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.

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