A Sea and the Commodities for the Industrialization Process

The chapter provides a first approach to the Baltic timber economy, explaining the relative importance of the area for the trade of two fundamental commodities, grain and timber, in a long-term perspective. The wood produced by the forests located around the Baltic has represented over the centuries an essential resource both for local consumption and to meet the demand coming from Western Europe, where forest areas have significantly reduced over the centuries due to overexploitation (as in the case of Great Britain) or essentially did not exist to such an extent that they could be economically exploited. After introducing the general discussion about the role of commodities in international trade from a historiographical point of view, the chapter examines the relatively low importance traditionally given to timber by the research on the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the European industrialization process. On the other hand, it introduces the most significant contributions that, in recent years, have contributed to a new vision of the role of timber in modern economic development.