The Poverty of Disaster
Debt and Insecurity in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Published on 9. October 2019
302 pages
978-1-108-75274-9 (ISBN)
Description
Eighteenth-century Britain is often understood as a time of commercial success, economic growth, and improving living standards. Yet during this period, tens of thousands of men and women were imprisoned for failing to pay their debts. The Poverty of Disaster tells their stories, focusing on the experiences of the middle classes who enjoyed opportunities for success on one hand, but who also faced the prospect of downward social mobility. Tawny Paul examines the role that debt insecurity played within society and the fragility of the credit relations that underpinned commercial activity, livelihood, and social status. She demonstrates how, for the middle classes, insecurity took economic, social, and embodied forms. It shaped the work that people did, their social status, their sense of self, their bodily autonomy, and their relationships with others. In an era of growing debt and the squeeze of the middle class, The Poverty of Disaster offers a new history of capitalism and takes a long view of the financial insecurities that plague our own uncertain times.
Reviews / Votes
'... a vital contribution to study of eighteenth-century England and Scotland. This bold and conceptually wide-ranging study is focused broadly upon the lived experience of the transition to capitalism. ... essential reading for all those concerned with this period or the history of capitalism more broadly.' Alexander Wakelam, Journal of Modern HistoryMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises; 20 Tables, black and white; 2 Halftones, black and white; 3 Line drawings, black and white
File size
3,52 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-108-75274-9 (9781108752749)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
10/2019
Cambridge University Press
€123.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Content
Introduction; Part I. Structures of Insecurity: 1. The scale of incarceration: debt and the middling sort; 2. Credit and the economic structures of insecurity; 3. Social structures of insecurity; Part II. The Insecure Self: 4. Keeping in credit: reputation and gender; 5. Occupational identities and the precariousness of work ; Part III. The Debtor's Body: 6. Punishing the body: harm and the coercive nature of credit; 7. The worth of bodies: debt bondage, value and selfhood; Conclusion.
