Perceiving the economic future in the past: analysis of European mercantile correspondence, 1400-1800 University of Antwerp
This project will analyze perceptions and expectations of the future formulated in published and OCR-scanned letters of European merchants in the period 1400 to 1800. The research seeks insight in long-run developments and changes in thinking about the future by historical actors. In this sense, the project wants to add a new, cultural factor to the history of the development of capitalism: the temporal order of capitalism.