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

Cross, Elizabeth, Company Politics: Commerce, Scandal, and French Visions of Indian Empire in the Revolutionary Era. 312 pp. 2023:6 (Oxford U. Pr., US) <694-341>
ISBN 978-0-19-765375-3 hard ¥11,858.- (税込) US$ 55.00 *

In the wake of the Seven Years' War and the consolidation of British power on the subcontinent, the French monarchy chartered a new East India Company. The Nouvelle Compagnie des Indes was an attempt to maintain French diplomatic and financial credit among European rivals and trading partners within a region integral to the broader imperial economy. Reimagining French power as subsisting through an informal empire of trade, instead of a territorial empire of conquest, officials and intellectuals sought to remake the trading company as a private, "purely commercial" actor, rather than a sovereign company-state. Company Politics offers a new interpretation of political economy, imperialism, and the history of the corporation during the late Old Regime and the French Revolution. Despite its reputation for speculation, corruption, and scandal, Elizabeth Cross argues that the "New Company" emerged from the unique circumstances France faced in India as a weakened imperial power vis a vis the expanding British East India Company. Seeking to control the Company for their own purposes, French government officials, theorists, and private financial actors clashed over differing notions of political economy, debt, and imperial power for Europe and the Indian Ocean world. In doing so, they envisioned new alignments between state and market, challenged the legitimacy of the Old Regime's economic and imperial policies, and sought to revolutionize the underlying corporation itself through progressive demands of corporate self-governance. Thus, the New Company should be seen as an innovative capitalist actor in its own right, not a mere derivative of its Anglo-Dutch competitors. A valuable contribution to scholarship on capitalism, empire, and globalization, Company Politics uses the Company's history to present the Revolutionary Era as one of dynamic economic ideologies, practices, and experimentation, rather than only one of crisis and decline.

ハンザの起源　12世紀～14世紀中葉
Boestad, Tobias, Pour le profit du commun marchand: la genese de la Hanse (XIIe siecle-milieu du XIVe siecle). (Hautes etudes medievales et modernes 116) 2022 (Droz, SZ) <694-339>
ISBN 978-2-600-05753-0 paper ¥22,847.- (税込) EUR 97.06 *

M.カッソン他著　企業と都市開発　1100～1500年
Casson, Catherine / Casson, Mark, Property, Power and the Growth of Towns: Enterprise and Urban Development, 1100-1500. (Routledge Explorations in Economic History) 336 pp. 2023:5 (Routledge, UK) <694-340>
ISBN 978-1-03-200092-3 hard ¥35,612.- (税込) GB￡ 125.00 *

Local enterprise, institutional quality and strategic location were of central importance in the growth of medieval towns. This book, comprising a study of 112 English towns, emphasises these key factors. Downstream locations on major rivers attracted international trade, and thereby stimulated the local processing of imports and exports, while the early establishment of richly endowed religious institutions funnelled agricultural rental income into a town, where it was spent on luxury goods produced by local craftsmen and artisans, and on expensive, long-running building schemes. Local entrepreneurs who recognised the economic potential of a town developed residential suburbs which attracted wealthy residents. Meanwhile town authorities invested in the building and maintenance of bridges, gates, walls and ditches, often with financial support from wealthy residents. Royal lordship was also an advantage to a town, as it gave the town authorities direct access to the king and bypassed local power-brokers such as bishops and earls. The legacy of medieval investment remains visible today in the streets of important towns. Drawing on rentals, deeds and surveys, this book also examines in detail the topography of seven key medieval towns: Bristol, Gloucester, Coventry, Cambridge, Birmingham, Shrewsbury and Hull. In each case, surviving records identify the location and value of urban properties, and their owners and tenants. Using statistical techniques, previously applied only to the early modern and modern periods, the book analyses the impact of location and type of property on property values. It shows that features of the modern property market, including spatial autocorrelation, were present in the middle ages. Property hot-spots of high rents are also identified; the most valuable properties were those situated between the market and other focal points such transport hubs and religious centres, convenient for both, but remote from noise and pollution.This book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on expertise from the disciplines of economics and history. It will be of interest to historians and to social scientists looking for a long-run perspective on urban development.

Pasquini, Beline, Mesurer le developpement economique en Gaule du Ier siecle av. J.-C. au VIIe siecle apr. J.-C. (Archeologie et histoire romaine 48) 2022 (Editions Mergoil, FR) <694-343>
ISBN 978-2-35518-127-6 paper ¥11,534.- (税込) EUR 49.00 *

Lionnet, Philippe, Finding a Path for China's Rise: The Socialist State and the World Economy, 1970-1978. (Global and Colonial History 12) 440 S. 2023:1 (Transcript, GW) <694-342>
ISBN 978-3-8376-6422-5 paper ¥12,947.- (税込) EUR 55.00 *

The ≫rise of China≪ is ever-present in scholarly and public debate on the global economy and ongoing power shifts. Often, emphasis is given to the Chinese economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping from the end of 1978 onwards, which are considered to be of historical significance in their contribution to dramatic changes in the world economy and the emergence of a new world power. In contrast, little attention has been given to the prehistory of these ≫reforms≪. Philippe Lionnet elaborates on important steps in China's agricultural, industrial and foreign trade policies of the decade and thus contributes to the understanding of interdependencies between China's course and the emerging World Economy.

Prodoehl, Ines, Globalizing the Soybean: Fat, Feed, and Sometimes Food, c. 1900-1950. (Routledge Studies in Modern History) 240 pp. 2023:5 (Routledge, UK) <694-263>
ISBN 978-1-03-218576-7 hard ¥35,612.- (税込) GB￡ 125.00 *

Globalizing the Soybean asks how the soybean conquered the West and analyzes why and how the crop gained entry into agriculture and industry in regions beyond Asia in the first half of the twentieth century.Historian Ines Prodoehl describes the soybean's journey centered on three hubs: Northeast China, as the crop's main growing area up to the Second World War; Germany, to where most of the beans in the interwar period were shipped; and the United States, which became the leading cultivator of soy worldwide during the 1940s. This book explores the German and U.S. adoption of the soybean being closely tied to global economic and political changes, such as the two world wars and the Great Depression. The attraction of the soybean to stakeholders on both sides of the Atlantic was linked to a need for cheap alternatives to butter and lard and a desire for greater quantities of meat, which led to the soybean becoming a cheap resource for fat and fodder. Only occasionally was it also used as food.This volume is useful for anyone who is studying or interested in economic history and commodity trading in the twentieth century. It is also connected to the histories of capitalism, globalization, imperialism, and materiality.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license