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Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720

Author

Listed:
  • Wennerlind, Carl

    (Barnard College)

Abstract

Modern credit, developed during the financial revolution of 1620–1720, laid the foundation for England’s political, military, and economic dominance in the eighteenth century. Possessed of a generally circulating credit currency, a modern national debt, and sophisticated financial markets, England developed a fiscal–military state that instilled fear in its foes and facilitated the first industrial revolution. Yet a number of casualties followed in the wake of this new system of credit. Not only was it precarious and prone to accidents, but it depended on trust, public opinion, and ultimately violence. Carl Wennerlind reconstructs the intellectual context within which the financial revolution was conceived. He traces how the discourse on credit evolved and responded to the Glorious Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, the founding of the Bank of England, the Great Recoinage, armed conflicts with Louis XIV, the Whig–Tory party wars, the formation of the public sphere, and England’s expanded role in the slave trade. Debates about credit engaged some of London’s most prominent turn-of-the-century intellectuals, including Daniel Defoe, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Jonathan Swift and Christopher Wren. Wennerlind guides us through these conversations, toward an understanding of how contemporaries viewed the precariousness of credit and the role of violence—war, enslavement, and executions—in the safeguarding of trust.

Suggested Citation

  • Wennerlind, Carl, 2011. "Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674047389, Spring.
  • Handle: RePEc:hup:pbooks:9780674047389
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alami, Ilias & Alves, Carolina & Bonizzi, Bruno & Kaltenbrunner, Annina & Kodddenbrock, Kai & Kvangraven, Ingrid & Powell, Jeff, 2021. "International financial subordination: a critical research agenda [working paper]," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 33233, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    2. Margaret Schabas & Carl Wennerlind, 2011. "Retrospectives: Hume on Money, Commerce, and the Science of Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 217-230, Summer.
    3. Madarász, Aladár, 2012. "Adósság, pénz és szabadság [Taxation, money and freedom]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 457-507.
    4. Gregory Price & Warren Whatley, 2021. "Did profitable slave trading enable the expansion of empire?: The Asiento de Negros, the South Sea Company and the financial revolution in Great Britain," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(3), pages 675-718, September.
    5. Braun, Benjamin, 2016. "Speaking to the people? Money, trust, and central bank legitimacy in the age of quantitative easing," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/12, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Di Muzio, Tim & Dow, Matthew, 2017. "Uneven and Combined Confusion: On the Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism and the Rise of the West," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 3-22.
    7. Klump, Rainer, 2022. "Schulden und Staatlichkeit: Überlegungen zur Politischen Ökonomie des Schuldenstaats," IBF Paper Series 06-22, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.
    8. Ann E. Davis, 2023. "Genealogy of Finance: Long-term History and Alternatives," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 660-669, December.
    9. D'Maris Coffman & Judy Z. Stephenson & Nathan Sussman, 2022. "Financing the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1120-1150, November.
    10. Condorelli, Stefano, 2014. "The 1719-20 stock euphoria: a pan-European perspective," MPRA Paper 68652, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2015.
    11. Stefano O. Condorelli, 2017. "Des dettes de guerre des années 1701-12 à l’euphorie financière de 1719-20 : une perspective pan-européenne," Post-Print hal-01779048, HAL.
    12. Di Muzio, Tim & Dow, Matthew, 2016. "Uneven and Combined Confusion: On the Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism and the Rise of the West," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2016/03, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    13. Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak, 2013. "Beyond Thomas Mun: the economic ideas of Edward Coke, Francis Bacon and Lionel Cranfield," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG 473, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    14. Koddenbrock, Kai, 2017. "What money does: An inquiry into the backbone of capitalist political economy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    15. Di Muzio, Tim & Robbins, Richard H., 2015. "Debt As Power," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 161429, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • N93 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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