Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

Networks in Economic and Business History
under scrutiny from the system as a whole in order to examine its
internal structure in full detail. It must not be overlooked, however,
that the network under scrutiny is connected to the rest of the system
at numerous points—it is an ‘open system’, in other words. Dis turb -
ances originating elsewhere in the economy can impinge on the network
at any point, and sometimes at several points at once.
This methodology of examining the part in relation to the whole
is common to all social science, however, and so in this respect the
study of networks merely conforms to general research practice.
What has been missing from the study of networks so far is not so
much an awareness of this interdependence, as a reluctance to examine
the structure of individual networks in adequate detail. It is
hoped that the survey of network structure presented in this essay,
and the analysis of its economic significance, will encourage business
and economic historians to pay more attention to network structure
in future.
49