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

Chazee, Laurent, Retour sur 40 ans de developpement international, 1984-2024: entre Trente Glorieuses et globalisation. (Economie plurielle) 149 p. 2025:1 (L'Harmattan, FR) <745-163>
ISBN 978-2-336-48355-9 paper ¥3,945.- (税込) EUR 17.00

泥炭とロシアの化石経済の忘れれられた余白
Bruisch, Katja, Burning Swamps: Peat and the Forgotten Margins of Russia's Fossil Economy. (Studies in Environment and History) 300 pp. 2025:9 (Cambridge U. Pr., UK) <745-201>
ISBN 978-1-009-60308-9 hard ¥26,752.- (税込) GB￡ 95.00

This groundbreaking environmental history recounts the story of Russia's fossil economy from its margins. Unpacking the forgotten history of how peat fuelled manufacturing industries and power plants in late Imperial and Soviet Russia, Katja Bruisch provides a corrective to more familiar historical narratives dominated by coal, oil, and gas. Attentive to the intertwined histories of matter and labor during a century of industrial peat extraction, she offers a fresh perspective on the modern Russian economy that moves beyond the socialism/capitalism binary. By identifying peat extraction in modern Russia as a crucial chapter in the degradation of the world's peatlands, Bruisch makes a compelling case for paying attention to seemingly marginal places, people, and resources as we tell the histories of the planetary emergency.

Husz, Orsi, Bankminded: Banks as Intimate Agents of Everyday Life in Welfare State Sweden. (Palgrave Studies in Economic History) 303 pp. 2025:4 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <745-226>
ISBN 978-3-031-77652-6 hard ¥11,601.- (税込) EUR 49.99

This open access book explores the history of how banks and banking services have become part of everyday life. Taking welfare state Sweden as its setting, the book identifies key cultural challenges and shows how banks and finance companies made inroads into the workplace, the family, spaces of consumption and the world of social movements while also taking on tasks typically associated with state authorities. Focusing on this 'bankification of everyday life' reveals the historical links between the post-war welfare state and the financialised everyday culture of the late twentieth century. This book will be of interest to scholars of economic and cultural history and sociology, as well as those interested in the history of welfare states and the development of commercial surveillance.

Felber-Seligman, Yaari, Fashioning Inland Communities: Trade and Popular Culture in Central East Africa. (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture) 344 pp. 2025:6 (U. Wisconsin Pr., US) <745-261>
ISBN 978-0-299-35040-6 hard ¥19,294.- (税込) US$ 89.95

When viewed from the economic centers of the Indian or Atlantic Oceans, the Ruvuma region of East Africa, crossing what is now Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique, would look like a periphery. But the same factors that marginalize the region historically brought distinct opportunities. In Fashioning Inland Communities, Yaari Felber-Seligman traces the long history-from the first millennium CE into the twentieth century-of Ruvuma trade practices within a changing world. Felber-Seligman argues that Ruvuma trade should be understood fundamentally as a set of voluntary choices undertaken and revised to further communities' aspirations. Ruvuma used fashion to build varied communities, from local to pan-regional, reflecting the dynamic relationships among inland groups. Examples of Ruvuma popular fashions reveal processes of meaning-making and community building that call for us to expand our attention to the ways in which East African peoples interacted alongside, as well as beyond, trade networks that sourced prestige and commercial goods. Popular culture here emerges as a heterarchical force that shaped lasting multidirectional connections across and between Ruvuma and their neighbors. As both a subject and a strategy for analysis, the history of popular fashion shifts how we view histories of small, decentralized societies as they encounter larger economies. Felber-Seligman demonstrates that this has implications for our understanding not only of trade but of material culture, community, gender, and family.

P.フランクス著　日本における家事、消費、女性の労働　1600～1940年－生活水準の決定における無償労働の役割を理解する－
Francks, Penelope, Housework, Consumption and Female Labour in Japan, 1600-1940: Understanding the Role of Unpaid Work in Determining Living Standards. (Palgrave Studies in Economic History) 77 pp. 2025:2 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <745-262>
ISBN 978-3-031-83692-3 hard ¥9,280.- (税込) EUR 39.99

This book illuminates the largely neglected contribution of unpaid, primarily female household labour to economic production and living standards in Japan from the early modern period to the eve of World War Two. The difficulties involved in measuring time devoted to housework and other forms of household labour in the past have meant that most attempts to assess the process of industrialisation have failed to recognise the ways in which such labour is essential to the sustainability and welfare of the population. In this context, Japan presents a significant example of a historical case of industrialisation occurring within an economy that continued to be dominated by the institution of the household. This short study argues that this must have led to a particularly significant underestimation of Japanese living standards in the past, with implications for comparative and global analysis, and to neglect of the key role of women in the historical economy. Providing a nuanced yet concise analysis, this book will be valuable reading for scholars of economic history and feminist economics, as well as introducing important comparative angles for researchers in Japanese studies and gender studies more widely.

アイルランドの国家建設－政府、企業、権力　1922～58年
Oliver, Emmet, Irish Nation Building: Government, Business and Power, 1922-1958. (Palgrave Studies in Economic History) 234 pp. 2025:4 (Palgrave Macmillan, UK) <745-264>
ISBN 978-3-031-84930-5 hard ¥30,169.- (税込) EUR 129.99

This book examines the early decades of economic nation building in Ireland. It draws on a large amount of previously unstudied archival material to construct a novel contribution to Irish business and economic history that focuses on government relations, business power and wider dynamics of power in a decolonising context. The book adopts a different approach to the early decades of Irish independence, decentering the typical focus on party political developments, Church-state relations and Anglo-Irish relations. Instead, the book explores the role of Irish businesses and services and their engagement with the governing elites of the time. More than just offering a general survey of Irish businesses in the early years of independence, the chapters of this book illuminate and analyse the 'commanding heights' of the economy, the Marxist term for the core distribution channels of capital and labour. In particular, the book focuses on four key strategic sectors - banking, insurance, shipping and rail - to analyse the tensions between the new Irish nationalist political elite and embedded business interests from the pre-independence era, how these led to the transformation of the Irish economic model by the late 1950s, and its gradual integration into a newly globalising world economy. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers of economic and business history, and Irish history and independence broadly.