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

第二次世界大戦後のイタリアのファッション産業
Faggella, Chiara, Becoming Couture: The Italian Fashion Industry After the Second World War. (Studies in Design and Material Culture) 248 pp. 2024:12 (Manchester U. Pr., UK) <731-281>
ISBN 978-1-5261-5524-5 hard ¥24,216.- (税込) GB￡ 85.00

Becoming couture is the first book to examine the history of the Italian fashion industry during the global transition brought about by the Second World War. It draws on a wide range of primary sources, some of them newly unearthed, to demonstrate that the Italian fashion industry in the Republican era continued to rely on business practices and professionals established during Fascism. Analysing changes in promotional discourses and press coverage, the book traces the shift that occurred when manufacturers were encouraged to expand their exports of accessories to include sportswear, knitwear and moda boutique. This ultimately led to the legitimisation of Italian dressmaking as creatively independent of French influences and therefore worthy of the label 'couture'.

ブラジルにおける生活水準の経済史－政策、健康、環境　1850～1950年
Franken, Daniel W., Economic History of Living Standards in Brazil: Policy, Health and Environment, 1850-1950. (Routledge Explorations in Economic History) 288 pp. 2024:11 (Routledge, UK) <731-282>
ISBN 978-1-032-72291-7 hard ¥38,461.- (税込) GB￡ 135.00 *

Incorporating political, economic, and environmental factors, this book explores the evolution of health and living standards in Brazil in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It draws on anthropometric data and an interdisciplinary approach to illuminate the profound socioeconomic transformations that unfolded in Brazil during this period.Through an analysis of archival military and passport records, the book reveals an increase in heights starting in the 1880s, predating the Vargas Era's economic growth and social reforms. It also offers novel insights into Brazil's regional development divide, showing that regional height differentials existed as early as the mid-nineteenth century (before industrialization began in earnest). Innovative methods, such as surname sorting to study immigration and merging anthropometric data with historical weather records to study the link between climate and health, are introduced. Qualitative evidence on municipal-level clean water and sewage interventions, along with data on malaria and hookworm disease, further corroborate the observed longitudinal trends and spatial patterns in stature.Scholars and students of historical anthropometrics, living standards, and Brazilian history will find this book essential, as will those with a broader interest in Latin American or economic history.

トンチン年金の歴史
McDiarmid, Andrew, The Tontine: A History. (Routledge Focus on Financial History) 128 pp. 2024:9 (Routledge, UK) <731-283>
ISBN 978-1-03-279199-9 hard ¥14,241.- (税込) GB￡ 49.99 *

From the last decades of the seventeenth century until the beginning of the twentieth, the tontine, in one form or another, was a ubiquitous financial instrument. As a revenue-raising tool of governments it supported the cost of war, and as a private capital-raising instrument it provided funding for civic improvement and urban development projects.While the tontine is known today mainly through fictional works (Robert Louis Stevenson, Agatha Christie, and The Simpsons among others), this book tells the history of how it evolved from a public revenue-raising scheme into a popular private investment and infrastructure financing tool, before it was displaced by cheaper forms of borrowing. Focusing on the early development of the tontine, and with European and North American case studies, the narrative brings to life the story of a little-understood financial innovation.This concise and engaging book is an ideal introduction to the history of the tontine for all readers interested in financial history.

資本主義の初期史におけるネットワーク－ルネサンス期ヴェネツィアにおける商人の実際
Montemezzo, Stefania, Networks in the Early History of Capitalism: Merchant Practices in Renaissance Venice. (Routledge Explorations in Economic History) 256 pp. 2024:10 (Routledge, UK) <731-284>
ISBN 978-1-032-62813-4 hard ¥38,461.- (税込) GB￡ 135.00 *

Drawing on a detailed examination of Venetian commerce in the Middle Ages, this book explores the business practices and structures that enabled merchants to compete in a challenging international market.Contributing to the literature on the early history of capitalism, this book demonstrates how Venetian merchants combined innovation with traditional methods to maintain their edge in a competitive world, providing valuable lessons on resilience and strategic planning in commerce. Small- and mid-sized commercial companies operating across borders and geographies in the early Renaissance period faced numerous challenges, including identifying profitable sectors and businesses, developing effective business strategies, dealing with peers and subordinates, managing the flow of information, and assessing risks and potential rewards. The chapters explore a range of topics in this context, including the roles of family-based firms, the strategic deployment of agents, and the impact of state policies on private enterprise. Readers are introduced to the ways Venetian merchants managed capital, adapted to market demands, and overcame obstacles like wars and resource shortages.This book will be of significant interest to historians and social scientists researching economic history, the history of trade, the history of capitalism, medieval and Renaissance history, and historical network analysis.

Munro, Beth, Recycling the Roman Villa: Material Salvage and the Medieval Circular Economy. 350 pp. 2024:7 (Cambridge U. Pr., UK) <731-285>
ISBN 978-1-009-47558-7 hard ¥24,216.- (税込) GB￡ 85.00 *

Though abandoned between the third and seventh centuries CE, many Roman villas enjoyed an afterlife in late antiquity as a source of building materials. Villa complexes currently serve as a unique archaeological setting in that their recycling phases are often better preserved than those at urban sites. Building on a foundational knowledge of Roman architecture and construction, Beth Munro offers a retrospective study of the material value of and deconstruction processes at villas. She explores the technical properties of glass, metals, and limestone, materials that were most frequently recycled; the craftspeople who undertook this work, as well as the economic and culture drivers of recycling. She also examines the commissioning landowners and their rural networks, especially as they relate to church construction. Bringing a multidisciplinary lens to recycling practices in antiquity, Munro proposes new theoretical and methodological approaches for assessing architectural salvage and reprocessing within the context of an ancient circular economy.

Nathan, Dev, Knowledge and Global Inequality Since 1800: Interrogating the Present as History. (Elements in Development Economics) 86 pp. 2024:5 (Cambridge U. Pr., UK) <731-286>
ISBN 978-1-009-45517-6 hard ¥14,241.- (税込) GB￡ 49.99
ISBN 978-1-009-45514-5 paper ¥4,843.- (税込) GB￡ 17.00 *

The Element highlights the monopolization and exclusion from high-value knowledge in analysing divergent and, recently, partially convergent income trends across 200-odd years of the global capitalist economy. A Southern lens interrogates this history, in the process showing how developing command over knowledge creation sheds light on the middle-income trap. Overall, it shows a new way of looking at global capitalist economic history, highlighting the creation of, command over and exclusion from knowledge. This forces us to analyse the role of the subjective or agential element in making history; a subjective element that, however, always works from within and transforms existing structures and processes. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Vincze, Eniko / Ban, Cornel / Gog, Sorin et al. (eds.), The Political Economy of Extreme Poverty in Eastern Europe: A Comparative Historical Perspective of Romanian Roma. (Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series) 240 pp. 2024:10 (Routledge, UK) <731-288>
ISBN 978-1-03-286254-5 hard ¥38,461.- (税込) GB￡ 135.00

This book examines the creation of extreme poverty in East Europe, focusing on Romanian Roma, through a comparative historical perspective on its roots and the socio-economic and political mechanisms that have shaped it in labor, housing, and migration. This interdisciplinary book explores the (re)production of extreme poverty among the Roma across different political economy regimes. Chapters engage in comparative historical analysis across several disciplines and integrate perspectives steeped at the national level of analysis with those dwelling intensively on a single context. Focusing on the processes of manufacturing poverty among Roma in Romania, the chapters cover empirical information about the historical transformations of the economic situation of the Roma in Romania from the 19th century to the present, about global, national, and local processes of industrialization, deindustrialization, and reindustrialization impacting poverty among the Roma in the past seven decades, and about Roma people's current labor positions, housing conditions, and migration practices in distinct geographies from Romania to Norway. The book situates Roma poverty research in a Central and East European context by highlighting its connections with analytical approaches to poverty and institutional policy visions about poverty eradication. It will be of interest to researchers studying Central and Eastern Europe, political economy of socialism, political economy of capitalist transformations, poverty studies, welfare and housing regimes studies, and labor and migration studies.

橋野知子他編　絹のグローバルヒストリー－16～20世紀中葉の交易と生産
Vernus, Pierre / Martini, M. / Hashino, Tomoko (eds.), A Global History of Silk: Trade and Production from the 16th to the Mid-20th Century. 2024 (Springer, GW) <251-52732>
ISBN 978-3-031-61987-8 hard ¥40,014.- (税込) EUR 169.99 *

This book explores the global development of the production and trade of silk and related industries from a historical perspective. From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, it takes long-term movements and global dynamics into account. Covering a wide geographical area, including East-Asia, Northern and Southern Europe, and North-America, the respective contributions examine economic activities related to silk production, silk processing, trading and consumption of silk and silk fabrics, while also highlighting diverse paths of industrialization and economic development. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which features contributions on silk markets and trade, covering topics such as auction sales and Sino-European trade. The second part addresses issues of work organization, institutional developments and the gendered division of labour, discussing topics such as systems of home-based and factory production and the organization of quality control. In turn, the third part highlights technological innovations and knowledge transfer. This book appeals to scholars and students of economic history who are interested in a better understanding of the key features and patterns in the development of the silk industry and trade and, more widely, in the global economic history of the early modern and modern periods.