In preindustrial Europe, as in developing countries today, much of the population had to struggle to survive. The livelihood of all those who lived by the work of their hands was highly insecure. This book considers the "laboring poor" not simply as victims, but as actively pursuing a whole range of strategies for survival. Sometimes, strategies were successfully integrated within a household, while in other instances the domestic group was split and members preferred to pursue individual strategies. This illuminating book examines the European past using case studies from present-day...
In preindustrial Europe, as in developing countries today, much of the population had to struggle to survive. The livelihood of all those who lived by...
The Moral Economy examines the nexus of poverty, credit, and trust in early modern Europe. It starts with an examination of poverty, the need for credit, and the lending practices of different social groups. It then reconstructs the battles between the Churches and the State around the ban on usury, and analyzes the institutions created to eradicate usury and the informal petty financial economy that developed as a result. Laurence Fontaine unpacks the values that structured these lending practices, namely, the two competing cultures of credit that coexisted, fought, and sometimes merged: the...
The Moral Economy examines the nexus of poverty, credit, and trust in early modern Europe. It starts with an examination of poverty, the need for cred...
