A comprehensive study of the New Christian elite of Jewish origin, prominent traders, merchants, bankers and men of letters between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries
The New Christian elite of Jewish origin were at the forefront of early modern globalisation from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Either forced to convert to Christianity or descended from those who were, these Iberian traders, merchants, and bankers with links to the academic world and liberal professions, played a pivotal role in intercontinental trade for two centuries-only to decline, and virtually disappear as an ethnic elite, by the mid-1700s. In Strangers Within, Francisco Bethencourt offers a comprehensive study of the New Christian trading elite, describing their many achievements, innovations and migrations.
Members of this new elite were instrumental in opening global trade, investing in plantations and industries and loaning money to kings, popes, cardinals, noblemen
