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Author Farber, Lianna, author.

Title An anatomy of trade in medieval writing : value, consent, and community / Lianna Farber
Published Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2006

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Description 1 online resource (x, 235 pages) : illustrations
Contents 1. The story of trade -- 2. Value -- 3. Consent -- 4. Community
Summary "Economics, in our modern sense of the term, was not a discipline in the Middle Ages, although the history of economic thought is often written as though it were. Lianna Farber restores the core economic concept of trade to its medieval contexts, showing that it contains three component parts: value, consent, and community. Medieval writing about trade not only relies on these elements, it presents them as unproblematic."
"By addressing texts in which each element of trade is discussed directly, Farber demonstrates that this straightforward picture is falsely reassuring. In fact, these ideas were deeply contested. In the end, Farber reveals, writing about trade was not descriptive but argumentative, analyzing the act in an attempt to justify it. Such texts reveal deep intellectual uncertainties about the market society they advocated. An Anatomy of Trade in Medieval Writing benefits from Farber's close reading of literary sources, among them the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer and Robert Henryson; theological sources, including the writing of Thomas Aquinas and Richard of Middleton; and legal sources such as the canon law on marriage formation. A contribution to our understanding of medieval life and thought, this book implies a need to reconsider the genealogy of economics as a way of thinking about the world."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-230) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Economics -- History -- To 1800.
Commerce -- History -- Medieval, 500-1500.
Economics -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Europe -- History
Commerce in literature.
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Economic History.
Commerce
Commerce in literature
Commerce -- Medieval
Economics
Economics -- Moral and ethical aspects
Literatur
Handel Motiv
Handel
SUBJECT Europe -- Commerce -- History -- To 1500
Subject Europe
Europa
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781501721441
1501721445