Dr Edmond Smith is Presidential Fellow in Economic Cultures and The University of Manchester. Their research seeks to uncover the origins of our globalised world. Instead of focusing on states, or empires, or corporations, Smith peeks under the hood of these seemingly monolithic, homogenous entities to find the individuals who were at the beating heart of this process. Whether these are the rock-salt entrepreneurs of Ghana, Gujarati brokers haggling over silk in Surat, or English merchants planning to colonise the Arctic with Lapp settlers, each has their own stories to tell – and all contributed to the creation of the global, connected world we know today. Smith's research has been published in numerous academic journals and books, and they have received prestigious funding awards from the British Academy, Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council, among others, that has allowed them to undertake cutting edge research into histories of capitalism and globalisation. They have also been elected to serve as Council Member for the Hakluyt Society (2017-21) and the Economic History Society (2021-present).
