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The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. By Craig Muldrew. London: Macmillan, 1998. Pp. xvii, 453. $69.95.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2001

David Harris Sacks
Affiliation:
Reed College

Abstract

Craig Muldrew has written an imaginatively conceived and richly researched study of the meaning and practice of “credit” in early modern England. “Credit” today is understood almost exclusively in value-neutral terms, and applies principally to functional economic activities. Directed towards individuals, it refers primarily to their financial assets and their capacities to assume interest-bearing debt. This meaning was only entering into use in the later sixteenth century; it became common only in the later seventeenth. “Credit” in the medieval and early modern era referred paradigmatically to a person's moral worth, as this book abundantly demonstrates.

Type
BOOK REVIEW
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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