Person

Patrick van der Geest is a PhD Student at the Department of History. Over the next four years, he will study how family firms operating on a global scale drove the transition from "early modern" colonial to "modern" imperial exploitation already in the eighteenth century through the case of the Scots-Dutch merchant bank Hope & Co. His thesis expands on his master’s dissertation, which examined the interaction between Hope & Co.’s business strategy between 1756–80 and the credit crisis of 1772–73. Since graduating, he has worked as a data assistant on a project concerning the slavery connections of Hope & Co. and R. Mees & Zoonen at the International Institute of Social History. Additionally, he was a personal assistant to Professor Cátia Antunes, book reviews editor of the International Journal of Maritime History, project assistant of Linnaeus University's Global Archives Online, a freelance editor, and a supply teacher at Lund International School.