Preface: "Marian Małowist : an appreciation" / Immanuel Wallerstein -- Introduction: "I chased after Polish grain all over the world" / Jean Batou and Henryk Szlajfer -- Commercial capitalism and agriculture -- Merchant credit and the putting-out system : rural production during the Middle Ages -- Some remarks on the role of merchant capital in Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages -- Kaffa : the Genoese colony in Crimea and the Eastern question (1453-1475) -- Levantine trade with Eastern Europe in the 16th Century : some problems -- Poland, Russia and Western trade in the 15th and 16th centuries -- The problem of the inequality of economic development in Europe in the later Middle Ages -- Problems of the growth of the national economy of Central-Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages -- East and West Europe in the 13th-16th centuries : confrontation of social and economic structures -- Economic and political divisions in medieval and early modern Europe -- Eastern Europe and the countries of the Iberian Peninsula : parallels and contrasts -- The social and economic stability of the Western Sudan in the Middle Ages -- The Western Sudan in the Middle Ages : underdevelopment in the empires of the Western Sudan Hopkins-Małowist debate -- Social and economic life in Timur's empire -- New Saray, capital of the Golden Horde -- The foundations of European expansion in Africa in the 16th century : Europe, Maghreb and Western Sudan -- Portuguese expansion in Africa and European economy at the turn of the 15th century -- Gulf of Guinea countries in the 15th and early 16th century.