Commerce and Industry Museums as a Means of Boosting Trade: Global and National Experience (Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to revive exports and boost trade between countries, business circles began founding special institutions – museums of commerce and industry, export museums, or museums of samples. The creation of such institutions, the functional purpose of their main structural components, and their principal activities can be studied using the vast body of current and analytical data from early 20th-century periodicals and documents of business unions and government and business organizations established to aid foreign trade (the Russian Export Chamber in St. Petersburg; Southern Russia mining industry congresses in Kharkiv; Kharkiv Exchange Committee, and others). The article analyzes commerce and industry museums as tools designed to help achieve the economic goals of groups of entrepreneurs and states as a whole. It is emphasized that these institutions contributed to the intensification of trade between countries and promoted the sharing of the latest developments and methods in this sphere (such as those that had to do with concluding and servicing commercial agreements, creating a broad information base and providing reference information, maintaining contacts between producers and consumers, implementing new practices in the packing and shipping of goods, etc.). The article proposes different versions of the classification of export-oriented museums – by location (in the country of production, in the country of possible export) or by main purpose (export, brand promotion). Comparative analysis of the activities of Western European export museums and sample museums in the Russian Empire leads the author to conclude that Russia lagged significantly behind in establishing institutional forms for aiding foreign trade; such museums remained rare across the empire and did not adequately represent the available range of export goods.

Exportkontrolle zwischen europäischen und nationalen Interessen

The European export control system of dual-use goods is a pillar in the fight against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and for the protection of human rights. But who actually decides in the complex entanglement of national security interests, European trade policy and international prevention regimes which goods are allowed for export out of the European Union? In his study, which was awarded the “Aquila ascendens” knowledge prize of the DialogForum Sicherheitspolitik, Jonas Bazan analyses institutional power shifts in the European export control system and reveals whether a structural Europeanisation has taken place or whether the European institutions remain subordinate to national interests of the member states.

Surfaces for Reflection: Nanban Lacquer in the Iberian World

In response to the arrival of Iberian traders and missionaries on the Japanese archipelago in the sixteenth century, local craftsmen developed a unique type of lacquer, called today Nanban, for European export. They adapted traditional techniques to produce chests, writing desks, reliquaries and oratories for this new peripatetic clientele. This paper will explore the assimilation of East Asian lacquered objects within the Iberian world, treating the physical and ontological transformations that occurred as they travelled throughout the vast Iberian mercantile empire in the Indo-Pacific. The very portability of such lacquered objects engendered new realms of artistic experimentation. Like the layered quality of lacquer itself, these mobile works served as vehicles of material assemblage and hermeneutic accumulation, gathering new receptions and identities as they traveled through these Pacific networks and beyond.

Organo-Mineral Fertilization Enhances the Acceptability of Smooth Cayenne Pineapple Fruit (Ananas comosus (L.) Merrill) for European Export and Domestic Consumption in Benin

Heterogeneity in pineapple fruit quality explains the low export volume of fruits from Benin to the international market. This work aims to investigate influences of organo-mineral fertilizer on a) pineapple fruit yield, b) fruit quality and the proportion of fruits meeting European export standards, and c) fresh fruit acceptability for domestic consumption. The experimental design is a split-plot with three replications where the main factor is organic manure (poultry litter) (P0 = 0 t ha−1, P1 = 5 t ha−1, P2 = 10 t ha−1) and the sub-plot factor, N-P-K fertilization in kg ha−1 (T0:100-30-150, T1: 200-60-300, T2: 400-120-600, and T3: 600-180-900). To evaluate the percentage of fruit meeting European standards, a generalized linear model with binomial error structures was used. A sensorial test was carried out on fresh pulp to assess the preference of fruit meeting domestic criterion. A preference mapping was assessed through an acceptability test with a nine-point hedonic scale. Organo-mineral fertilizer significantly improved fruit weight (p = 0.012), fresh juice weight (p = 0.042), total soluble solids (p = 0.032), and the percentage of fruits meeting European standards (p < 0.001). Better fruits meeting export standards were found with treatments P1T1, P2T0, and P2T3 (83.33 ± 28.87%). Fruits from treatments P0T2, P2T1, P1T3, and P2T2 were highly accepted for domestic consumption (70%). The results suggested that organo-fertilizer producing fruit achieving exportation standards may differ from those satisfying domestic preferences. Moreover, the findings suggested that the ratio crown length: fruit length, which is a key ratio for exportation standards, is not related to physico-chemical quality. Finally, the findings have implications for the sustainability of pineapple production for domestic and exportation purposes.

The Miraculous Flying House of Loreto

In 1295, a house fell from the evening sky onto an Italian coastal road by the Adriatic Sea. Inside, awestruck locals encountered the Virgin Mary, who explained that this humble mud-brick structure was her original residence newly arrived from Nazareth. To keep it from the hands of Muslim invaders, angels had flown it to Loreto, stopping three times along the way. This story of the house of Loreto has been read as an allegory of how Catholicism spread peacefully around the world by dropping miraculously from the heavens. This book calls that interpretation into question by examining historical accounts of the movement of the Holy House across the Mediterranean in the thirteenth century and the Atlantic in the seventeenth century. These records indicate vast and voluntary involvement in the project of formulating a branch of Catholic devotion. The book surveys the efforts of European Jesuits, Slavic migrants, and indigenous peoples in Baja California, Canada, and Peru. These individuals contributed to the expansion of Catholicism by acting as unofficial authors, inadvertent pilgrims, unlicensed architects, unacknowledged artists, and unsolicited cataloguers of Loreto. Their participation in portaging Mary's house challenges traditional views of Christianity as a prepackaged European export, and instead suggests that Christianity is the cumulative product of thousands of self-appointed editors. The book also demonstrates how miracle narratives can be treated seriously as historical sources that preserve traces of real events. Drawing on rich archival materials, the book illustrates how global Catholicism proliferated through independent initiatives of untrained laymen.

North European Export Industry and the Shadows of Sulphur Directive

EU Directive of MARPOL Annex VI and its economic impact on the Nordic paper industry is theme of this research work. Empirical data for analysis purposes was gained from a large Nordic paper mill that exports bulk products mainly to Europe (70 % of its volume). The study shows that in the end the industry’s location still has an economical effect, and that the location has a distinct impact on competition through rising transportation costs. Environmental regulation continues and fosters long-term upwards trajectory of transportation cost, which has been experienced by the paper mill earlier during years 2001-2009. Sulphur regulation change to cleaner grades of maritime diesel did not turn as heavy cost increase in the 2015, however, possibility to gain cost benefits in rapidly deteriorating oil markets were not reached either. Therefore, in depressed industrial product markets, like paper industry, implications were such that margins of export industry remained low.