A Brief History of International Trade

Thanks to Professor Rob Perhamus for arranging this talk to students in his International Trade class.

[tanmaychopra]

man seeing this talk now, making so much sense in 2018. This guy is a genius.

[sydrahsarfaraz]

This is by far the most precise and well explained presentation on the historical aspect of International Trade.

[rossharmonics]

In the 1970s, I read a book by Lionel Rothkrug called "Opposition to Louis XIV" Generally in histories of economics, Adam Smith is the first person to get at least a chapter. There were schools of economics in France a century before. One school stressed agriculture; the other, geography, geopolitics, and trade. This book changed my whole way of thinking about history, politics, and economics. Take a look at how many books on economics ignore geography and trade or even maps. It's good to have someone teaching students about this subject.

[merrittcorless]

Bravo, sir.  We are interdependent to the extreme, which is amazing but also scary.  We have a million reasons to get along with our neighbors, of which their services and resources are prime, but we get divided along cultural, religious and class lines.  I would wager that if everyone is able to secure the material resources he needs, then the abstract conflicts of religion, etc., between countries could settle into compromise. 

[eherrerausa]

You bought me back to my undergrad trade import / export class. Well done, historical overview, logistics and where we are today. The internet is import / export. !!!

[varahamihiragopu]

I wish you had emphasized that shipping enables you to avoid taxes on all the lands in between, and the railways did the same thing for local tolls. The building of cheap cement bridges across rivers, both road and rail, in the 19th century was also hugely a boost to cheaper transport and trade.

[maninblack]

Now I guess people know what alibaba is. Thank you Sir... Your presentation pretty much sum up all the key points of trade history.

[duojiezhaxi]

Professor, your video helped me to increase my interest on the International Trade. Thanks a lot. .

[akbarsayyed]

Nice work Mr.Ryan, lots of hard work !!!!

[jimihendrixx]

Thanks Ryan...I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation....Especilally the last quarter.

[ImportGenius]

I made a few errors, like referring to the Venetians as the "Genoese." Sorry :(

[carennawillmont]

Great talk. I love the historical focus.

[varahamihiragopu]

An excellent talk combining all the interesting developments from history, from sailboats to steam to internet - even the spice of islands of Pulowai & PuloRun. John Keay's "The Honoroable Company" is an excellent book about East India company; I disagree that they were the worst company in the world. I wish this video were in a better compressed format - 850MB is too much, it should be about 60-70MB. Some of us have limited bandwidth, you know!

[ThomasRaad]

watching this in 2020, im an international commodities broker from NY based in Brazil building my startup in international trade and my dream is to get a chance to speak with ryan peterson

[千山暮雪-xg]

Good! very nice! hope to have your lecture every day.

[PraveenRajvogue]

Man! I miss his knowledge sharing lectures! 😭

[marissoucant]

thanks i feel much better for my english oral, that was really intresting, I mean if I had an english teacher like you, for shure I will be currently bilangue!

[varahamihiragopu]

Also, the description of Islam as an "Iron curtain" was original - and probably true. But there's a story that a Persian monarch destroyed his country's roads by doubling taxes on ox carts and lowering them on camels - which led to lower traffic in carts, lower taxes from them, deterioration of roads, and lower trade capacities. Economic decline by tax policy: mentioned in the book "Infinite in all directions" by Freeman Dyson.

[ThangNguyen-ppgg]

What is the tool he uses for the presentation? Any idea will be appreciated. Thanks.

[ryanpetersen]

Not sure about that but the island of Run in the Moluccas was definitely part of the swap as well.