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

キューバ革命の農業史
Salem Vasconcelos, Joana, Agrarian History of the Cuban Revolution: Dilemmas of Peripheral Socialism. (Studies in Critical Social Sciences / New Scholarship in Political Economy) 364 pp. 2023:3 (Brill, NE) <698-267>
ISBN 978-90-04-53829-0 hard ¥38,370.- (税込) EUR 163.00

In Agrarian History of the Cuban Revolution, the Brazilian historian Joana Salem Vasconcelos presents in clear language the complicate challenge of overcoming Latin America's underdevelopment condition, even though a revolutionary process. Based on diverse historical sources, she demonstrates why the sugar plantation economic structure in Cuba was not entirely changed by the 1959's Revolution. The author narrates in detail the three dimensions of Cuban agrarian transformation during the decisive 1960s - the land tenure system, the crop regime, and the labour regime -, and its social and political actors. She explains the paths and detours of Cuban agrarian policies, contextualized in a labour-intensive economy that needs desperately to increase productivity and, at the same time, promised widely to emancipate workers from labour exploitation. Cuban agrarian and economic contradictions are well-synthetized with the concept of Peripheral Socialism.

Dreijer, Gijs, The Power and Pains of Polysemy: Maritime Trade, Averages, and Institutional Development in the Low Countries (15th-16th Centuries). (Brill's Studies in Maritime History 15) 312 pp. 2023:2 (Brill, NE) <698-305>
ISBN 978-90-04-54034-7 hard ¥30,366.- (税込) EUR 129.00

As the fall-out of the Ever Given Suez canal blockage shows, an ancient instrument like General Average (GA) is still highly relevant in redistributing risks and costs in maritime trade. However, bar marine insurance, not much is known about the development of tools of maritime risk management like GA, which redistributes extraordinary costs incurred for the common safety of maritime ventures. This book investigates the development of General Average and other so-called Averages in the Low Countries on the eve of the early modern period, showing how the various varieties of Averages played a significant role in the development of maritime risk management and the broader institutional development in the Low Countries.

1800年以降の世界経済の学際的歴史
Gordon, Cameron, Many Possible Worlds: An Interdisciplinary History of the World Economy Since 1800. 1033 pp. 2023:4 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <698-306>
ISBN 978-981-19-9280-3 hard ¥35,306.- (税込) EUR 149.99 *

This book provides a crosscutting interdisciplinary account of how the disintegrated, global subsistence economy circa 1800 has transformed into a global complex delivering unprecedented levels of material production and consumption. Applying major findings from economics, history/historiography, and sociology (as well as from anthropology, psychology, politics, and environmental studies), the analysis tracks the ways in which changes in 'society' (including social structures, values, and forces) have changed 'individuals' (including conceptions of race, gender, and identity) and vice versa. These changes have simultaneously homogenised and diversified societies and individuals in distinct but sometimes contradictory ways, opening up many possible worlds from an individual and group perspective. Yet, the scale and pace of change has also led to increasing existential challenges. The narrative consists of 30 chapters organized into 10 subsets of 3: one chapter on a relevant core idea; one chapter focused on historical narrative and titled after a representative year; and one chapter on a relevant associated crosscutting theme. Major regional and topical discussions are provided, with special attention paid to business and organisational change and developing world scholarship. Small discussion 'boxes' focusing on illustrative cases and details are presented throughout the book. The last chapter contains over-arching conclusions.

Jiang, George Hong, The Imperial Mode of China: An Analytical Reconstruction of Chinese Economic History. (Palgrave Studies in Economic History) 332 pp. 2023:4 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <698-307>
ISBN 978-3-031-27014-7 hard ¥30,598.- (税込) EUR 129.99 *

Utilising Marxian, Weberian, and institutionalist approaches, this book proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding the nature of Chinese economic history: the 'imperial mode' of China. The book aims to innovatively apply a cohesive historical materialist framework to the economic evolution of China, while at the same time offering micro-analysis of China's institutions throughout its history.Taking a long-run perspective, from ancient China up until the present, the book aims to show how Chinese economic history can be viewed as a dynamic evolutionary process consisting of various stages. The first part of the book lays out the imperial mode as a mode of production based on China's agricultural economy, with a structure consisting of a central authority, the bureaucratic system, and the peasantry. The second part then chronologically examines the different dynasties through this analytical lens and suggests ways in which China's resistance to institutional changes in the early modern period has had long-lasting consequences for its economic development. The book goes on to show how the imperial mode is able to facilitate the agricultural economy, but did not foster the modern commercial and industrial economy. It integrates modern China into the long wave of economic history, showing how this imperial mode still exerts influence on China's current path of development, as well as introducing a new way of understanding communist China from a historical perspective. This book will have interdisciplinary appeal for researchers and students of economic history, economic development, the history of China, economic sociology, and social history more broadly.

Jorgenson, Mica, The Weight of Gold: Mining and the Environment in Ontario, Canada, 1909-1929. (Mining and Society Series) 268 pp. 2023:6 (U. Nevada Pr., US) <698-308>
ISBN 978-1-64779-104-9 hard ¥6,459.- (税込) US$ 29.96 *

Mining in North America has long been criticized for its impact on the natural environment. Mica Jorgenson's The Weight of Gold explores the history of Ontario, Canada's rise to prominence in the gold mining industry, while detailing a series of environmental crises related to extraction activities. In Ontario in 1909, the discovery of exceptionally rich hard rock gold deposits in the Abitibi region in the north precipitated industrial development modeled on precedents in Australia, South Africa, and the United States. By the late 1920s, Ontario's mines had reached their maturity, and in 1928, Minister of Mines Charles McRae called Canada "the mineral treasure house to [the] world."Mining companies increasingly depended upon their ability to redistribute the burdens of mining onto surrounding communities-a strategy they continue to use today-both at home and abroad. Jorgenson connects Canadian gold mining to its international context, revealing that Ontario's gold mines informed extractive knowledge which would go on to shape Canada's mining industry over the next century.

Lacko, Miroslav / Mayerova, Erika, Der Thurzo-Kodex - eine einzigartige Quelle zum europaeischen Bergrecht und Muenzwesen um 1500. 546 S. 2022:6 (Studien Vlg., AU) <698-309>
ISBN 978-3-7065-6224-9 hard ¥11,039.- (税込) EUR 46.90

Der Thurzo-Kodex, der im Milieu der Kaufmannsfamilie Thurzo entstand, stellt eine aussagekraeftige Quelle zur Rechts- und Geldgeschichte des spaetmittelalterlichen Europas dar. Johann I. Thurzo (1437?1508) wurde zum bedeutendsten Kooperationspartner der Augsburger Familie Fugger im Ostmitteleuropa des ausgehenden 15. Jahrhunderts und diese Kooperation fuehrten seine Nachkommen in Krakau und Augsburg fort. Der in Kremnitz ausgefertigte Thurzo-Kodex besteht aus einem bergrechtlichen Teil, der die Texte mehrerer Bergrechte umfasst, und aus einem muenztechnischen Teil mit dem streng vertraulichen Betriebsgeheimnis der Goldreinigung in der Kremnitzer Muenzstaette. Die vorgelegte Publikation beinhaltet nicht nur die Edition des Thurzo-Kodex, der in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in Muenchen aufbewahrt wird, mit einleitenden Erlaeuterungen, sprachlicher Analyse und dem Glossar, sondern auch die erste vollstaendige Biografie von Johann I. Thurzo und seinem Sohn Georg III. Thurzo.

Strecker, Christoph, Im Zeichen der Kriegsvorbereitung: Betriebswirtschaftliche Effekte des "Anschlusses" Osterreichs an das Dritte Reich auf die Rustungsindustrie unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Veranderung von Vermogen und Kapital. 416 S. 2022:8 (Studien Vlg., AU) <698-311>
ISBN 978-3-7065-6211-9 hard ¥11,745.- (税込) EUR 49.90 *

Tabarrini, Lorenzo, Estate Management around Florence and Lucca 1000-1250. (Oxford Historical Monographs) 288 pp. 2023:9 (Oxford U. Pr., UK) <698-312>
ISBN 978-0-19-887515-4 hard ¥23,646.- (税込) GB￡ 83.00 *

This book examines the forms of estate management in the countryside of Florence and Lucca between the eleventh and the middle of the thirteenth centuries. It argues that their change reflects wider transformations of medieval economic patterns, and specifically the surge in overall demand that occurred in the decades bridging the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. The reasons for a comparison between the Florentine and the Lucchese countryside lie in the alleged differences of their historical evolution--as it has been outlined by scholars so far. The so-called manorial system (sistema curtense) is believed to have ceased to exist in the Lucchesia around the beginning of the tenth century, whereas in the Fiorentino its disappearance can be dated to the early thirteenth century. Similarly, the Florentine countryside is generally regarded as the birthplace of a particular type of sharecropping regime, the mezzadria poderale, which spread over much of central Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and would later become an essential component of Italian agrarian identity. On the contrary, the mezzadria poderale is thought to have never developed at any point in the history of medieval and early modern Lucchesia--and this was indeed the case with all the coastal areas of Tuscany. The book endeavours to examine the characteristics of estate management in the central Middle Ages in their own right; that is to say, by detaching those transformations from any teleological view, and by placing them within the economic and sociopolitical context of the period 1000-1250.