Geographic projections of a 16th century trade network: New meanings for historical research

Abstract

Since the 1970s, Fernand Braudel has urged for the integration of space in historical analysis, pointing towards to what we call nowadays a “Geographically- Integrated History”. For this historian, the creation of a map as an analytical support was necessary to comprehend man0s evolution, in the belief that change happens in a space-temporal frame. Our work is being developed within the research project DynCoopNet (“Dynamic Complexity of Cooperation-Based Self-Organizing Commercial Networks in the First Global Age”) which goal is to reveal the mechanisms of cooperation among merchants that tied together the self-organizing commercial networks of the First Global Age ((1400–1800) www.dyncoopnet.eu). Focusing on the notion of dynamic, that implies an integration of space and time, our aim is to develop a spatial analysis, highlighting the role of space on network building. This paper intends to present an approach that demonstrates the benefits of carrying on spatio-temporal analysis of historical data sources.