Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central s

Introduction: borderless societies -- The borderland -- Political conflicts -- Rebels and runaways -- The centrality of smuggling -- The web of debt -- Borderle

This book explores the perspective of individuals, families and groups of interest in their daily strive to survive an European pursuit of empire.

This book surveys the role of Amsterdam’s Sephardic merchants in the westward expansion of sugar production and trade in the seventeenth-century Atlantic. It

This book charts the surge and decline in piracy in the early eighteenth century (the so-called "Golden Age" of piracy), exploring the ways in which pirates enc