'Amsterdam is Standing on Norway'Part I: The Alchemy of Capital, Empire and Nature in the Diaspora of Silver, 1545-1648
In the first of two essays in this Journal, I seek to unify the historical geography of early modern 'European expansion' (Iberia and Latin America) with the environmental history of the 'transition to capitalism' (northwestern Europe). The expansion of Europe's overseas empires and the transitions to capitalism within Europe were differentiated moments within the geographical expansion of commodi