Spatio-Temporal Narratives: Historical GIS and the Study of Global Trading Networks (1500-1800) - Hardcover

This book explores new methods and techniques for research about merchant networks and maritime routes of trade during the First Global Age through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a tool to visualize the formation of trading systems, database management, cartography and spatio-temporal analysis in Historical GIS.In doing so, the book focuses on key issues in understanding the birth of the so-called First Global Age (16th to 18th centuries): the integration of spatial economies; the regionalization of markets; the organization of maritime trade routes; and the evolution of self-organizing networks of merchants, producers, communities, and other social agents during the age of expansion. The essays collected here deal with relevant information about historical problems including maritime connections, the organization of oceanic trade and the use of digital cartography and metric analysis of old maps, and social network analysis - commercial networks involved a high level of cooperation and served to move goods and people within a highly open system over an expanding geographic space.

Ana Crespo Solana has a PhD in Geography and History and a Master's in Latinoamerican History, and is currently a Professor at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), in Spain, where she has worked since 2000. She has previously worked as a Research Fellow and Invited Lecturer at several universities and research centres in Spain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. She has led several research projects on Atlantic economic and social history and on spatial humanities, for organisations including the European Science Foundation, the Spanish National Endowments for Humanities, and Marie Curie Actions, and is a member of several Editorial and Advisory Boards and scientific committees. She is the author of 8 books and over 70 essays and articles about Spanish colonial trade, merchant elites, European expansion in the Atlantic and GIS tools for the study of colonial trade with America.