In this short monograph—number 26 of the Humaniora series—Artur Attman has provided a useful synthesis of existing scholarship relating to the integration of New World precious metals into the world economy during the Early Modern era. The volume offers short treatment of the Spanish, French, English, and, by inference, Dutch bullion markets, and their role in balancing the trade deficits that grew out of commercial interaction with the Levant, the Near East, and, especially, the Baltic. In 1550, for instance, gold and silver production in America stood at approximately 5,000,000 pesos, remittances to Spain were 3,000,000 pesos, and shipments to Asia were 2,000,000 pesos. Similarly, 100 years later, of an estimated total New World production of between 10,000,000 and 13,000,000 pesos, over 6,000,000 pesos were drawn out of the North Atlantic economy to settle deficits with Asia. This trade imbalance was a regular occurrence and, more than anything else, was the engine of the international bullion market. By tracing the flow of silver from Peru to Europe, and ultimately from Europe to the East, Attman demonstrates in a series of detailed, but often esoteric, tables the long-held notion of a worldwide economy based, more or less, on New World bullion.
If all this sounds familiar, it is because the monograph does not really report anything new. No archives were consulted, nor were any primary sources used in its preparation. But like some of the Ibero-American series books of an earlier era, the book is very useful in that it provides quick treatment of a major topic in clear and competent fashion, with scholarly insight and, at times, novel interpretation. While the monograph is good reading, in the end the specialist on the Carrera de Indias, or the international economy of the Early Modern era as a whole, will be better served by going directly to the works cited in Attman’s short bibliography, entries with which most readers will already be familiar.
