Description
Book SynopsisFrom West Indian sugar and bottles of Southeast Asian arrack to French red wines, English felt cloth, and Mediterranean lemons, many global wares ended up in the Scandinavian borderlands during the late eighteenth century. This book explores how and why these goods came to be there and analyses what smuggling can reveal about the emergence of global trade, the formation of the nation state, and the development of consumer society in Europe's northernmost outskirts.
This book shows that the global underground was ubiquitous in the Nordic countries and fundamentally altered them, politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Through re-evaluating the role of smuggling the book complements and challenges established historical accounts about state building, market dynamics, consumer culture, and ideas and identity. It also offers a roadmap for how to think about illegal global trade and how to approach this notoriously difficult research field. By integrating illegality,
Trade Review
'This innovative book reconceives smuggling not just as a national phenomenon but as both global and globalizing. At the same time, it shows how smugglers and smuggled commodities – such as coffee – profoundly influenced Nordic culture, politics, cultural mores, and even foreign policy.'
Margaret R. Hunt, Professor of History, Uppsala University
Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Trade in Conflict 3. Porous Borders 4. Racketeering Retailers 5. Consuming Contraband: Worsteds & Coffee 6. Smuggling and the Perpetual War 7. Conclusion
