Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe by Jake Dyble - 9781837651559

Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern EuropeGeneral Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany\nAuthor(s): Jake Dyble\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: Boydell & Brewer\nISBN-13: 9781837651559, 978-1837651559\nSynopsis\nDraws on the rich surviving archives of the Tuscan port of Livorno to explore how General Average worked.\n\nCommercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant's cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of m.