In seventeenth-century France, families were essential as both agents and objects in the shaping of capitalism and growth of powerful states -- phenomena that were critical to the making of the modern world. For household members, neighbors, and authorities, the family business of the management of a broad range of tangible and intangible resources -- law, borrowing, violence, and marital status among them -- was central to political stability, economic productivity and cultural morality. The business of family life involved relationships that could be intimate (family and neighbors),...
In seventeenth-century France, families were essential as both agents and objects in the shaping of capitalism and growth of powerful states -- phenom...