The rise and fall of the Hanseatic League
Today, we typically think of coalitions in the context of modern electoral politics. So it might be surprising that one of the greatest case studies in the history of coalitions is a community of medieval German merchants known as the Hansa. Starting as individual traveling traders, the Hansa built up coalitions for collective bargaining, collective action, and collective security. Through this process, they formed Northern Europe’s first ever long-distance trade network. Without corporate str