Overview

How an antisemitic legend gave voice to widespread fears surrounding the expansion of private credit in Western capitalismThe Promise and Peril of Credit takes an incisive look at pivotal episodes in the West's centuries-long struggle to define the place of private finance in the social and political order. It does so through the lens of a persistent legend about Jews and money that reflected the anxieties surrounding the rise of impersonal credit markets.By the close of the Middle Ages, new and sophisticated credit instruments made it easier for European merchants to move funds across the globe. Bills of exchange were by far the most arcane of these financial innovations. Intangible and written in a cryptic language, they fueled world trade but also lured naive investors into risky businesses. Francesca Trivellato recounts how the invention of these abstruse credit contracts was falsely attributed to Jews, and how this story gave voice to deep-seated fears about the unseen perils of the new paper economy. She locates the legend's earliest version in a seventeenth-century handbook on maritime law and traces its legacy all the way to the work of the founders of modern social theory-from Marx to Weber and Sombart.Deftly weaving together economic, legal, social, cultural, and intellectual history, Trivellato vividly describes how Christian writers drew on the story to define and redefine what constituted the proper boundaries of credit in a modern world increasingly dominated by finance.

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Reviews

oeBrilliantly illuminating the dialectic between the perception of bills of exchange as mysterious and secretive instruments and the stereotype of Jewish merchants as deceptive and dishonest, Trivellato opens up new perspectives on the early modern vision for a morally legitimate commercial society. This lucidly written and deeply erudite book is a rich and rewarding read. Carl Wennerlind, author of Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620 1720 oeThis book is a veritable tour de force. Trivellato turns a seemingly simple question about the genesis and propagation of an erroneous legend about Jews into a deeply researched and fascinating interrogation of the complex relationship between ideas, their authors and contexts, and social fears about markets. Regina Grafe, author of Distant Tyranny: Markets, Power, and Backwardness in Spain, 1650 1800

This book is a veritable tour de force. Trivellato turns a seemingly simple question about the genesis and propagation of an erroneous legend about Jews into a deeply researched and fascinating interrogation of the complex relationship between ideas, their authors and contexts, and social fears about markets. --Regina Grafe, author of Distant Tyranny: Markets, Power, and Backwardness in Spain, 1650-1800 Brilliantly illuminating the dialectic between the perception of bills of exchange as mysterious and secretive instruments and the stereotype of Jewish merchants as deceptive and dishonest, Trivellato opens up new perspectives on the early modern vision for a morally legitimate commercial society. This lucidly written and deeply erudite book is a rich and rewarding read. --Carl Wennerlind, author of Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720

Author Information

Francesca Trivellato is professor in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is the author of The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period.

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