Browse Items (202 total)

Published in 1776 by Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations continues to be a seminal piece of classical economics. Smith’s contributions, however, went far beyond the scope of the classical school of thought, defining the very…

In the 17th century, the Enlightenment burst forth on the stage of European Intellectual life. It was a movement that stood out from the Renaissance by its focus on breaking free of the past, looking for more reasoned answers to questions, both new…

The War of Austrian Succession established the dualism of Prussia and Austria which would characterize the empire until its collapse in 1806. At the end of the 30 years war in 1648 very few Germans likely would have been able to predict Prussia’s…

One of the key parts of the Spanish economy in the New World following its conquest was the use of indigenous labor. This system was termed the encomienda system. One of the loudest voices against this system was Bartolomé de las Casas, a former…

Philip IV’s reign in Spain is also marked by attempts to centralize power, as was the trend in other European nations (most notably France behind the leadership of the Cardinal Richelieu). The man most associated with this centralization is Don…

Adam Smith’s quintessential work of classical economic philosophy, Wealth of Nations, is seen as one of the most influential philosophical works of the entire Enlightenment era. In it, Smith bashes Mercantilist economic policies for their backward,…

Aphra Behn was an English writer whose work Oronooko addressed the slave trade. She wrote about a slave rebellion in Surinam, drawing upon her own experiences there along with her knowledge of the slave trade (Wiesner-Hanks, 390). The slave trade,…

What is now the Royal Palace of Amsterdam was originally inaugurated in 1665 as the Town Hall of the City of Amsterdam, to be the "eighth wonder of the world". With the newfound independence from Spain thanks to the Peace of Westphalia, and with the…

The first documented case of European tobacco initiation came in 1518 during Juan de Grijalva’s expedition of the Yucatán Peninsula (Norton, 48). As such, tobacco was initially viewed as a brokering tool, not as a commodity. Yet, it gradually grew in…

In the 1600s the young Dutch Republic was the envy of Europe. Despite their small size and decentralized government structure, the United Provinces of the Netherlands managed to make themselves the middlemen of the world in the 17th century by…

This painting by Rembrandt highlights the emerging class of city elites in the Netherlands during the early modern period, and the social mobility which characterized the economic climate of the Netherlands at this time. The main subject of the…

In 1713 Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of Hapsburg lands Charles VI issued the pragmatic sanction. This edict overruled the long-standing imperial law against a woman inheriting states in the Holy Roman Empire and was necessitated by Charles’ lack of a…