This chapter discusses the resilience of caravans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by suggesting a move from competition and technologies-focused narratives to more comprehensive histories of mobility. The aim is not to deny the transformative effects of steam and, later, automobiles. It rather promotes a synergy approach in which speed was not systematically the decisive factor and the experience of mobility and the ‘channelling’ (V. Huber) was not yet an unescapable feature. Geography, season, markets’ specific features provided economic rationality to slow, incremental and yet efficient type of mobility. As suggested by the intertwined histories of the chapter, this did not influence economic calculations only. The persistence of caravan trade and its connection to a widening array of means of mobility also had an influence on the very working of inland territories from urban settlements along caravan routes to the cities’ daily connections with the steppe and desert.

As Chapter 4 has already made clear, this chapter is not another caravan-to-car story. Nor is it another case study of threatening mobility vs. governmentality. It is rather a continuation of Chapter 4 on the transformations of economic and political geography that put caravans to the test. Building on Chapter 4 and contrary to developmentalist notions of modernisation, this chapter argues that the end of caravans was a cumulative process, just like its persistence until the interwar period. New kinds of territorialisation (automobility and what I define as the ‘evening of mobility’ were part of it, indeed) fostered gradual disintegration and divergence across the caravan regional market. This would gradually erode the caravans’ raison d’être and deepen their transition to shorter routes while camels and traders would find new employments.

Chapter 4 focuses on the role and activities of women in credit transactions. That women made economic contributions to their households in the management, care, and sale of livestock and farm products, and in the production of various marketable items, is incontrovertible. Yet, the significance and extent of their larger economic role has been neglected, especially when it comes to financial exchange and credit. For the most part, much remains to be written about the extent of women’s capacity to lend and borrow, of gendered practices related to credit, of the impact of female involvement in credit networks traditionally dominated by men, and of the effects of female participation in the economic life of their household and community. This chapter sheds light on their roles and motivations as particular actors. But it also aims to show their significance in credit networks at large.

The book opened with a reference to the financial crisis of 2008. The financial meltdown occurred for a wide range of reasons. One of them was what David Graeber called the ‘impersonal arithmetic’ of the exchanges. Throughout the twentieth century and onwards, the financial sector has grown disembedded and disconnected from the real economy through both formalization – at the expense of embedded relationships – and the growing use of novel and more complex financial instruments. As a result, there is simply little flexibility and input left.

This chapter presents a detailed overview of the area studied in the book. It focuses on the seigneurie of Delle and the seigneurie of Florimont between 1650 and 1790 with special attention given to the social and economic life of these communities. This chapter presents the milieu in which dwellers in the south of Alsace lived and experienced credit. It gives the necessary background to comprehend the making of credit.

A new data set shows the evolution of capital ratios for the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Germany. The chapter questions the accuracy of capital/assets ratios and argues that cross-country comparisons of capital ratios are of little explanatory value without a historical narrative. Firstly, the capital/assets ratios used by the academic literature usually consider paid-up capital and disclosed reserves only. However, the total liability of shareholders can go beyond the paid-up capital (double or unlimited liability), which influences the level of capital/assets ratios. Secondly, accounting standards allowed the extensive build-up of hidden reserves in the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The chapter shows that the capital strength of banks, considering hidden reserves and shareholder liabilities, is underestimated. Existing publications comparing capital/assets ratios on an international level neglect such issues. Additionally, the chapter analyses structural changes in the assets of British, Swiss, and US banks using the Basel I framework of 1988 for a historical simulation.

This chapter begins with the First World War, when camels were used in unprecedented numbers by fighting armies. The First World War was the first step in the gradual transformation of the economic and political geography of the Middle East. It had deep influence on caravan trade and, following the caravans during the war and in the midst of borders negotiations, one can see how transnational and national form in parallel through overland mobility. With the following one, this chapter benefits from a dense and heterogeneous source base, which allows for the inclusion of lively narratives in order to give a full extent to Middle Eastern experiences of these transformations.