Early Modern Debts, 1550–1700. Ed. Laura Kolb and George Oppitz-Trotman (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Economics). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

• Anna Kowalcze-Pawlik

Published in the relatively new Palgrave economic humanities series, Early Modern Debts 1550–1700 investigates the cultural significance of debt in early modern Europe, underlining the social, economic and cultural character of lending and borrowing between bodies as versatile as individuals, cities, merchant networks and corporations. The text is divided into four parts that look at the concept of debt and its functioning in the early modern world from the interlocking perspectives of economic and legal history, literature and philosophy. Debt is approached through a series of topical close-ups that consider both the British Isles and the European continent, albeit with a noted predilection towards the former.