Zoom-Link: https://univienna.zoom.us/j/64147884198?pwd=i3H6mmou1zg5hdSddyM3WqGCuKKbdP.1 
Meeting-ID: 641 4788 4198  |  Kenncode: 896354

The active participation of eastern European lands in European overseas expansion has not yet been sufficiently studied. My presentation will therefore summarize the most important findings of my dissertation on the Silesian linen merchants, their main commodity – Silesian linen – and the consequences of their export trade to Atlantic markets for the rural household linen processing in Silesia. Particular attention will be paid to the mutual influence of the trade in Silesian linen and the Atlantic slave markets during the “long” eighteenth century. The English Royal African Company and the Dutch Middelburgsche Commercie Company (ca. 1660–1740) will serve as case studies. The endogenous and exogenous factors that shaped the long-term specific economic development of the Silesian linen producing region will be explored, combined and presented as a novel (global) explanatory framework that goes beyond the conventional model strongly represented in existing (national) historiography.