Giorgio Riello (European University Institute) presents: “The Workshop of the World: Asia and Early Modern Capitalism”

Customarily, the economic history of the Indian Ocean is examined through the prism of trade. Trade holds an understandable attraction to historians of the region for the accent its places on connectivity, cosmopolitanism, and mobility across regions. Yet the focus on trade - and maritime export trades in particular - has not only obscured the scope of inland trade, but also the extensive networks of production in the hinterland that drew global actors to Indian Ocean ports in the first place. When production is discussed in the historiography, it is often done in a way that privileges the European experience. For example, the frequent comparisons drawn between early modern Asian production methods and the putting out system of European capitalism is an obvious indication of the latter’s status as the gold standard of proto-industrial capitalist manufacturing organization. In an effort to think afresh about early modern economic history from the perspective of Asia, this paper examines the geographies, institutions, and scale of production in South and Southeast Asia. By doing so, the ERC Capasia Project offers a substitute for familiar narratives of commercial capitalism based on trade with a new understanding of spatially dispersed production centers that served as the impetus for trade in the first place.