Kindle Price: $42.35

Save $12.65 (23%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Carl Wennerlind
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620–1720 Kindle Edition

by Carl Wennerlind (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 4 ratings
See all formats and editions

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.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    361 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  5. Publication date
    November 30, 2011
  6. File size
    1072 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
Next page
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Credit makes the world go around but, as recent events have shown, it can also bring it crashing down. By revealing credit’s perilous partners in early modern England, among them alchemy, slavery, and death, Carl Wennerlind’s richly documented study boldly revises the cultural history of the Financial Revolution and puts our current calamities into a salutary long-term perspective.”―David Armitage, author of The Ideological Origins of the British Empire

“Carl Wennerlind has written a timely and important book explaining why England forged a financial revolution that not only allowed it to become the leading imperial power but also the first industrial nation. Wennerlind shows that state activity was central to overcoming England’s financial limitations. But that state activity in turn depended on innovations in scientific understanding. Ideas were central to explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the new world of finance. Based on exhaustive research, but written in a lively and engaging style, Wennerlind demonstrates that economic affairs should never be treated separately from political, scientific, or moral debates. No one interested in the origins of the modern world, or in the contemporary debt crisis, should miss this book.”―Steven Pincus, Yale University

“This excellent and ambitious book demonstrates how the need to expand credit dominated much of the thinking about the economy in England from the 1620s onward. Wennerlind puts the so-called Hartlib school of the Commonwealth period firmly at the center of a shift in thinking about credit and money in relation to the productive capacity of the economy and poverty. An eloquently written and timely reminder that credit and economic growth have always been inseparable but restless bedfellows.”―Craig Muldrew, Queen’s College, University of Cambridge

“Recent history makes Wennerlind’s new intellectual history of England’s long ‘financial revolution’ of the seventeenth century of more than ordinary interest. The book describes the rise of credit as a concept that enabled financial innovation on a heretofore unprecedented scale in seventeenth-century England, criticizing some of the assumptions that lay behind this new orientation and thereby exposing the ‘casualties’ of credit that give the book its name. Wennerlind links the history of credit with such diverse phenomena as alchemy, capital punishment, and slavery that have rarely been associated with it by previous historians. Wennerlind’s book is both methodologically and chronologically innovative. He uses intellectual history to illuminate a topic more often explored by social and economic historians…Wennerlind does not simply use the work of financial historians to illuminate the idea of credit; he uses the intellectual history of credit to rethink the concept of the financial revolution itself. In so doing, he demonstrates that the expansion of credit, and the financial revolution engendered by that expansion, had a much more complicated history than previous accounts have realized… The book manages to offer insights into several key, and often unexplored, conceptual connections that can help us begin to understand the intellectual origins of the financial revolution.”―Brian Cowan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“This book provides an elegant, engaging, and highly compelling account of the ways in which credit emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as topic of discussion and focus of economic innovation.”―Daniel Carey, National University of Ireland, Galway

Review

Recent history makes Wennerlind’s new intellectual history of England’s long ‘financial revolution’ of the seventeenth century of more than ordinary interest. The book describes the rise of credit as a concept that enabled financial innovation on a heretofore unprecedented scale in seventeenth-century England, criticizing some of the assumptions that lay behind this new orientation and thereby exposing the ‘casualties’ of credit that give the book its name. Wennerlind links the history of credit with such diverse phenomena as alchemy, capital punishment, and slavery that have rarely been associated with it by previous historians. Wennerlind’s book is both methodologically and chronologically innovative. He uses intellectual history to illuminate a topic more often explored by social and economic historians…Wennerlind does not simply use the work of financial historians to illuminate the idea of credit; he uses the intellectual history of credit to rethink the concept of the financial revolution itself. In so doing, he demonstrates that the expansion of credit, and the financial revolution engendered by that expansion, had a much more complicated history than previous accounts have realized… The book manages to offer insights into several key, and often unexplored, conceptual connections that can help us begin to understand the intellectual origins of the financial revolution.
-- Brian Cowan Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Credit makes the world go around but, as recent events have shown, it can also bring it crashing down. By revealing credit’s perilous partners in early modern England, among them alchemy, slavery, and death, Carl Wennerlind’s richly documented study boldly revises the cultural history of the Financial Revolution and puts our current calamities into a salutary long-term perspective.
-- David Armitage, author of The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
This book provides an elegant, engaging, and highly compelling account of the ways in which credit emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as topic of discussion and focus of economic innovation.
-- Daniel Carey, National University of Ireland, Galway
This excellent and ambitious book demonstrates how the need to expand credit dominated much of the thinking about the economy in England from the 1620s onward. Wennerlind puts the so-called Hartlib school of the Commonwealth period firmly at the center of a shift in thinking about credit and money in relation to the productive capacity of the economy and poverty. An eloquently written and timely reminder that credit and economic growth have always been inseparable but restless bedfellows.
-- Craig Muldrew, Queen’s College, University of Cambridge
Carl Wennerlind has written a timely and important book explaining why England forged a financial revolution that not only allowed it to become the leading imperial power but also the first industrial nation. Wennerlind shows that state activity was central to overcoming England’s financial limitations. But that state activity in turn depended on innovations in scientific understanding. Ideas were central to explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the new world of finance. Based on exhaustive research, but written in a lively and engaging style, Wennerlind demonstrates that economic affairs should never be treated separately from political, scientific, or moral debates. No one interested in the origins of the modern world, or in the contemporary debt crisis, should miss this book.
-- Steven Pincus, Yale University

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0957RSYXQ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press (November 30, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 30, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1072 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 361 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0674047389
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 4 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Carl Wennerlind

Carl Wennerlind

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
4 global ratings

Top review from the United States

MT57
4.0 out of 5 stars Review
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2012
Verified Purchase
This was a straightforward historical presentation of the growth of credit in England throughout the 17th century and into the 18th. It was an important period in the development of the English economy, and their innovations in credit were an important force in helping the economy grow. The author presents the principal intellectual sponsors of the virtues of credit and emphasizes the intellectual arguments employed in elite society's debates about the advantages and disadvantages of a more liberal approach to credit. While emphasizing the intellectuals' discourse, he does not ignore, although he does not emphasize, the economics of the topic and the geopolitical context and consequences (relative to the Spanish and French empires and the nations' respective colonial holdings and agendas). He seems to have a sufficient grasp of the economics of credit, although there is little quantitative presentation in the book, and the book is more of a "liberal arts" type of analysis than an economic analysis. In the main, he emphasizes the development of "trust" and "imagination" in allowing credit to become widespread.

The chapter on the South Sea Company was particularly interesting.

The book is shorter than it appears, running less than 250 pages of text, and principally written in a manner that is easily accessible by someone with some background in the period, although in some places it felt as if the author was being careful to present the material in a way to suit the ideological preferences of 21st century academia. As the author is not a tenured professor, that is understandable from a career advancement perspective, I suppose.

The word "casualties" in the title seems misleading or confusing to me after reading the book. It seems to have an old meaning along the lines of "effects" or "consequences". But it did not seem to have the modern meaning of "injured persons".

Overall, I enjoyed this and it would be of interest to anyone with an interest in either the period, or economic history generally, or the subject of credit generally.
17 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Quicksilver
5.0 out of 5 stars History for how we got Capitalism; it was based on dodgy finance
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2017
Verified Purchase
The English Financial Revolution was based on Alchemy and we all know how failing that was!
Report
biker
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2018
Verified Purchase
Very interesting and well written
Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report