The Mediterranean as a Laboratory of Globalisation: The Franco-Ottoman Cloth Trade, 1683-c.1715

In the early 1700s, France overcame English and Dutch competition to become the Ottoman Empires main European trading partner. To date, historians have focussed on Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIVs (in)famous minister, and his influence on the crucial Franco-Ottoman trade in woollen cloth. Yet they have neglected the boom in this trade after Colberts death in 1683, overseen by Jean-Baptiste de Lagny, the director general of commerce from 1686 to 1700.By treating the Mediterranean as a laboratory of globalisation, GlobalMed asks why this trade flourished. Moreover, it explores the trades significance in influencing the states global commercial policy, analysing how Frances Levantine success shaped its engagement with (non-)colonial markets overseas. In this way, the project will challenge current orthodoxies on the rise of the Atlantic world by reconsidering the early modern states role as a motor of globalisation and industrial development.