The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England

This book is an excellent work of scholarship. It seeks to redefine the early modern English economy by rejecting the concept of capitalism, and instead explores the cultural meaning of credit which resulted from the way in which it was economically structured. It is a major argument of the book that money was used only in a limited number of exchanges, and that credit in terms of household reputation was a "cultural currency" of trust used to transact most business. As the market expanded in the late-sixteenth century such trust became harder to maintain, leading to an explosion of debt litigation, which in turn resulted in social relations being partially redefined in terms of contractual equality.

Author: C. Muldrew
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 11/11/1998
Pages: 453
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.54lbs
Size: 8.86h x 5.77w x 1.57d
ISBN: 9780312215651

About the Author
CRAIG MULDREW is Lecturer in the History Department and member of Queens' College, University of Cambridge. He has been a lecturer at University of Exeter and a Jean Monnet fellow at the European University Institute, Florence.

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