Giorgio Riello: “What is an early modern factory: Asian trade and the East Indian Companies, c. 1500-1800”

About This Event

As traditionally defined, factories were trading outposts founded by European agents in Africa and Asia; across the period 1500 to 1800, c. 200 factories were constructed. After an initial reflection on the place of the factories in histories of early modern capitalism, this paper considers three core issues related to their operation: first, it defines what a trading factory was in the context of early modern trade and production in Asia. Second, it asks why trading factories were created in the first instance. Third, and as a consequence, it asks what the core function of a factory was. Their role as key economic institutions in the early modern period has been overshadowed by the attention attributed to their role within states, empires, and their parent companies themselves. This paper concludes by asking in what ways the factories can be interpreted as spaces for reflecting on the character of early modern global capitalism and the role that maritime Asia might play in it.

Featured Guests

• Giorgio Riello: Chair of Early Modern Global History at the European University Institute, Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick, and Principal Investigator for CAPASIA: The Asian Origins of European Capitalism (funded by the European Research Council)

Co-sponsors

• South Asia Center, Syracuse University
• History Department, Syracuse University