Trousson, Raymond / Vercruysse, Jeroom (dir.), Dictionnaire general de Voltaire. (Champion classiques, references et dictionnaires 18) 1272 p. 2020:10 (Champion, FR) <670-9>
ISBN 978-2-38096-016-7 paper ¥7,064.- (税込) EUR 38.00

G.K.バンブラ他編　帝国の不平等－欧州の諸帝国を横断する経済的ガバナンスの政治
Bhambra, Gurminder K. / McClure, Julia (eds.), Imperial Inequalities: The Politics of Economic Governance Across European Empires. (Postcolonial International Studies) 360 pp. 2022 (Manchester U. Pr., UK) <684-438>
ISBN 978-1-5261-6614-2 hard ¥25,938.- (税込) GB￡ 90.00 *

Imperial Inequalities takes Western European empires and their legacies as the explicit starting point for discussion of issues of taxation and welfare. In doing so, it addresses the institutional and fiscal processes involved in modes of extraction, taxation, and the hierarchies of welfare distribution across Europe's global empires. The idea of 'imperial inequalities' provides a conceptual frame for thinking about the long-standing colonial histories that are responsible, at least in part, for the shape of present inequalities. This wide-ranging volume challenges existing historiographical accounts that present states and empires as separate categories. Instead, it views them as co-constitutive units by focusing upon the politics of economic governance across imperial spaces. Authors examine the fiscal innovations that enabled European empires to finance their expansion, the politics of redistribution that were important to constructing the veneer of legitimacy of taxation, and the fiscal mechanisms that were established to ensure that the imperial contours of inequality continued to define the postcolonial world. These diverse contributions provide new resources for how we think about issues of taxation and welfare across the longue duree.This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10, Reduced inequalities

Duan, Xiaolin, An Object of Seduction: Chinese Silk in the Early Modern Transpacific Trade, 1500-1700. (Empires and Entanglements in the Early Modern World) 230 pp. 2022:2 (Lexington Books, US) <684-439>
ISBN 978-1-79361-490-2 hard ¥23,562.- (税込) US$ 105.00 *

In 1573, 712 bales of Chinese silk arrived in New Spain in the cargos of two Manila galleons. The emergence and the subsequent rapid development of this trans-Pacific silk trade reflected the final formation of the global circulation network. The first book-length English-language study focusing on the early modern export of Chinese silk to New Spain from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, An Object of Seduction compares and contrasts the two regions from perspectives of the sericulture development, the widespread circulation of silk fashion, and the government attempts at regulating the use of silk. Xiaolin Duan argues that the increasing demand for silk on the worldwide market on the one hand contributed to the parallel development of silk fashion and sericulture in China and New Spain, and on the other hand created conflicts on imperial regulations about foreign trade and hierarchical systems. Incorporating evidence from local gazetteers, correspondence, manual books, illustrated treatises, and miscellanies, An Object of Seduction explores how the growing desire for and production of raw silk and silk textiles empowered individuals and societies to claim and redefine their positions in changing time and space, thus breaking away from the traditional state control.

Growiec, Jakub, Accelerating Economic Growth: Lessons From 200,000 Years of Technological Progress and Human Development. (Frontiers in Economic History) 179 pp. 2022:8 (Springer, GW) <684-441>
ISBN 978-3-031-07194-2 hard ¥12,151.- (税込) EUR 49.99

What made it possible for the human species to conquer the world, build a global digital economy, and still want more? What drives technological progress and economic growth in the long run and on a global scale? And how will technological progress, economic growth, and the overall prosperity of human civilization unfold in the future? This book sheds new light on these big questions by incorporating findings from physics, anthropology, psychology, history, philosophy, and computer science in a brand-new theory of economic growth. Looking back across the millennia, it identifies five major technological revolutions which have transformed humankind's capacity to process energy and information-the cognitive, agricultural, scientific, industrial, and digital revolutions-and characterizes the new avenues of economic development which they have opened while also exponentially accelerating growth.

欧州経済統合の政治と政策　1850～1914年
Kouli, Yaman / Laborie, Leonard, The Politics and Policies of European Economic Integration, 1850-1914. (Palgrave Studies in Economic History) 170 pp. 2022:9 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <684-442>
ISBN 978-3-031-00295-3 hard ¥10,936.- (税込) EUR 44.99 *

This book asks anew whether there really was European integration before 1914. By focussing on quantitative (economic indicators) and qualitative data (the international regulation of patents, communication networks, social policy and plant protection), the authors re-evaluate European integration of the time and address the politics of seemingly apolitical cooperation. The authors show that European integration was multifaceted and cooperation less the result of intent, than of incentives. National polities and international regimes co-shaped each other. The result is a book that achieves two things: offer stand-alone chapters that shed light on specific developments and - these read altogether - develop a bigger picture. It will be of interest to researchers and students of economic history, as well as those interested in the history of internationalism and globalisation.

L.H.オフィサー著　経済史研究－購買力平価、生活水準、本位制
Officer, Lawrence H., Essays in Economic History: Purchasing Power Parity, Standard of Living, and Monetary Standards. 550 pp. 2022:8 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <684-443>
ISBN 978-3-030-95924-1 hard ¥24,306.- (税込) EUR 99.99 *

This book is the culmination of and a collection of distinguished scholar Lawrence Officer's principal research over 50 years of scholarly activity. The collection consists primarily of three topics on which the author has spent the major part of his research: purchasing power parity, standard of living, and monetary standards. There is also a unique chapter on economics and economic history in science fiction. This volume is ideal for academics, graduate and undergraduate students, and practitioners.

ルーブル－政治史
Pravilova, Ekaterina, The Ruble: A Political History. 576 pp. 2023:6 (Oxford U. Pr., US) <684-444>
ISBN 978-0-19-766371-4 hard ¥8,963.- (税込) US$ 39.95 *

A groundbreaking history of Russia, from empire to the Soviet era, viewed through the lens of its money. Money seems passive, a silent witness to the deeds and misdeeds of its holders, but through its history intimate dramas and grand historical processes can be told. So argues this sweeping narrative of the ruble's story from the time of Catherine the Great to Lenin. The Russian ruble did not enjoy a particularly reputable place among European currencies. Across two hundred years, long periods of financial turmoil were followed by energetic and pragmatic reforms that invariably ended with another collapse. Why did a country with an industrializing economy, solid private property rights, and (until 1918) a near perfect reputation as a rock-solid repayer of its debts stick for such a prolonged period with an inconvertible currency? Why did the Russian gold standard differ from the European model? In answering these questions, Ekaterina Pravilova argues that politics and culture must be considered alongside economic factors. The history of the Russian ruble offers an opportunity to explore the political reasons behind the preservation of a supposedly backward financial system and to show how politicians used monetary reforms to block or enact political transformations. The Ruble is a history of Russia written in the language of money. It shows how economists, landowners, merchants, and peasants understood, perceived, and used financial mechanisms. In her definitive account, Pravilova interprets the well-known political events of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries--wars, attempts at constitutional transformations, revolutions--through the ideas and politics of currency reforms and offers a new history of Russia's imperial expansion and collapse.

Thilly, Peter, The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China. 316 pp. 2022:10 (Stanford U. Pr., US) <684-445>
ISBN 978-1-5036-2886-1 hard ¥20,196.- (税込) US$ 90.00 *
ISBN 978-1-5036-3410-7 paper ¥6,732.- (税込) US$ 30.00 *

From its rise in the 1830s to its pinnacle in the 1930s, the opium trade was a guiding force in the Chinese political economy. Opium money was inextricably bound up in local, national, and imperial finances, and the people who piloted the trade were integral to the fabric of Chinese society. In this book, Peter Thilly narrates the dangerous lives and shrewd business operations of opium traffickers in southeast China, situating them within a global history of capitalism. By tracing the evolution of the opium trade from clandestine offshore agreements in the 1830s, to multi-million dollar prohibition bureau contracts in the 1930s, Thilly demonstrates how the modernizing Chinese state was infiltrated, manipulated, and profoundly transformed by opium profiteers. Opium merchants carried the drug by sea, over mountains, and up rivers, with leading traders establishing monopolies over trade routes and territories and assembling "opium armies" to protect their businesses. Over time, and as their ranks grew, these organizations became more bureaucratized and militarized, mimicking-and then eventually influencing, infiltrating, or supplanting-the state. Through the chaos of revolution, warlordism, and foreign invasion, opium traders diligently expanded their power through corruption, bribery, and direct collaboration with the state. Drug traders mattered-not only in the seedy ways in which they have been caricatured but also crucially as shadowy architects of statecraft and China's evolution on the world stage.

Van Limbergen, Dimitri / Hoffelinck, Adeline et al. (eds.), Reframing the Roman Economy: New Perspectives on Habitual Economic Practices. (Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies) 270 pp. 2022:9 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <684-446>
ISBN 978-3-031-06280-3 hard ¥38,892.- (税込) EUR 159.99

This book focuses on those features of the Roman economy that are less traceable in text and archaeology, and as a consequence remain largely underexplored in contemporary scholarship. By reincorporating, for the first time, these long-obscured practices in mainstream scholarly discourses, this book offers a more complete and balanced view of an economic system that for too long has mostly been studied through its macro-economic and large-scale - and thus archaeologically and textually omnipresent - aspects. The topic is approached in five thematic sections, covering unusual actors and perspectives, unusual places of production, exigent landscapes of exploitation, less-visible products and artefacts, and divergent views on emblematic economic spheres. To this purpose, the book brings together a select group of leading scholars and promising early career researchers in archaeology and ancient economic history, well positioned to steer this ill-developed but fundamental field of the Roman economy in promising new directions.

古代地中海・近東における債務
Weisweiler, John (ed.), Debt in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East: Credit, Money, and Social Obligation. 272 pp. 2022 (Oxford U. Pr., US) <684-447>
ISBN 978-0-19-764717-2 hard ¥20,196.- (税込) US$ 90.00 *

In his Debt: The First 5000 Years, the anthropologist David Graeber put forward a new grand narrative of world history. From the Late Bronze Age onwards, all across the Near East and Mediterranean, relationships of mutual obligation were transformed into quantifiable and legally enforceable debts. Graeber suggests that this transformation made possible new economic institutions, such as IOUs, coinage, and chattel slavery. It also led to the emergence of modes of thought that have shaped Eurasian philosophical and religious traditions ever since. Debt in the Ancient Mediterranean and the Near East explores the implications of this theory for the history of the Mediterranean and Near East. A distinguished group of ancient historians assesses how well Graeber's interpretations fit current understandings of ancient and late antique economies. At the same time, this volume offers a history of premodern credit systems which takes seriously the dual nature of debt as both quantifiable economic reality and immeasurable social obligation. By exploring the diverse ways in which social relationships were quantified in different ancient and late antique societies, the work introduces a method of writing the history of premodern systems of exchange that departs from the currently dominant paradigm of neo-institutional economics.

C.ウィッカム著　中世地中海経済の再解釈　950～1180年
Wickham, Chris, The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180. 944 pp. 2023:4 (Oxford U. Pr., UK) <684-448>
ISBN 978-0-19-885648-1 hard ¥11,528.- (税込) GB￡ 40.00 *

A new account of the Mediterranean economy in the 10th to 12th centuries, forcing readers to entirely rethink the underlying logic to medieval economic systems. Chris Wickham re-examines documentary and archaeological sources to give a detailed account of both individual economies, and their relationships with each other. Chris Wickham offers a new account of the Mediterranean economy in the tenth to twelfth centuries, based on a completely new look at the sources, documentary and archaeological. Our knowledge of the Mediterranean economy is based on syntheses which are between 50 and 150 years old; they are based on outdated assumptions and restricted data sets, and were written before there was any usable archaeology; and Wickham contends that they have to be properly rethought. This is the first book ever to give a fully detailed comparative account of the regions of the Mediterranean in this period, in their internal economies and in their relationships with each other. It focusses on Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily, the Byzantine empire, Islamic Spain and Portugal, and north-central Italy, and gives the first comprehensive account of the changing economies of each; only Byzantium has a good prior synthesis. It aims to force our rethinking of how economies worked in the medieval Mediterranean. It also offers a rethinking of how we should understand the underlying logic of the medieval economy in general.

Frangipane, Marcella / Poettinger, Monika et al. (eds.), Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective: Material Life, Institutions and Economic Thought. (Frontiers in Economic History) 414 pp. 2022:10 (Springer, GW) <684-232>
ISBN 978-3-031-08762-2 hard ¥24,306.- (税込) EUR 99.99 *

This book investigates the economic organization of ancient societies from a comparative perspective. By pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, including contributions by archaeologists, historians of antiquity, economic historians as well as historians of economic thought, it studies various aspects of ancient economies, such as the material living conditions including production technologies, etc.; economic institutions such as markets and coinage; as well as the economic thinking of the time. In the process, it also explores the comparability of economic thought, economic institutions and economic systems in ancient history. Focusing on the Ancient Near East as well as the Mediterranean, including Greece and Rome, this comparative perspective makes it possible to identify historical permanencies, but also diverse forms of social and political organization and cultural systems. These institutions are then evaluated in terms of their capacity to solve economic problems, such as the efficient use of resources or political stability. The first part of the book introduces readers to the methodological context of the comparative approach, including an evaluation of the related historiographical tradition. Subsequent parts discuss a range of development models, elements of economic thinking in ancient societies, the role of trade and globalization, and the use of monetary and financial instruments, as well as political aspects.