Revisiting Napoleon’s Continental System: Local, Regional and European Experiences (War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850)

Napoleonic warfare spread to the high seas, harbors and marketplaces across Europe and the Atlantic through the Continental System. This volume addresses the illicit commerce, new merchant networks, 'daily life', and tensions with neutral states generated by Anglo-French economic warfare. It also reveals the contradictions inherent in the Napoleonic Empire – at once rational and progressive, but also coercive and exploitative. Regional and urban case studies offer a more complete understanding of the significance of economic warfare during the Napoleonic era, and explore the experiences and consequences of the conflict through several key themes: a re-evaluation of the historiography of the Continental System, the uneven power triangle of the French, British and neutral powers, and the strategies of merchants and smugglers to adapt to or circumvent the system. Transnational case studies underscore the vulnerability and ingenuity of Europeans as they faced transformative social and economic challenges.
 
Table of Contents

Part I. Looking Forward and Backward: The Historiography and Origins of the Continental System
Chapter 1. Geoffrey Ellis, “The Continental System Revisited »
Chapter 2. Annie Jourdan, “French Representations of the Continental Blockade: Three Kinds of Narratives for and against »
Chapter 3. Alexandre Tchoudinov, “Russia and the Continental System: Trends in Russian Historiography
Chapter 4. Pierrick Pourchasse, “Speculations and Embargoes on the Grain Trade at the Time of the Revolutionary Wars (1792–1795) »
 
Part II. Regional Approaches to the Practice and Consequences of the Continental System
Chapter 5. Silvia Marzagalli, “The Continental System: A View from the Sea »
Chapter 6. Alexander Grab, “The Kingdom of Italy and the Continental Blockade »
Chapter 7. Robert Mark Spaulding, “Rhine River Commerce and the Continental System »
 
Part III. Adapting to Economic Warfare: New Networks and Illicit Trade
Chapter 8. Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, “Trading Networks across the Blockades: Nathan Mayer Rothschild and His Commodity Trade during the Early Years of the Blockades (1803–1808) »
Chapter 9. Jann M. Witt, “Smuggling and Blockade-Running during the Anglo–Danish War from 1807 to 1814»
Chapter 10. Bård Frydenlund, “Defying the Continental System in the Periphery: Political Strategies and Protests by Norwegian Magnates”
Chapter 11. Michael Rowe, “Economic Warfare, Organized Crime and the Collapse of Napoleon's Empire”
 
Part IV. Urban Experiences and the Napoleonic Continental System
Chapter 12. Alan Forrest, “Experiencing the Continental System in the Cities of the French Atlantic”
Chapter 13. Hilde Greefs, ”Choices and Opportunities amid Economic Warfare: Strategic Decisions of the Business Elite in the Young Harbour Town of Antwerp during the Napoleonic Era”
Chapter 14. Anita Čerpinska, ”Riga Export Trade at the Time of the Continental Blockade (1807–1812)”
Chapter 15. Johan Joor, “Significance and Consequences of the Continental System for Napoleonic Holland, Especially for Amsterdam”