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

近世の商人とその書物
Vine, Angus, Early Modern Merchants and their Books. 432 pp. 2025:8 (Oxford U. Pr., UK) <739-9>
ISBN 978-0-19-888163-6 hard ¥32,069.- (税込) GB￡ 113.00

Early Modern Merchants and their Books offers the first dedicated study of the literary and intellectual lives of the merchants of seventeenth-century Britain. Drawing primarily on unpublished manuscript material, but also on a range of rarely discussed printed texts, the book reveals for the first time the importance of this 'mercantile humanism'. A contribution principally to the field of 'book history', but with significance for early modern literary studies, cultural and intellectual history, global history, and history of science too, this volume examines mercantile account books, letter-books, anthologies, and manuals, as well as mercantile libraries and archives, and mercantile poetic and pedagogical works, to document this now little-known literary and intellectual culture. Working across geographical contexts, as well as institutional structures, the book examines merchants as accountants, record-keepers, authors, collectors, and compilers, and reveals the creative interplay between financial, commercial, administrative, archival, memorial, and devotional categories and practices in the early modern mercantile world. Through a series of mercantile microhistories, each based on a single document or group of associated documents, the book traces the range and extent of this 'mercantile humanism' and identifies its signature textual and material forms, as well as its key subjects and concerns, and some of its most important actors. Early Modern Merchants and their Books in this way challenges long held assumptions about knowledge-making in the seventeenth century and pushes back against equally persistent beliefs about merchants in the period. As such, it not only offers a revisionist history of the early modern merchantry, and a major new account of learning in the seventeenth century, but also constitutes a significant methodological intervention in 'book history' itself.

書店と出版社　1825～2025年
Haug, Christine / Jacobs, Stephanie (Hrsg.), Zwischen Zeilen und Zeiten. Buchhandel und Verlage 1825-2025: Eine andere Geschichte des Boersenvereins. 512 S. 2025:3 (Wallstein Vlg., GW) <739-5>
ISBN 978-3-8353-5847-8 ¥6,498.- (税込) EUR 28.00

200 Jahre Buchhandel, Wissenstransfer und Kulturwirtschaft. Die lebhafte Geschichte von Buchhandel und Verlagswesen fuer ein breites Publikum aufzuschliessen ist das Ziel der ≫etwas anderen Festschrift≪ des Boersenvereins: Knapp 70 Autor:innen widmen sich in ueber 200 kurzen Essays dabei so unterschiedlichen Themen wie Zensur und Lektuerekonjunkturen, Erholungsheimen fuer Buchhaendler, Razzien der Gestapo, Abrechnungsfinessen und pompoese Feste. Aber auch die vielgestaltigen Beziehungsgeflechte in der Buchcommunity werden gewuerdigt: die Beziehungen zwischen Autorinnen und Verlegern, Haendlern und Leserinnen, Freigeistern, Apparatschiks, Ewiggestrigen und Visionaeren. Der Boersenverein des deutschen Buchhandels ist Europas aeltester Branchenverband. 1825 in Leipzig, dem europaeischen Buchplatz, gegruendet, widmen sich seine Mitglieder seit nun 200 Jahren dem Handel mit Wissen. Der doppelte Auftrag als Wirtschafts- und Kulturverband gehoert noch heute zu seinem Selbstverstaendnis, hat den Boersenverein aber nicht vor politischer Instrumentalisierung geschuetzt. ≫Zwischen Zeilen und Zeiten≪ erzaehlt von den politischen und oekonomischen Bedingungen des Buechermachens und -verkaufens, von Erfolgsgeschichten ebenso wie von Pleiten. Mit Beitraegen u.a. von: Philipp Ajouri, Sylvia Asmus, Achim Bonte, Michael Knoche, Marcel Lepper, Christoph Links, Siegfried Locatis, Wulf D. von Lucius, Steffen Martus, Patrick Roessler, Christian Sprang, Erika Thomalla u.v.m.

中央銀行業の政治経済－中央銀行の変化する役割小史
Roselli, Alessandro, The Political Economy of Central Banking: A Short History of the Changing Role of Central Banks. 283 pp. 2025:2 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <739-168>
ISBN 978-3-031-77035-7 hard ¥30,169.- (税込) EUR 129.99

This book presents a comprehensive overview of central banks and their functions, from the first 'banks of issue' in the late 17th century to their place in modern advanced economies. It traces the growth of these institutions through time, and raises pertinent questions about their political representation in the present day. With a broad focus on themes of money creation, monetary policy, foreign exchange policy, and supervision and regulation, this book demonstrates how central banking grew significantly during the 19th century with the establishment of central banks as an independent institution. It discusses the transformations to central banking brought about by the upheaval of the 20th century, including world wars, economic crises, and social unrest, with the creation of 'fiat money' replacing a rigid gold standard, and charts these changes across different country settings including the evolving relationship of central banks to both democratic and authoritarian political systems. The book argues that challenges to central banking come from opposite sides: theories that see the government as the sole creator of currency and deny any autonomy to the central bank, and the emergence of private, unregulated cryptocurrencies, where the concept of money is framed in an anarchic vision of the society. Written in an accessible style, this book will be of interest to scholars of financial history and political economy, as well as any reader interested in the role of central banks in civic society.

Candy, Peter, Ancient Maritime Loan Contracts. (Law and Society in the Ancient World) 264 pp. 2025:1 (U. Michigan Pr., US) <739-208>
ISBN 978-0-472-13355-0 hard ¥16,582.- (税込) US$ 75.00

Ancient Maritime Loan Contracts studies the first millennium of the standard form contracts at the heart of ancient long-distance trade, from the fifth century BCE to Justinian. Maritime loan contracts recorded the terms of agreement on which a creditor lent a sum of money to a merchant or carrier to finance the purchase of a cargo for a trading expedition overseas. They were the lifeblood of the long-distance trade in bulk commodities that flourished in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and were also among the first private agreements to be fully committed to writing. From at least the fifth century BCE, these contracts were highly standardized in their terms, containing boilerplate clauses in a tried-and-tested construction. Maritime loan contracts continued to be used to finance maritime trade until the late Middle Ages, when they were only finally superseded by the contract of marine insurance. Combining a wide variety of papyrological, epigraphic, and legal evidence, Peter Candy's framework illustrates the significance of these contracts in both their economic and legal context. By using an interdisciplinary approach, Ancient Maritime Loan Contracts addresses important questions about how maritime trade was financed in the context of the ancient economy; the response of individual legal cultures to maritime loan contracts; and the relationship between international commercial practice and legal development in the ancient world.

シリア及び中東における戦争－政治・経済史
Firmian, Federico Manfredi, War in Syria and the Middle East: A Political and Economic History. 288 pp. 2025:4 (U. Texas Pr., US) <739-209>
ISBN 978-1-4773-3109-5 hard ¥14,371.- (税込) US$ 65.00

A wide-ranging examination of the causes of war in Syria and the Middle East.