This book presents a state-of-the-art picture of advances in social network research for economic, business, and financial historians. It showcases recent advances in the methodology and application of social network analysis to historical research and draws out the unique benefits for economic history and related fields.
Social network analysis is increasingly understood to be an important part of historical research, allowing researchers to balance qualitative investigation with rigorous quantitative techniques. Through a global set of case studies spanning ancient, medieval, early modern and modern history, this edited volume demonstrates the interpretative potential of various SNA approaches to different sets of historical data. The chapters contribute to methodological understanding of SNA in economic history, as well as showing through the case studies how network analysis can decode complex social and economic interactions over time, making visible those relational patterns that were invisible to contemporary historical actors. This cutting-edge resource will be appeal widely to academics in economic, business and financial history, as well as statistics researchers and social scientists looking to strengthen their quantitative research skills.
Introduction.- Part I Thinking in Networks: Approaches to Economic,
Business, and Financial History.- Decoding Complex Socio-Economic
Interactions in History through Social Network Analysis.- Improving Business
History through Social Network Analysis and data.- Webs of Money: Social
Network Analysis and Financial History.- Network-Based Bibliometric Analysis
in Economic History.- Part II Connecting the Past: Case-Based Approaches to
Networks in Economic History.- II.1 Threads of Antiquity: Economic and
Cultural Networks Across the Mediterranean.- Trade and Cultural Transmission
in lived spaces from central Italy from the Final Bronze Age to the Archaic
Period (1100-500 BC): an Exploratory Network Analysis.- Exploring pottery
distributions and regional economies through network analysis and GIS:
Kalapodi and its region in the Roman period as a case study.- Maritime Trade
in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Quantitative Analysis of Shipwreck Data from
the Hellenistic Period through Late Antiquity (4th Century BCE 7th Century
CE).- II.2 Forging Markets: Credit, Networks, and Intermediation in
Pre-Modern Europe.- Credit Networks in the 14th-century rural countryside of
Tyrol. Importance and Functioning.- Forced Loans and Lenders Networks in
Seville: Coercion, Credit, and the Origins of a Proto-Financial Market
(1523-1563) .- Relational Capital, Weak Ties, and Economic Intermediation.
The Global Network built by Jerónimo de Cataño (1536-1589).- High Finance
Networks in Renaissance Florence.- II.3 Networks of Influence: Business,
Trust, and Governance Across Borders and Centuries in the Contemporary age.-
Weaving Trust: Notaries and Credit Market (Networks) in 19th century Milan.-
Studying insularity through business networks: the isle of Procida in
19th-century South of Italy.- Not a destiny. National corporate networks
compared: Argentina and Italy 1913-2010.- Fellowship Society Members in
Corporate Boards: Evidence from the Netherlands in the 20th Century.
Maria Carmela Schisani is Professor of Economic History at the University of Naples Federico II. She is affiliated researcher with the ISEM and ISMed institutes of the National Research Council (CNR). Her research interests focus mainly on financial and business history. She also specializes in network analysis applied to historical economic and financial data. She is author of several publications, some of them in high-impact international scientific journals such as Cliometrica, European Review of Economic History and Business History. Giuseppe De Luca (Italy) is Professor of Economic History at the University of Milan and Director of the Bachelors programme in Economics and Management. He is Associated Researcher at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Mediterranean Europe History (ISEM). His research focuses on pre-industrial public debt, the role of notaries in lending markets, and the historical development of infrastructure and healthcare financing in Europe. He has led several major international research projects, including A-RING (20192022), and is co-editor of the journal Cheiron. Giancarlo Ragozini is Professor of Social Statistics at the Department of Political Science, University of Naples Federico II. His research interests range from statistical methods for social network analysis to computational statistics and multivariate methods for data analysis, sport analytics, quantitative history, life course studies. He is author of over 150 publications (72 in Scopus), many of them in high-impact international scientific journals such as Social Network, Network Science, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Cliometrica, European Review of Economic History and Business History. Paolo Cimadomo (Italy/USA) is a Marie Skodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellow at Sapienza University of Rome, heading the EARTH (Earthquakes And Community Resilience Through Historical Analysis) project. He has held research positions at institutions like the University of Naples Federico II, the University of Haifa, Georgetown University in Washington DC and the University Sapienza of Rome. Cimadomo has also contributed to museum initiatives and possesses teaching experience at several universities. His research centers on the Eastern Mediterranean through Greek, Roman, and Late Roman periods, with focuses on network reconstruction, land use, climate influences, and environment-human interactions. Since 2019, he has applied social network analysis to studying the ancient past.
