Global Economic History

This is the first attempt to write an economic history of the Afro-Eurasian region in antiquity from the first Millennium BCE to the first Millennium CE. It starts from a comparative assessment of economic structures and growth, focussing on factors such as agrarian, urban and fiscal development as well as monetization. In a second step, imperial connections are explored, arguing that new patterns and levels of consumption, not just in imperial centres but also in so-called transit regions, as well as the growth of markets in the Mediterranean and East Asia were the major engines of inter-imperial trade.

Keys: economic development, monetization, agrarian development