The Social Life Of Money In The English Past

A study of how people understood and used money from 1630 to 1800 in England. Deborah Valenze shows how money became involved in relations between people in ways that moved beyond what we understand as its purely economic functions.

A survey of Defoe's career and writings aimed at students, with readings of his major works.

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2017 The first social and cultural history of vagrancy between 1650 and 1750, this book combines sources from across England and the Atlantic world to describe the shifting and desperate experiences of the very poorest and most marginalized of people in early modernity; the outcasts, the wandering destitute, the disabled veteran, the aged labourer, the solitary pregnant woman on the road and those referred to as vagabonds and beggars are all explored in this comprehensive account of the subject. Using a rich array of archival and literary sources, Vagrancy in English Culture and Society, 1650-1750 offers a history not only of the experiences of vagrants themselves, but also of how the settled 'better sort' perceived vagrancy, how it was culturally represented in both popular and elite literature as a shadowy underworld of dissembling rogues, gypsies, and pedlars, and how these representations powerfully affected the lives of vagrants themselves. Hitchcock's is an important study for all scholars and students interested in the social and cultural history of early modern England.

In Forging Nations, Blaazer studies the relationships between money, power, and nationality in England, Scotland, and Ireland from the first attempts to unify their currencies following the Union of the Crowns in 1603 to the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Through successive crises spanning four centuries, Forging Nations examines critical struggles over monetary power between the state and its creditors, and within and between nations during the long, multifaceted process of creating the United Kingdom as a monetary as well as a political union. It shows how and why centuries of monetary dysfunction and conflict eventually gave way to the era of the sterling gold standard, when elite and popular beliefs about money converged around a set of almost unassailable monetary dogmas that transcended differences of nationality, party, and class. Sustained by a mixture of historical myths and imperial hubris, this consensus effortlessly reinforced the authority and served the interests of the monetary elite, even after its economic foundations had collapsed under the pressure of war and international competition. The book concludes by showing how the end of the UK's global hegemony and the prospect of Scottish independence have resuscitated historical differences between England, Ireland, and Scotland in attitudes to currency's role in defining national identity, while the Global Financial Crisis has revived forgotten debates over the nature of money and monetary power.

A reevaluation of what money is—and what it might be Questions about the nature of money have gained a new urgency in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Even as many people have less of it, there are more forms and systems of money, from local currencies and social lending to mobile money and Bitcoin. Yet our understanding of what money is—and what it might be—hasn't kept pace. In The Social Life of Money, Nigel Dodd, one of today’s leading sociologists of money, reformulates the theory of the subject for a postcrisis world in which new kinds of money are proliferating. What counts as legitimate action by central banks that issue currency and set policy? What underpins the right of nongovernmental actors to create new currencies? And how might new forms of money surpass or subvert government-sanctioned currencies? To answer such questions, The Social Life of Money takes a fresh and wide-ranging look at modern theories of money. One of the book’s central concerns is how money can be wrested from the domination and mismanagement of banks and governments and restored to its fundamental position as the "claim upon society" described by Georg Simmel. But rather than advancing yet another critique of the state-based monetary system, The Social Life of Money draws out the utopian aspects of money and the ways in which its transformation could in turn transform society, politics, and economics. The book also identifies the contributions of thinkers who have not previously been thought of as monetary theorists—including Nietzsche, Benjamin, Bataille, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Derrida, and Hardt and Negri. The result provides new ways of thinking about money that seek not only to understand it but to change it. Complete with a new preface that discusses recent developments in the evolution of money, the book draws out the ways in which its transformation could in turn radically alter society, politics, and economics.

A reevaluation of what money is—and what it might be Questions about the nature of money have gained a new urgency in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Even as many people have less of it, there are more forms and systems of money, from local currencies and social lending to mobile money and Bitcoin. Yet our understanding of what money is—and what it might be—hasn't kept pace. In The Social Life of Money, Nigel Dodd, one of today’s leading sociologists of money, reformulates the theory of the subject for a postcrisis world in which new kinds of money are proliferating. What counts as legitimate action by central banks that issue currency and set policy? What underpins the right of nongovernmental actors to create new currencies? And how might new forms of money surpass or subvert government-sanctioned currencies? To answer such questions, The Social Life of Money takes a fresh and wide-ranging look at modern theories of money. One of the book’s central concerns is how money can be wrested from the domination and mismanagement of banks and governments and restored to its fundamental position as the "claim upon society" described by Georg Simmel. But rather than advancing yet another critique of the state-based monetary system, The Social Life of Money draws out the utopian aspects of money and the ways in which its transformation could in turn transform society, politics, and economics. The book also identifies the contributions of thinkers who have not previously been thought of as monetary theorists—including Nietzsche, Benjamin, Bataille, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Derrida, and Hardt and Negri. The result provides new ways of thinking about money that seek not only to understand it but to change it.

A New Companion to Renaissance Drama provides an invaluable summary of past and present scholarship surrounding the most popular and influential literary form of its time. Original interpretations from leading scholars set the scene for important paths of future inquiry. A colorful, comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the material conditions of Renaissance plays, England's most important dramatic period Contributors are both established and emerging scholars, with many leading international figures in the discipline Offers a unique approach by organizing the chapters by cultural context, theatre history, genre studies, theoretical applications, and material studies Chapters address newest departures and future directions for Renaissance drama scholarship Arthur Kinney is a world-renowned figure in the field

This book discusses the disruptive power of the concept of taste in the works of a number of important British writers, including poets such as Alexander Pope and Joseph Warton, philosophical historians such as David Hume and Anna Barbauld, and novelists such as Frances Burney and William Beckford.