Credit, Alchemy, and Death: Histories of the British Financial Revolution
FAIN: FT-56411-08
Carl Wennerlind
Barnard College (New York, NY 10027-6909)
Credit, Alchemy, and Death: Histories of the British Financial Revolution examines the plethora of societal and intellectual changes that took place during the long seventeenth-century and facilitated the formation of a culture of credit in Britain. While other scholars have pointed to the economic features of the financial revolution, my book illuminates the complex societal and political changes necessary for a culture of credit to emerge. By showing that this process was not solely an economic phenomenon, but one that also involved changes in scientific, political, legal, and colonial thinking and practices, my book provides a new understanding of the origins of credit and the implications of its rapid expansion during this period.