Casualties of credit : the English financial revolution, 1620-1720 / Carl Wennerlind.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wennerlind, Carl.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Credit--England--History--17th century.

Credit.

Finance--England--History--17th century.

Finance.

Economics--England--History--17th century.

Economics.

England--Economic conditions--17th century.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (361 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Modern credit, developed during the financial revolution of 1620-1720, laid the foundation for England's political, military, and economic dominance in the eighteenth century. Possessed of a generally circulating credit currency, a modern national debt, and sophisticated financial markets, England developed a fiscal-military state that instilled fear in its foes and facilitated the first industrial revolution. Yet a number of casualties followed in the wake of this new system of credit. Not only was it precarious and prone to accidents, but it depended on trust, public opinion, and ultimately violence. Carl Wennerlind reconstructs the intellectual context within which the financial revolution was conceived. He traces how the discourse on credit evolved and responded to the Glorious Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, the founding of the Bank of England, the Great Recoinage, armed conflicts with Louis XIV, the Whig-Tory party wars, the formation of the public sphere, and England's expanded role in the slave trade. Debates about credit engaged some of London's most prominent turn-of-the-century intellectuals, including Daniel Defoe, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Jonathan Swift and Christopher Wren. Wennerlind guides us through these conversations, toward an understanding of how contemporaries viewed the precariousness of credit and the role of violence-war, enslavement, and executions-in the safeguarding of trust.

Contents:

The scarcity of money problem and the birth of English political economy

The alchemical foundations of credit

The epistemology of credit

Capital punishment in defense of credit

Public credit and the public sphere

The South Sea Company and the restoration of public credit.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674268319

0674268318

9780674062665

0674062663

OCLC:

761326713