The active role of women in the labor force is not limited to recent decades, or even to the last century. As William Chester Jordan amply demonstrates in Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Developing Societies, women in premodern times played an integral part both as a source of labor and as participants in lending and borrowing. In this wide-ranging and provocative study, the author assesses the overall significance of women's work in medieval and early modern Europe, and in colonial and postcolonial societies. While earlier studies have concentrated on women in agriculture or craftwork, Jordan investigates consumption lending and borrowing among women in the European Middle Ages, female investment in early modern Europe, and, in a final section, the role of African and Caribbean marketwomen and their provision of and access to credit. By viewing the historical situation, Jordan sheds light on contemporary concerns about commercialization, the transformation of rural society, and industrialization. He provides a historical and comparative context for some of the current issues that plague the twentieth-century female work force. By understanding the role of gender in such an important aspect of traditional life as credit relationships, Jordan advances an ongoing reexamination of the issue in general. This work will be of interest to students and scholars of medieval and early modern European, African, and Caribbean history; anthropology; and women's studies.

This book explores the evolution of credit and financing in Europe from the Middle Ages through to Modern Times. It engages with the distinct political, economic and institutional frameworks of the examined areas (England, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Turkey) and discusses how these affected the credit market. It covers a wide range of different types of lending and borrowing instruments, the destination of capital, the way it was raised, and the impact it had on local or national economies in a very long run. Presented in two parts, part one of the book focuses on credit markets in the preindustrial age, in particular the period before the advent of modern joint stock banks. Part two examines the evolution of credit at the time of the emergence of modern banks. This volume will be of interest to academics and researchers in the field of finance who are interested in the historic evolution of credit and the credit market.

This book explores the gendered nature of the historical emergence of modern finance markets and their expansion to a now global scale. It analyses the ways in which women were and still are marginalized in terms of financial activity and associated structures of power which play a critical role in shaping the contemporary global political economy.

"The Oxford Handbook of Economic Imperialism examines unequal commercial, trade, and investment gains at the international level and explores how countries and nations can have exploitative relations. The book contains thirty-four chapters written by academics and experts in the field of international political economy. The chapters in the Handbook look at the history of economic imperialism from the early modern age to the present. They demonstrate the persistence of economic imperialism in today's postcolonial world and the enduring control wielded by great powers even after the end of formal empire. The book reveals how emerging powers are expanding economic control in new geographic and geopolitical contexts. The Handbook highlights the significance of economic imperialism in the structures, relations, processes, and ideas that help sustain poverty and conflict worldwide"--

This study aims to provide new insights into the connections between maritime history and global history. It demonstrates the significance of maritime activity as a conduit of global exchange by examining local, national, and international interdependencies and trade networks, and a broad range of time periods, geographical areas, and various sub-divisions of maritime historical research. It is composed of ten essays, with an introductory chapter and concluding chapter. The first five essays discuss the effects globalisation on shipping in the early modern period; the following three discuss maritime transportation and the economics of industrialisation from the nineteenth century to the present day; the next discusses the impact of global entrepreneurialism on maritime history; the penultimate discusses the connections and variables between maritime and global history; and the concluding chapter examines the theoretical assumptions surrounding the two disciplines, using the globalisation of Early Modern Spain as a case study to do so. The study demonstrates that the core strength of maritime history is its essential place in global history, and that the process of globalisation began at sea.