Catia Antunes, PhD (2004), Leiden University, is Associate Professor of Early Modern Economic and Social History at Leiden University, The Netherlands. She is the author of Globalization in the Early Modern Period (2004), with Francesca Trivellato and Leor Halevi (eds.), Religion and Trade (2014) and with Jos Gommans (eds.), Exploring the Dutch Empire (2015). She has been awarded a VIDI-NWO grant and a European Research Council Starting Grant.

Amélia Polónia, PhDC (2000), University of Porto, is Associate Professor of Portuguese Overseas Expansion at the Univerity of Porto, Portugal. She is Vice-President of the International Maritime Economic History Association and has been Principal Investigator of Hisportos (POCTI/HAR/36417/2000) and DynCoopNet (a ESF-TECT INCORE project). She is the author of A Expansão Ultramarina numa perspectiva local. O porto de Vila do Conde no século XVI (2007); The environmental impacts of the historical uses of the seas in the First Global Age [http://www.eolss.net] (2014), co-editor of Maritime History as Global History (2011), with Maria Fusaro and Seaports in the First Global Age ,1500-1800. Portuguese Agents, Networks and Interactions (2016), with Cátia Antunes.

Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central state. This focus takes readers into a world of cooperative strategies worldwide that emphasises the role played by individuals, rather than institutions, in the overseas expansion and consequent development of European empires. While unveiling the practices and mechanisms of cooperation between individuals, this volume show cases the role played by individuals for the creation, development and maintenance of self-organized networks in the Early Modern period. Applying new conceptual and theoretical inputs, this book values the contributions of different ‘worlds’, bringing to the fore the interactions of Europeans and non-Europeans, Christians and non-Christians, people living within-, on- or just outside the border of empire.