers, free extracts and more

Tel: +44(0)20 7079 4900
Email: [email protected]

Column
Column

© 2024 Yale University Press London. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by Supadu

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in .

Powered by GDPR Cookie Compliance

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

Enable or Disable Cookies

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.