Revisiting Napoleon's Continental System

Economic warfare during the Napoleonic era transformed international commerce; redirecting trade and generating illicit commerce. This volume re-evaluates the Continental System through urban and regional case studies that analyze the power triangle of the French, British and neutral powers and their strategies to adapt to trade restrictions.

The collection, divided into four parts, succeeds in covering a wide variety of regions and topics from the historiography and origins of the System to regional approaches, and from a variety of responses to the Systems, including but not limited to smuggling and 'urban experiences'. This is a valuable collection that provides a new overview of the complicated whole that was the System, while shedding light on its regional variations. (Philip Dwyer, French History, January, 2016)

There is an informative introduction to the topic by Katherine Aaslestad, followed by four general essays on historiography. The quality of the scholarship is uniformly high and the geographical range impressive. It is difficult to imagine a better introduction to the most recent work on the institutional structure and economic consequences of Napoleon's efforts to wage economic warfare against Britain and her allies. (James J. Sheehan, Central European History, Vol. 48 (4), December, 2015)The volume includes selected papers from a conference held in Amsterdam in May 2011 and comprises 16 essays . the volume is a most welcome addition to Napoleonic historiography as a whole and, in treading plenty of new ground, the volume goes far beyond a mere revisit to the Continental System, as its all-too-modest title suggests. (Morten Nordhagen Ottosen, Scandinavian Journal of History, December, 2015)

This multi-faceted book is a coherent collection of 15 papers from historians of continental Europe who attended a conference held in Amsterdam in 2011. This well-edited, important book has brought many new aspects of these tumultuous years to English-language readers. No naval or maritime history of the period can now be written without taking this evidence and the conclusions of these scholars into account. (Roger Knight,International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 27 (4), November, 2015)

Auteur
Anita Cerpinska, University of Latvia Geoffrey Ellis, Oxford University, UK Alan Forrest, University of York, UK Bård Frydenlund, University of Oslo, Norway Alexander Grab, University of Maine, USA Hilde Greefs, University of Antwerp, Belgium Annie Jourdan, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands Silvia Marzagalli, University of Nice, France Pierrick Pourchasse, University of Bretagne Occidentale, France Michael Rowe, King's College London, UK Margrit Schulte Beerbuehl, University of Düsseldorf, Germany Robert Mark Spaulding, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, USA Alexandre Tchoudinov, Institute of Universal History in Moscow, Russia Jann Markus Witt, Marineschule Mürwik (German Naval Academy)

Contenu
Introduction: Revisiting Napoleon's Continental System: New Directions; Katherine B. Aaslestad PART I: LOOKING FORWARD AND BACKWARD: HISTORIOGRAPHY OF AND ORIGINS OF THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 1. The Continental System Revisited; Geoffrey Ellis 2. French Representations of the Continental Blockade; Annie Jourdan 3. Russia and the Continental System: Trends in Russian Historiography; Alexandre Tchoudinov 4. Speculations and Embargoes on the Grain Trade at the Time of the Revolutionary Wars (1792-1795); Pierrick Pourchasse PART II: REGIONAL APPROACHES TO THE PRACTICE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 5. The Continental System: A View from the Sea; Silvia Marzagalli 6. The Kingdom of Italy and the Continental Blockade; Alexander Grab 7. Rhine River Commerce and the Continental System; Robert Mark Spaulding PART III: ADAPTING TO ECONOMIC WARFARE: NEW NETWORKS AND ILLICIT TRADE 8. Trading Networks across the Blockades; Margrit Schulte Beerbuhl 9. Smuggling and Blockade-Running During the Anglo-Danish War 1807-1814; Jann M. Witt 10. Defying the Continental System in the Periphery: Political Strategies and Protests by Norwegian Magnates; Bard Frydenlund 11. Economic Warfare, Organised Crime, and the Collapse of Napoleon's Empire; Michael Rowe PART IV: URBAN EXPERIENCES AND THE NAPOLEONIC CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 12. Experiencing the Continental System in the Cities of French Atlantic; Alan Forrest 13. Choices and Opportunities amidst Economic Warfare; 14. Riga Export Trade at the Time of the Continental System, 1807-1812; Anita Cerpinska 15. Significance and Consequences of the Continental System for Napoleonic Holland, especially for Amsterdam; Johan Joor Select Bibliography