Business of Empire in the Atlantic

This introduction to the special issue Business of Empire in the Atlantic contends that business organizations (partnerships and chartered or joint-stock companies), exploitative frameworks (free trade, monopolies, and royal prerogatives) and business practices coexisted in the Atlantic for over two hundred and fifty years. There was no linear development towards the best and most efficient business model, but rather the development of hybrid forms of business and concomitant economic exploitation. The second contention is that the mechanisms through which hybrid forms of business developed in the Atlantic, and the way that transnational business networks stood at the core of these hybridities, need to be understood in a context of interconnected arenas of negotiation in Europe and in the colonies themselves. Thus, we underscore the need to continue thinking about the Atlantic as a non-linear, transnational, and uncontained space, where business innovation took place alongside and simultaneously with developments in ‘national’ political economies.