A collection of essays by leading historians of early modern Europe and the U.S., this books explores how merchants, entrepreneurs, and other early modern capitalists viewed themselves.

Margaret Jacob is a Professor of History at UCLA.

 

Catherine Secretan is a Professor at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

Theological Roots of the Medieval/Modern Merchants' Self-Representation--Giacomo Todeschini * PART I: SELF-IMAGES * Images and Self-Images of Sephardic Merchants in Early Modern Europe and the Mediterranean--Francesca Trivellato * Merchants in Charge. The Self-Perception of Amsterdam Merchants, ca. 1550-1700--Clé Lesger * Merchants on the Defensive: National Self-Images in the Dutch Republic of the Late Eighteenth Century--Dorothee Sturkenboom * PART II: CAPITALISM AS NORMATIVE * "Merchants" and "Gentlemen" in Eighteenth-Century Sweden: Worlds of Jean Abraham Grill--Leos Müller * Professional Ethics and Commercial Rationality at the Beginning of the Modern Era--Jochen Hoock * The Anxious Merchant, the Bold Speculator, and the Malicious Bankrupt: Doing Business in Eighteenth-Century Hamburg--Mary Lindemann * Accounting for War and Revolution: Philadelphia Merchants and Commercial Risk, 1774-1811 * PART III: INDIVIDUALS AND STRIVING * Accounting for Science: How a Merchant Kept His Books in Elizabethan London--Deborah Harkness * Coming of Age in Trade: Masculinity and Commerce in Eighteenth-Century England--John Smail * Success and Self-Loathing in the Life of an Eighteenth-Century Entrepreneur--Matthew Kadane