Edmond Smith

Understanding Global Exchange: A Route through Artefacts | INTRECCI Linking economic systems through museum exhibitions at the V&A, Burrell Collection, Gulbenkian Collection and British Museum

We've had great opportunities to visit some incredible collections during the first year of the INTRECCI project. Safya Morshed has written up some thoughts about linking economic systems through material objects made and consumed across early modern Eurasia.

intrecci-project.org/understandin...

Economica by Victoria Bateman | Waterstones Buy Economica by Victoria Bateman from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

Want to read an “erudite, ambitious & richly global” book that “sets a new standard in economic history”? Then my forthcoming book #Economica is for you. If you’re in the UK, for tonight only you can get 25% off if you preorder @waterstones.bsky.social: www.waterstones.com/book/economi... #SUMMER25

A small number, but certainly nothing on the scale of your new tome! I'm looking forward to reading, btw 👍

CfP is out! Sign up, share, come visit, very excited about this. Let's get some great female case-studies!

Manchester’s Royal Exchange rooted in slavery and colonialism, research reveals Links to enslavement, exploitation and opium make it ‘one of most important locations in history of global capitalism’

Great to see coverage of work by some of Manchester's most engaged students in the Guardian today: www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...

For the full essays by Destinie Reynolds, Beth Carson, Moleka Newman, Aimee Eggington and Aashe Singh: www.royalexchange.co.uk/visit-eat-dr...

That the incredible cognitive power of the human brain and body takes only 2000 calories a day to fuel, and occupies quite considerably less than the space of Manhattan, suggests there is something catastrophically wrong with the design of AI.

It's been a while since I've been in the EIC's earliest letters.

A good start with Nicholas Downton's miserable account and 'swarms of perplexed thoughts' about the shocking failure of his first voyage to the Red Sea and India.

Mainly the 'Turks', Portuguese and Mughal officials to blame, obv.

Cross Cultural Exchanges in the Early Modern Indian Ocean World | INTRECCI A workshop hosted in collaboration with CHAM as part of the INTRECCI project.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to run a workshop with some brilliant colleagues at CHAM in Lisbon on "Cross Cultural Exchanges in the EM IOW".

Mariana has written up a very nice review of the event: intrecci-project.org/cross-cultur...

YouTube video by Slow The Flow What are the five key messages? Slow The Flow 2025

Be the beaver! Save the world! 🦫🌎

I've been doing a little volunteering with Slow the Flow over the past couple of months (my wife is a trustee) and they've produced this excellent little video about the 5 top reasons for supporting nature-based solutions to flooding.

youtu.be/TRYb2HqlnTc?...

THE GREAT NORTH by Jenn Nkiru, teaser A vibrant reflection on Black history and architecture in Manchester by the British-Nigerian director Jenn Nkiru. Black history and modern-day architecture intertwine…

Last year I had a great experience contributing my research (and voiceover skills, such as they are) to a film by artist and director Jenn Nkiru called "The Great North".

The final release is still a little while away, but I'm excited to share the trailer. More soon!

vimeo.com/1028107702

Book cover for Vanished. Features a nineteenth-century print with a fossilised mastodon skeleton, Asian elephant being ridden by a turbaned man, Native and colonial figures looking on. In the background is a mountainous landscape and there is also a single passenger pigeon in the sky. The whole scene is framed by an ornate frame and foliage. Below the book is the following text: A love letter to the astonishing ways of being that have survived past extinctions, and an exhortation to create a worthwhile world.

Love’s Labour Launches with a roar! Thanks to many roarsome people I’ve gone from peasant to PhD, to Professor, and Penguin author with Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction out today. 🐅

Pls share, read, and help create a worthwhile world.
#WorldEnvironmentDay
#BookSky #HPS #Skystorians 🗃️

Thanks! 👍

Malik Al Nasir’s new book ‘Searching for my Slave Roots’ out 28 Aug. 2025. An epic tale of Sandbach Tinne Co, Scottish, Dutch & English slave merchants, who enslaved Malik's ancestors in the cane fields of Demerara.
#MalikAlNasir #SearchingForMySlaveRoots #WilliamCollins #Slavery #demerarasugar

Institutions in Motion | INTRECCI Intermediaries, Agency, and Adaption in Global Commerce and Empire, 1450-1850

A great pleasure last week to hold the first workshop of my INTRECCI project - took the opportunity to bring some ludicrously brilliant ECRs to Manchester!

I co-hosted with a visiting PhD student @ideesdupasse.bsky.social who has written up a little review: intrecci-project.org/institutions...

The cover of the book, Race and the Scottish Enlightenment: a Colonial History 1750-1820, by Linda Andersson Burnett and Bruce Buchan, Yale University Press, 2025. The cover features a silhouette of the Scottish anatomist, Robert Knox, holding a human skull.

Our book began years ago in Edinburgh, but took shape over subsequent years between Brisbane, Växjö, Adelaide, Copenhagen, Uppsala, Paris, and London, but mostly Edinburgh.

Now it has a cover, and pre-orders are available.

@lindaaburnett.bsky.social

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Thanks! I can only hope it lives up to the jacket...!

Damn that's succinct. Can only hope I say something clever with the other 139,998 words 🤔

Cheers 👍

Fingers-crossed...!

Thank you 👍

You're too kind!

Outside work I look after an old cottage and little wood in Yorkshire, with these magnificent bastards for company!

Thanks John!

At some point I need to introduce you to Shounak - I think you'd both have a disturbingly enthusiastic chat about multilingualism in the Persianate world 😉

And I'm very lucky to be joined by some brilliant Research Associates: Mariana Boscariol, Safya Morshed and Shounak Ghosh.

If you're interested in the project and would like to be included in our mailing list drop me a line or sign up on the website!

INTRECCI: A Global History of Globalisation | INTRECCI INTRECCI is a research project focused on understanding globalisation's history. Discover our aims, team, events, and research findings that illuminate the origins of the modern world through innovati...

I've also been kicking off a new project INTRECCI (kindly funded by the ERC) that aims to change how we understand globalisation by tracing institutional transformation from 1400 onwards in West Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and South East Asia.

intrecci-project.org

Ruthless - Yale University Press London A revelatory new history of Britain’s industrial revolution and the exploitation that enabled it Was Britain’s industrial revolution the result o...

The *big thing* I've been finishing is my next book Ruthless, which is coming out in October. It connects the exploitation of land and people across Britain and its empire with scientific and technological innovation to offer a new history of capitalist development.

yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300...

A tad behind the times - I've been busy writing my next book Ruthless and kicking off a new project INTRECCI. Kinda forgot social media existed! Gather that this place is meant to offer more than a constant stream of crap, so let's see...