Lecture Trading Factories and Capitalism in the Early Modern Indian Ocean Add to calendar 2025-10-08 11:00 2025-10-08 12:30 Europe/Rome Trading Factories and Capitalism in the Early Modern Indian Ocean Sala del Consiglio Villa Salviati - Castle YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Oct 08 2025 11:00 - 12:30 CEST Sala del Consiglio, Villa Salviati - Castle Organised by Department of History EUI Professor Giorgio Riello will give a talk in the framework of the History Department Monthly Research Meetings. As traditionally defined, factories were commercial outposts established by the Carreira da Índia and the European chartered companies in Africa and Asia. In the period 1500 to 1800, around 200 such factories were constructed across the Indian Ocean and China Sea. In terms of function, the factories were units for commodity storage, accounting, procurement, retailing, exporting, information gathering, military defence, and housing. This presentation begins with an overview of the work carried out by the ERC CAPASIA project so far, and reflects on the part played by factories in histories of early modern capitalism. It then considers three key issues related to their operation. First, it defines what the role of a trading factory was in the context of early modern trade and production in Asia. Second, it asks why trading factories were created in the first instance rather than relying on individual voyages. Third, it examines their function in the procurement of goods from the interior markets of Asia and in the structuring of trade both within Asia and between Asia, the Atlantic, and Europe.