ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the concept at the very heart of trade: the exchange. It begins by considering the idea of ‘productive exchange’; that is, exchange which added a value to the things being exchanged, so that the circulation of goods and money came to be seen as a goal in itself. The second part of the chapter considers London as a site of global exchange. Literary culture was deployed to reimagine London’s history from the Romans onwards into a narrative of mercantile importance, which was used to address contemporary concerns over wealth and governance.
