Understanding Commercial societies (the series)

A Table of Contents with links to a series of articles on this topic.

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As of this article’s publication date, I have been writing on Substack for about 1.5 years. During that time, I have written just over 400 articles on many topics. In contrast to the vast majority of Substack columns, almost all my articles are tied together by a common theme: human material progress:

• what it is,

• how it has transformed our lives (largely for the better)

• when and where it started

• what caused it,

• how progress spread throughout the world,

To make it easier for new readers to get into my writing, I am publishing a series of “Table of Contents” articles over the coming weeks. Each will consist of a sequential list of articles on a specific sub-topic related to human material progress. I try to make each article self-standing, but I would recommend reading the articles in the displayed order.

This article displays a list of all my articles on Commercial societies. I believe that Commercial societies are a key concept that is missing from the field of Progress Studies. While many researchers believe that sustained material progress started with the Industrial Revolution, I believe that material progress for the masses started centuries earlier in Commercial societies. Acknowledging this enables us to understand the true causes of long-term economic growth.

Famous examples of Commercial societies include the:

• Medieval city/states of Northern Italy (Venice, Florence, Genoa, Milan, and many more)

• Late Medieval city/states of Flanders (Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and Antwerp in modern-day Belgium)

• The Dutch Republic (1579-1795)

• Pre-industrial England, particularly in the southeast (roughly 1500-1800)

• Likely also many of the city/states of Ancient Greece.

Enjoy reading!

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Table of Contents for the “Commercial societies” series:

1. Why you need to know about Society Types.

2. Why Commercial societies are the most important type of society that you have never heard of

3. How and why Commercial Societies created material progress

4. How humans learned to transform food surplus into Progress

5. Medieval European cities

6. The geographical preconditions of Commercial societies

7. The Holy Roman Empire was an incubator of Progress

8. Farming in Commercial societies (1500-1800)

9. How agriculture made Commercial societies flourish

10. Historians have misunderstood pre-Industrial England

11. Did the British Industrial Revolution occur in the 17th century?

12. How the USA copied the Five Keys to Progress

13. Were the Ancient Greek city/states Commercial societies?

14. The historical significance of the Industrial Revolution in Britain

15. more on this topic

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If you enjoyed reading this series of articles, you might also be interested in reading my “From Poverty to Progress” book series: