Peter Dickson's important study of the origins and development of the system of public borrowing which enabled Great Britain to emerge as a world power in the eighteenth century has long been out of print. The present print-on-demand volume reprints the book in the 1993 version published by Gregg Revivals, which made significant alterations to the 1967 original. These included a new introduction reviewing recent work, and, in particular, 33 pages of detailed annotations and corrections, which, taken together, justified its status as a second edition.
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.
The financial revolution marked the end of medieval England, and through the major institutions such as Lloyds and the Bank of England, laid the foundations on which England's emergence as a world power was based. The subsequent changes radically altered English politics, and this book aims to provide a concise guide to them. The series provides analysis of complex issues and problems in important A level Modern History topics. Using supporting documents, the books aim to give students a clear account of historical facts and an understanding of the central themes and differing interpretations. It is aimed at A level, first year university students and those at polytechnics and colleges of higher education. It should also be of interest to the general public who have an interest in British history.
In recent decades, historians of early-modern Europe, and above all those who study the eighteenth century, have elaborated the concept of what has been called the 'fiscal-military state'. This is a state whose international effectiveness was founded upon the development of large armed forces, whose performance and supply necessitated both further administrative development and the provision of large sums, the raising of which involved unprecedented levels of taxation and borrowing by governments. The present collection of essays, by leading authorities in their individual fields, all of whom have published widely on their chosen topic, explores the subject of the fiscal-military state by focusing on its leading exemplars in eighteenth-century Europe: Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia. It also includes a chapter on the Savoyard state (the kingdom of Sardinia), a lesser power whose career illuminates by comparison developments elsewhere. In addition, and rather unusually, a further chapter considers the fiscal-military state in a broader, comparative international context, in the arena of international relations. Each chapter provides a summary of the state of knowledge regarding the fiscal-military state debate insofar as it relates to the state under consideration. As well as contributing to that debate, they take matters further by systematically analysing the sources of wealth and income, and the way these were tapped, and the broader impact that this attempt to extract resources had on society and the state, both in the short and longer term. The differing patterns, and the variety of models of fiscal-military state makes for ease of comparison across Europe, making the volume an invaluable resource to both students and researchers alike.
This work describes the massive expansion in public debt brought about during the 'Financial Revolution' in 18th-century Britain, Ireland, and America. It discusses how debt was financed and new credit instruments introduced for the first time in this period.
Winner, 2010 Donald Murphy Prize for a Distinguished First Book, American Conference on Irish Studies Renowned as one of the most brilliant satirists ever, Jonathan Swift has long fascinated Hibernophiles beyond the shores of the Emerald Isle. Sean Moore's examination of Swift's writings and the economics behind the distribution of his work elucidates the humorist's crucial role in developing a renewed sense of nationalism among the Irish during the eighteenth century. Taking Swift's Irish satires, such as A Modest Proposal and the Drapier's Letters, as examples of anticolonial discourse, Moore unpacks the author's carefully considered published words and his deliberate drive to liberate the Dublin publishing industry from England's shadow to argue that the writer was doing nothing less than creating a national print media. He points to the actions of Anglo-Irish colonial subjects at the outset of Britain's financial revolution; inspired by Swift's dream of a sovereign Ireland, these men and women harnessed the printing press to disseminate ideas of cultural autonomy and defend the country's economic rights. Doing so, Moore contends, imbued the island with a sense of Irishness that led to a feeling of independence from England and ultimately gave the Irish a surprising degree of financial autonomy. Applying postcolonial, new economic, and book history approaches to eighteenth-century studies, Swift, the Book, and the Irish Financial Revolution effectively links the era's critiques of empire to the financial and legal motives for decolonization. Scholars of colonialism, postcolonialism, Irish studies, Atlantic studies, Swift, and the history of the book will find Moore's eye-opening arguments original and compelling.
After 1688, Britain underwent a revolution in public finance, and the cost of borrowing declined sharply. Leading scholars have argued that easier credit for the government, made possible by better property-rights protection, lead to a rapid expansion of private credit. The Industrial Revolution, according to this view, is the result of the preceding revolution in public finance. In Prometheus Shackled, prominent economic historians Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth examine this hypothesis using new, detailed archival data from 18th century banks. They conclude the opposite: the financial revolution led to an explosion of public debt, but it stifled private credit. This led to markedly slower growth in the English economy. Temin and Voth collected detailed data from several goldsmith banks: Child's, Gosling's, Freame and Gould, Hoare's, and Duncombe and Kent. The excellent records from Hoare's, founded by Sir Richard Hoare in 1672, offer particular insight. Numerous entrants into the banking business tried their hand at deposit-taking and lending in the early 17th century; few survived and fewer thrived. Hoare's and a small group of competitors did both. Temin and Voth chart the growth of the successful banks in the face of frequent wars and heavy-handed regulations. Their new data allows insights into the interaction between financial and economic development. Government regulations such as (a sharply lower) maximum interest rate caused severe misallocation of credit, and a misguided attempt to lighten the nation's debt burden led directly to the South Sea Bubble in 1720. Frequent wars caused banks to call in loans, resulting in a sharply slower economic growth rate. Based on detailed micro-data, the authors present conclusive evidence that wartime borrowing crowded out investment. Far from fostering economic development, England's financial revolution after 1688 did much to stifle it -- the Hanoverian "warfare state" was a key reason for slow growth during Britain's Industrial Revolution. Prometheus Shackled is a revealing new take on one of the most important periods of economic and financial development.
The financial revolution marked the end of medieval England, and through the major institutions such as Lloyds and the Bank of England, laid the foundations on which England's emergence as a world power was based. The subsequent changes radically altered English politics, and this book aims to provide a concise guide to them. The series provides analysis of complex issues and problems in important A level Modern History topics. Using supporting documents, the books aim to give students a clear account of historical facts and an understanding of the central themes and differing interpretations. It is aimed at A level, first year university students and those at polytechnics and colleges of higher education. It should also be of interest to the general public who have an interest in British history.
"While many have examined how economic interests motivate political action, Bruce Carruthers explores the reverse relationship by focusing on how political interests shape a market. He sets his inquiry within the context of late Stuart England, when an active stock market emerged and when Whig and Tory parties vied for control of a newly empowered Parliament. Probing such connections between politics and markets at both institutional and individual levels, Carruthers ultimately argues that competitive markets are not inherently apolitical spheres guided by economic interest but rather ongoing creations of social actors pursuing multiple goals." -- BACK COVER.
Silent Partners restores women to their place in the story of England's Financial Revolution. Women were active participants in London's first stock market beginning in the 1690s and continuing through the eighteenth century. Whether playing the state lottery, investing in government funds for retirement, or speculating in company stocks, women regularly comprised between a fifth and a third of public investors. These female investors ranged from London servants to middling tradeswomen, up to provincial gentlewomen and peeresses of the realm. Amy Froide finds that there was no single female investor type, rather some women ran risks and speculated in stocks while others sought out low-risk, low-return options for their retirement years. Not only did women invest for themselves, their financial knowledge and ability meant that family members often relied on wives, sisters, and aunts to act as their investing agents. Moreover, women's investing not only benefitted themselves and their families, it also aided the nation. Women's capital was a critical component of Britain's rise to economic, military, and colonial dominance in the eighteenth century. Focusing on the period between 1690 and 1750, and utilizing women's account books and financial correspondence, as well as the records of joint stock companies, the Bank of England, and the Exchequer, Silent Partners provides the first comprehensive overview of the significant role women played in the birth of financial capitalism in Britain.
