Abstract

The structure of international trade tells us much about the participants’ strengths and weaknesses, overall, and sector by sector; its evolution illuminates, in particular, the diffusion of technology, the catching-up of the once backward. In the case of post-Unification Italy, exceptionally, the official trade statistics do not document trade in ships; even more exceptionally, that omission can be made good from other sources. This article reconstructs those trade flows, and investigates their implications for the ongoing debates on Italy’s early industrialisation.