On the Word of a Jew

On the Word of a Jew
Author: Nina Caputo
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2019-01-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253037433

Fourteen essays examining the dynamics of trust and mistrust in Jewish history from biblical times to today. What, if anything, does religion have to do with how reliable we perceive one another to be? When and how did religious difference matter in the past when it came to trusting the word of another? In today’s world, we take for granted that being Jewish should not matter when it comes to acting or engaging in the public realm, but this was not always the case. The essays in this volume look at how and when Jews were recognized as reliable and trustworthy in the areas of jurisprudence, medicine, politics, academia, culture, business, and finance. As they explore issues of trust and mistrust, the authors reveal how caricatures of Jews move through religious, political, and legal systems. While the volume is framed as an exploration of Jewish and Christian relations, it grapples with perceptions of Jews and Jewishness from the biblical period to today, from the Middle East to North America, and in Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions. Taken together these essays reflect on the mechanics of trust, and sometimes mistrust, in everyday interactions involving Jews. “Highly readable and compelling, this volume marks a broadly significant contribution to Jewish studies through the underexplored dynamic of trust.” —Rebekah Klein-Pejšová, author of Mapping Jewish Loyalties in Interwar Slovakia “An exemplary compendium on how to engage with a major concept—trust—while providing load of gripping new information, new theorization of otherwise well-covered material, and meticulous attention to textual and sociological sources.” —Gil Anidjar, author of Blood: A Critique of Christianity

The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century

The Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century
Author: Rene J. Barendse
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 566
Release: 2016-07-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317458362

The Arabian Seas is a magisterial work on the world political economy (trade, war, power) that explores the intersect of the worlds of Islam (including South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and East Africa) and the European world-economy (particularly the seafaring Portuguese, Dutch, and British) on the eve of the modern world system. It is likely to become a classic in its field and one of the pillars of the emerging literature in recent years that has begun to recast our understanding of the "early modern history" of Asia and the world economy, underlining the early and long predominance of Asia in the world economy and showing the long and deep ties between European and Asian economic and military interactions. This work centrally addresses current debates on the nature of the early modern world system and the relative strengths of East and West. There are no competitors for this book, but it may be compared with Braudel's masterful studies of the Mediterranean in the sense that it does for the Arabian Seas (Indian Ocean World) spanning South Asia, the Middle East, and the East African Coast and beyond what Braudel did for the Mediterranean.

Companies, Commerce and Merchants

Companies, Commerce and Merchants
Author: Sushil Chaudhury
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351997556

This anthology vastly expands our understanding of the much-misconstructed history of early modern Bengal and seeks to redress the misconception that economic decline in Bengal set in even before the British conquest of the region. Based on original sources from European and Indian archives and libraries, the essays underline that Bengal had a prosperous economy in the mid-eighteenth century and was suffering from neither economic nor political crisis. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Most Necessary Luxuries

Most Necessary Luxuries
Author: Ronald M. Berger
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780271043432

Between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, gilds were the basis of industrial and commercial organization in England. Surprisingly, however, the disappearance of gilds has been neglected by historians. In The Most Necessary Luxuries, Ronald Berger uses the Mercers' Company of Coventry to follow the eclipse of an entire trading community in one of England's premier medieval cities and manufacturing centers. Berger charts the difficulties faced by mercers and grocers in a growing capitalist economy and discusses their unsuccessful efforts to maintain their prosperity. The book helps to explain both the development of a new urban system and the rise of shops in Midland England. It shows how shops replaced markets and fairs and uses the economics of the fashion trades to explain why provincial shops could not overcome the competition put forward by the metropolis. The Most Necessary Luxuries unites the fields of social, urban, and economic history to explain the decline of a medieval city, the evolution of the English urban middle class, and the transformation from an amalgam of wealthy wholesalers and distributors of luxury goods to an association of mere shopkeepers. It demonstrates that the rise of commercial capitalism between 1550 and 1700 in England undermined the medieval economy that was based on protected markets, restrictive trading practices, and entrenched oligarchies that dominated towns.