Eleanor Russell

I am finishing up a PhD in Economic History at the University of Cambridge, having previously acquired a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Sydney.

My PhD examines the multi-national European merchant-banking companies who dominated European commerce at the beginning of European engagement with the Americas and with Asia via the Cape Route (circa 1492 to 1530), focusing upon how they responded to the opening of these new commercial opportunities. I analyse their rise to power from the late fourteenth century, following how they established partnerships with 'state' and civic governments to gain control over luxuries and vital commodities in return for loans and administrative support. I also investigate their use of cultural capital and information technology, analysing how they used their superior access to and knowledge of luxury commodities and art, and took advantage of the introduction of printing and the postal system, to further gain influence and opportunities with courts and in commerce and banking.