The Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England. By Craig Muldrew. London: Macmillan, 1998. Pp. xvii, 453. $69.95.
研究近代早期英格兰“信用”概念从道德价值向经济术语的转变，揭示其与社会关系、义务文化的深层关联，适合经济史与社会史学者参考。
Craig Muldrew has written an imaginatively conceived and richly researched study of the meaning and practice of “credit” in early modern England. “Credit” today is understood almost exclusively in value-neutral terms, and applies principally to functional economic activities. Directed towards individuals, it refers primarily to their financial assets and their capacities to assume interest-bearing debt. This meaning was only entering into use in the later sixteenth century; it became common only in the later seventeenth. “Credit” in the medieval and early modern era referred paradigmatically to a person's moral worth, as this book abundantly demonstrates.