Books in the Perspectives in Economic and Social History series

The nineteenth-century asylum was the scene of both terrible abuses and significant advancements in treatment and care. The essays in this collection look at the asylum from the perspective of the place itself - its architecture, funding and purpose - and at the experience of those who were sent there.

The essays in this collection explore both organizational intentions and inhabitants' experiences in a diverse range of British residential institutions during a period when such provision was dramatically increasing.

Merchant colonies were a significant factor for economic growth in Europe during the early modern period. The essays in this collection look at merchant colonies across Europe, assessing their function, legal status, interaction with local traders and assimilation into their host countries.

Focusing on Belgium from the mid-nineteenth century until the First World War, Vleugels presents a study of the drunkard in society.

Based on church and state records from the burgh of Aberdeen, this study explores the deeper social meaning behind petty crime during the Reformation. Falconer argues that an analysis of both criminal behaviour and law enforcement provides a unique view into the workings of an early modern urban Scottish community.

This is the first study to analyze a wide spread of price data to determine whether market development led to economic growth in the early modern period.

Based on archival research undertaken in Japan, Britain and the United States, Mihalopoulos offers a new perspective on the relations between gender hierarchies and the political economy in a newly modernized Japan.

By looking at the decline of the jute industry, this study assesses the successes and failures of Britain's managed economy. It also addresses broader arguments about the political economy of twentieth-century Britain.

This detailed study is the first exploration of rural consumption of clothing in early nineteenth-century Britain. Drawing on evidence from a range of sources including newspapers, trade directories, court records, visual sources and surviving garments, Toplis investigates how the apparel of the mass of the British population was acquired.

At the heart of this study on cross-cultural trade lies a concrete case-study of a network of diamond merchants operating in the early eighteenth century. All the traders examined in this study are outsiders: an English Catholic in Antwerp, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in London and Amsterdam and French Huguenots in Lisbon.

'Mining and the State' examines the fundamental economic institutional structure of Brazil through the prism of its mineral endowment.

Between 1880 and 1939, a quarter of a million European Jews settled in England. Tananbaum explores the differing ways in which the existing Anglo-Jewish communities, local government and education and welfare organizations sought to socialize these new arrivals, focusing on the experiences of working-class women and children.

Using untapped archival sources from Britain, France and America, Talbott presents a comparative view of British relations with France over the long seventeenth century.

Focusing on the ports, dockyards and garrison towns of Kent, this study examines the social and economic factors that could cause a woman to turn to prostitution, and how such women were policed.

The population of London soared during the Industrial Revolution and the poorer areas became iconic places of overcrowding and vice. Focusing on the communities of Westminster, MacKay shows that many of the plebeian populace retained traditional working-class pursuits, such as gambling, drinking and blood sports.

This study is based on a wide range of business sources as well as newspapers, journals, novels and oral history, allowing Heller to put forward a new interpretation of working conditions for London clerks, highlighting the ways in which clerical work changed and modernized over this period.

Luxury, Fashion and the Early Modern Idea of Credit addresses how social and cultural ideas about credit and trust were affected by the growth and development of the bankruptcy institution. This book is an essential read for scholars in economic history, financial history, social history and European history.

This study examines the struggle between Smithfield market's supporters and detractors and argues that this demonstrates a major shift in the way the urban landscape came to be used.