Why read The Moral Economy?

Book cover of The Moral Economy: Poverty, Credit, and Trust in Early Modern Europe

Book description

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,…

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European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Moral Economy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Henry C. Clark

Author

This major synthesis broadens the canvas to Europe as a whole, especially Western and Northwest Europe. On the continent, peasant culture was more prominent than in England, and the French historian Fontaine—who has also written ground-breaking studies of peddling and the second-hand trade—shows vividly how resilient, enterprising, even manipulative ordinary Europeans in village and mountain could be in maneuvering their way through economic life. “In early modern Europe,” she writes at one point, “everyone was more or less a merchant”—which, of course, is exactly what Adam Smith had said.

From Henry's list on understanding where “capitalism” came from.