This volume is a result of an international project encompassing junior- and senior researchers from universities in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. The papers presented here focus on various spin-off effects of international trade in the North Sea and Baltic Region in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period. With several long term perspectives on state formation and corporative structures in the region included, 14 papers pay attention to a wide range of topics related to the characteristics and effects of market integration, migration, fisheries, seafaring, war and diplomacy. With its focus put on changing relations and patterns of interaction, the volume offers valuable insights in the dynamics of economic culture during the thirteenth-eighteenth centuries.

Contents: LEOS MÜLLER/HANNO BRAND, Introduction   Long term perspectives: JAN GLETE, Cities, state formation and the protection of trade in northern Europe, 1200-1700   SVEN LILJA, Peoples, towns and states. Structural power resources and state power in the Scando-Baltic region (1500-1820)   ERIK LINDBERG, Merchant guilds and urban growth in the Baltic Sea area 1650-1850   The Hanseatic period: MIKE BURKHARDT, One hundred years of thriving commerce at a major English sea port. The Hanseatic Trade at Boston between 1370 and 1470   JUSTYNA WUBS-MROZEWICZ, 'Alle goede coepluyden …’ Strategies in the Scandinavian trade politics of Amsterdam and Lübeck c. 1440-1560   HANNO BRAND, Habsburg and Hanseatic diplomacy during the Sound controversy of 1532   LOUIS SICKING, A wider spread of risk: a key to understanding Holland’s domination of eastward and westward seafaring from the Low Countries in the sixteenth century   EDDA FRANKOT, The practice of maritime law in the town courts of fifteenth-century Northern Europe. A Comparison   Trade and Markets in the early-modern period: CHRISTIAAN VAN BOCHOVE, Market integration and the North Sea system (1600-1800)   JELLE VAN LOTTUM, Some aspects of migration in the North Sea region, c. 1550-1800   BO POULSEN, Markets, prices and consumption. The herring trade in the North Sea and Baltic region, c. 1600-1850   PHILIP KELSALL, The changing relationship between Denmark and the Netherlands in the latter half of the seventeenth century   MICHIEL DE JONG, Dutch merchants and their interests in Dutch and foreign state finances, 1615-1630: the case of bilateral subsidies and loans at the start of the Thirty Years War   ANDREJ KOTLJARCHUK, Riga and commercial aspects of the Lithuanian-Swedish relations during the seventeenth century   About the authors

'Behalve als bron voor een nieuwe kijk op de moedernegotie is de bundel voor een Nederlandse lezer ook interessant als toegang to resultaten van onderzoek dat is gepubliceerd in Scandinavische talen of in het Pools, Belarus, of Litouws. (...)ik verwacht dat iemand die in het onderwerp is geïnteresseerd alle bijdragen met plezier zal lezen.' Drs. W Pelt op: www.historischhuis.nl/recensies; '[...] in verschillende artikelen een ontwikkeling van verrassende gezichtspunten'. G.M.W. Acda in: Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 27 (2008) 2; 'So vielfältig wie die Beiträge, so vielfältig ist aber auch das niveau dieses Bandes. Gerade der zweite Abschnitt zeigt, welch anregenden und tiefgreifenden Erkenntnisse von der "jungen" Garde der Hanseforschung ausgehen. So werden die Beiträge von M. Burkhardt, J. Wubs-Mrozewicz, H. Brand u.a. mit grosser Sicherheit zu Standartreferenzen avancieren. (...) Dieser Sammelband gehört zu denen, die für jeden etwas bereit halten und die mit Sicherheit über lange Zeit immer wieder zitiert werden.' C.J. in: Hansische Geschichtsblätter 126 (2008); 'This is a very interesting body of work for anyone seeking a good overview of the latest work on the Baltic and North Sea area. Most of the articles adopt a clear approach to on-going historical debates, applying to the institutional debate, for example, a transaction-costs model, or in the case studies theories of state formation time frames often ignored by historians. Moreover, most of the work in these chapters is the outcome of research into primary sourced presented in a comparative perspective. [...] the idea of bringing structural and theoretical analysis together with case studies based on primary sources has given us a well-researched, balanced and serious historical study of the Baltic and North Sea regions that is accessible to both a broad and a specialized audience.' C.A.P. Antunes in: International Journal of Maritime History 20 (2009) 2; ‘Er bestaat een lange traditie in de economische Geschiedenis in het bestuderen van de Noordzee en Baltische Zee als één geïntegreerde handelszone, en deze bundel gaat een stap verder door beide regio’s vanuit het perspectief van een gedeelde kenniseconomie te benaderen; een insteek die bijzonder verrijkend is. Deze verzorgde bundel verdient dan ook zijn plaats in de rijke historiografie omtrent de relaties tussen het Baltische gebied en de Noordzee.’ F. Vermeylen in: De Zeventiende eeuw 26 (2010) 1, p. 123-124.