Cosmopolitan Capitalists and Colonial Rule. The Business Structure and Corporate Culture of the Swiss Merchant House Volkart Bros., 1850s-1960s

Dejung, Christof (2022). Cosmopolitan Capitalists and Colonial Rule. The Business Structure and Corporate Culture of the Swiss Merchant House Volkart Bros., 1850s-1960s. Modern Asian Studies, 56(1), pp. 427-470. Cambridge University Press 10.1017/S0026749X20000384

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This article examines the history of the Swiss merchant house Volkart Bros., which was one of the most important exporters of Indian raw cotton and one of the biggest trading firms in South Asia during the colonial period. The study allows for a fresh look at Indian economic history by putting forth two main arguments. First, it charts the history of a continental European firm that was active in South Asia to offer a better understanding of the economic entanglements of the subcontinent with the wider world, which often had a reach beyond the empire. This ties in with recent research initiatives that aim to examine the history of imperialism from a transnational perspective. Second, the history of a private company helps in developing a micro-perspective on the often ambiguous relation between the business goals of individual enterprises and colonial rule. The article argues that this may be evidence of the fact that capitalism and imperialism were two different, although sometimes converging, spatial structures, each with a distinct logic of its own. What is more, the positive interactions between European and Indian businessmen, fostered by a cosmopolitan attitude among business elites, point to the fact that even in the age of empire, the class background of actors could be more important for the establishing of cooperative ventures than the colour of their skin or their geographical origin. It is argued that this offers the possibility of examining the history of world trade in terms of global social history.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

UniBE Contributor:

Dejung, Christof

Subjects:

900 History > 990 History of other areas

ISSN:

1469-8099

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press

Language:

English

Submitter:

Christof Dejung

Date Deposited:

11 Feb 2022 10:44

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:03

Publisher DOI:

10.1017/S0026749X20000384

Uncontrolled Keywords:

India global trade capitalism colonialism imperialism Switzerland commodit trade, globalization global social history

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/164316

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/164316

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