Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

From the Nobel Prize for Econsplaining to why North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia really matters, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

---

The Nobel for Econsplaining

Brendan Greeley
Financial Times

It’s tempting to think that England was always a seafaring and financial power, but these skills had to be learned, together. That’s why An Introduction to Merchants Accounts by John Collins was a big deal when it was published in 1653. England came late to the long-distance maritime trade, and so instruction on Italian methods of bookkeeping had tended to be translated from the Dutch. Collins, however, had spent time in the Mediterranean on an English ship fighting for the Venetians, and had learned the Italian methods himself.

The sample journal entries in Collins’ textbook reflect trades that were common in England at the time, the ones he had learned — oil from Provence, soap from Venice, the ginger and cotton that indentured servants grew on Barbados. By the middle of the 18th century, both the trade and the textbooks had changed. John Mair’s 400-page Book-keeping Methodised became over several editions the most popular accounting textbook in the English-speaking Atlantic world — George Washington kept a copy at Mount Vernon. [continue reading]

Black Women Enterprising Freedom in Colonial Santo Domingo

Sophia Monegro
Black Perspectives

Black women have been “winning” for Black freedom since the sixteenth century. Groups of enslaved African and African-descendant women who were known as “earners” by colonists in Santo Domingo, the first sugar plantation economy of the Americas, were also called “Las Ganadoras,” which translates to “the winners.” These groups of Black women were allowed to travel freely to sell goods and return to the plantation. Las Ganadoras’ enterprising spirit did not stop with earning money for their enslavers—they also reclaimed enslaved Black laborers’ earnings by selling on their behalf. The entrepreneurship of African and African-descendant women in Santo Domingo began around 1500 when the archive indicates that a free Black woman founded the inaugural hospital-like site and a chapel for La Altagracia on the western bank of the Ozama River before colonizers dubbed the space Santo Domingo.

A Black woman’s ingenuity crafted a healing and spiritual space that was co-opted and transformed into the first successful epicenter of the Spanish empire and Catholic Church in the Americas. While the name of the free Black woman from the hospital is unknown, colonial documents describe her as someone who received donations from the residents in the village to operate her “business.” Her founding contributions exist in the shadows of Nicolás de Ovando’s legacy, the governor who built a more modern facility in the same place where the free Black woman resided and ran her infirmary. In this same city, founded by Black women’s entrepreneurship, colonists sought to restrict Black women’s enterprising spirit. [continue reading]

Son of Singapore founder says ‘campaign of persecution’ forced him to seek asylum in UK

Tom Burgis and Amy Hawkins
Guardian

A senior member of the family that has dominated Singapore since independence has been granted asylum in the UK after fleeing what he says was a campaign of persecution. In an exclusive interview, Lee Hsien Yang told the Guardian the authoritarian regime founded by his father turned on him as he endorsed the opposition following a family rift.“Despite the very advanced economic prosperity that Singapore has, there’s a dark side to it, that the government is repressive,” he said. “What people think, that this is some kind of paradise – it isn’t.”

Under the rule of his brother, who was prime minister for 20 years until May, Lee Hsien Yang claims the authorities used what he called baseless allegations against him, his wife and his son to bring a series of legal actions. These “escalated to the point where I believe for my own personal safety I should not continue to live in Singapore”. [continue reading]

Toward a Fifth World Order

Gordon Brown and Mohame A. El-Erian
Project Syndicate

The Bretton Woods institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – are now 80 years old.

But they are as under-resourced and poorly supported by national governments as at any time in their history. Their predicament is perhaps the clearest sign that economic and financial multilateralism is fragmenting along with the global economy. Worse, this fragmentation comes at a time of rising international tensions, financial fragility, sputtering growth, rising poverty, and mounting reconstruction bills in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

Both institutions are led by individuals who grasp the urgent need for reform to meet today’s challenges. Yet they lack sufficient support from their political masters: the largest share-holding countries whose votes are crucial for reform. To overcome the longstanding international coordination problems that have undermined reform efforts, we need a revamped G20 to take the lead. With its current chair, Brazil, it is well-placed to make significant progress. [continue reading]

Why North Korea’s Deployment of Troops to Russia Really Matters

Keith Johnson
Foreign Policy

The deployment of 10,000 or so North Korean troops to Russia marks a sharp escalation and internationalization of Europe’s biggest war in generations, with potential impacts on the battlefield, in Europe, and in Northeast Asia. It’s an embarrassing comedown for Moscow, bad news for Ukraine, and a very scary development for South Korea and the rest of the world.

Pyongyang has been underwriting Russia’s war in Ukraine for years by supplying literal boatloads of artillery shells. Injecting actual combat troops into the war at a critical time not only ratchets up the pressure on a war-weary and manpower-weak Ukraine, it also deepens the bonds and implications of the four-month-old Russia-North Korea mutual defense pact. [continue reading]