This edited collection examines the formation of urban networks and role of gateways in Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern world. In the past, gateway cities were merely perceived as transport points, only relevant to maritime shipping. Today they are seen as the organic entities coordinating the allocation of resources and supporting the growth, efficiency and sustainability of logistics (including both the transport and distribution of goods and services). Using different historical case studies, the authors consider how logistics shaped urban networks and were shaped by them.
1. Introduction.-
2. Gateway of Gothenburg.-
3. Bordeaux from Its
Vineyards to Its Hinterland: A Regional Capital in the Late Middle Ages.-
4.
Urban Networks on the Move: The Austrian Netherlands Transit Policy and the
Development of the Belgian Urban Networks in the 18th Century (1705-1793).-
5. Persistence and Evolution in the Eastern Sicilian Coastal Corridor: The
Mobility of Goods and People at the Port of Catania (1817-1860).-
6. Bridging
the Gap: The Belfast-Dublin Railway Corridor in the 19th Century.-
7. Urban
Network and Economic Policy: The Milanese Case during the Spanish and
Austrian Age.-
8. The Construction of an Inland Gateway: Milan in the Early
Modern Period.-
9. Gateways as Intermodal Nodes in Different Ages: The
Venetian Region, 18th to 20th Centuries.-
10. The Flaxseed Trade between
Courland and Brittany in the 18th Century.-
11. Ports and Their Functions:
Some Reflections about Preindustrial Logistics.-
12. Tracking Waters: Small
Cities Transport Network of Early Modern Friesland.
Giovanni Favero is Professor of Economic History at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy, in the Department of Management. In 2018-19 he was the Thomas K. McCraw Visiting Fellow in US Business History at Harvard Business School. He works on organisational history in a long term perspective.
Michael-W. Serruys is a Marie Skodowska Curie Action Fellow at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest, France. In recent years his main focus lay on 18th century Belgian economic, maritime and transport history. As a MSCA Fellow he now researches the societal effects of environmental crisis, like the shipworm epidemic in 18th century Western Europe.
Miki Sugiura is Professor of Global Economic History at the Faculty of Economics of Hosei University, Japan. Currently (2018-2020) she is Visiting Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick. Her research interests include historyof distribution and trade organizations, urban formation and womens property formation. She also has published recently multiple articles and books on circulations and recycling of textile products.
