000 01894cam a2200229 4500500
005 20250121125007.0
041 _afre
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aMarkovits, Rahul
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aSelling North American ginseng in China: A global speculative bubble in the middle of the 18th century
260 _c2019.
500 _a74
520 _aIn 1716, the Jesuit Lafitau discovered a variety of ginseng in Canada. This gave rise within a few years to a new commercial route linking North America to China, where demand for the root, the supreme remedy according to Chinese pharmacopoeia, was strong. By the early 1750s, the rise in price was spectacular, but the bubble suddenly burst in 1752. This article uncovers the myriad actors who played a part in the formation of this bubble, all along the line from commoditization to commercialization. By doing so, it aims at offering, through the lens of ginseng, a snapshot of globalization as it was driven forward by commercial capitalism in the middle of the eighteenth century. The article makes use of a combination of East India companies’ archives and merchants’ private papers to track down the trade in ginseng on a global scale. Ultimately, it argues that, far from being the result of a simple supply and demand equation, the bursting of the bubble should be understood as the result of the French Indies’ Company’s monopolistic strategy, as the board aimed (and failed) to secure full control of the Canton market.
690 _aspeculation
690 _a18th century
690 _aNew-France
690 _aglobalization
690 _aChina
690 _adrugs
786 0 _nRevue d’histoire moderne & contemporaine | o 66-3 | 3 | 2019-08-06 | p. 55-80 | 0048-8003
856 4 1 _uhttps://shs.cairn.info/journal-revue-d-histoire-moderne-et-contemporaine-2019-3-page-55?lang=en&redirect-ssocas=7080
999 _c564483
_d564483