Search
Close
Search
Advanced Search
Search Menu
AI Discovery Assistant

Extract

The recent turmoil in world financial markets has shown, if there was any doubt, that capitalism is not a natural, stable state, the so called ‘end of history’, but a set of relationships shaped by politics and culture. As such, there is a need for a history that seeks to explain the origins of capitalist economy, the role of the state in bringing it about and the way the economy was understood by contemporaries. Taylor's book seeks to do just that. This study charts attitudes to commerce, investment and share ownership, and, in particular, how such attitudes informed the reform of the legal framework for commerce in the first half of the nineteenth century. In so doing, Taylor contributes to a scholarship that explores the interaction between politics and economics and considers the role of culture in representing the market to the populace. The introduction shows how this study is informed by historians such as Margot Finn and Martin Daunton whose work has created a dialogue between traditional economic history and social history to explain the emergence of financial systems.1 But Taylor's study needs also to be read alongside scholars in English Literature such as Mary Poovey and Catherine Gallagher whose recent work has used visual and textual culture to explore how the ‘free market’ became embedded in British culture as a natural and unquestionable part of everyday life.2

Issue Section:
Review
You do not currently have access to this article.
Download all slides