Histories of Economic Life¹⁶

Jeremy Adelman, Sunil Amrith, Emma Rothschild, and Francesca Trivellato, Series Editors

This series presents the work of a new generation of scholars writing the history of economic life as shaped by ideas, concepts, expectations, and sentiments. Featured titles traverse the history of economic thought and lived experience in widely different social circumstances, trying to illuminate the experiences of individuals and groups.

No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe Rowan Dorin
A groundbreaking new history of the shared legacy of expulsion among Jews and Christian moneylenders in late medieval Europe
Winner of the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, Canadian Historical Association
Desert Edens: Colonial Climate Engineering in the Age of Anxiety Philipp Lehmann
How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages Shane Bobrycki
The importance of collective behavior in early medieval Europe
A Third Path: Corporatism in Brazil and Portugal Melissa Teixeira
How Brazil and Portugal experimented with corporatism as a “third path” between laissez-faire capitalism and communism
Power and Possession in the Russian Revolution Anne O'Donnell
A history that reframes the Bolsheviks’ unprecedented attempts to abolish private property after the revolutions of 1917
Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China's Maritime Frontier Melissa Macauley
A pioneering history that transforms our understanding of the colonial era and China's place in it
A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century David Todd
How France's elites used soft power to pursue their imperial ambitions in the nineteenth century
Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India Aditya Balasubramanian
The unknown history of economic conservatism in India after independence
Pirates and Publishers: A Social History of Copyright in Modern China Fei-Hsien Wang
A detailed historical look at how copyright was negotiated and protected by authors, publishers, and the state in late imperial and modern China
Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People's Republic of China Arunabh Ghosh
A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People’s Republic of China
Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia Diana S. Kim
A history of opium's dramatic fall from favor in colonial Southeast Asia
Sorting Out the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental States in the Americas Amy C. Offner
The untold story of how welfare and development programs in the United States and Latin America produced the instruments of their own destruction
The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society Francesca Trivellato
How an antisemitic legend gave voice to widespread fears surrounding the expansion of private credit in Western capitalism
Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America Joshua Specht
How beef conquered America and gave rise to the modern industrial food system
A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic Rohit De
It has long been contended that the Indian Constitution of 1950, a document in English created by elite consensus, has had little influence on India’s greater population. Drawing upon the previously unexplored records of the Supreme...
A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta Tariq Omar Ali
Before the advent of synthetic fibers and cargo containers, jute sacks were the preferred packaging material of global trade, transporting the world's grain, cotton, sugar, tobacco, coffee, wool, guano, and bacon. Jute was the...