The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe, 1638-1848

by Jonathan Karp

Overview

This study demonstrates the centrality of economic rationales to debates on Jews’ status in Italy, Britain, France, and Germany during the course of two centuries. It delineates the common motifs that informed these discussions. It thus provides the first overview of the political-economic dimensions of the Jewish emancipation literature of this period viewed against the backdrop of broader controversies within European society over the effects of commerce on inherited political values and institutions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107407800
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/04/2012
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Karp is Associate Professor in the Judaic Studies and History Departments at Binghamton University, SUNY. He is co-editor of The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times (with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2007). His current book projects are The Rise and Demise of the Black-Jewish Alliance: A Class-Cultural Analysis and Philosemitism in History (with Adam Sutcliffe; Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. This new-fangled age; 2. From ancient constitution to Mosaic Republic; 3. The new system of commercial government; 4. The natural order of things; 5. A state within a state; 6. The Israelites and the aristocracy; 7. Jews, commerce, and history; 8. Capitalism and the Jews; Afterword: industrialization and beyond.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Magisterial…” -The Leo Baeck Institute Newsletter

“Rarely have scholars undertaken, as Jonathan Karp does in this new book, to position the ongoing debates on Jewish emancipation within larger debates over trade, commerce, and political economy within European intellectual history. And no scholar to date has done so in such a wide-ranging and thorough manner as Karp, looking at so many different national contexts and at such a broad field of early-modern history. This is…a major book that should be required reading for scholars and graduate students in Jewish history, in early-modern history more generally, and in the history of Western economic thought.” —The International History Review

“The Politics of Jewish Commerce is an important and stimulating contribution to at least three areas of study—Jewish history, modern economic thought, and the Enlightenment. Its value lies in the originality of its perspectives, which flow from the author’s excellent decision to adopt an intellectual-historical approach to European economic thought in the period 1650 to 1850 insofar as it relates to the political debate about the place of Jews in modern society.” —Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“This original and thoroughly researched book carefully analyzes debates surrounding the place and role of ‘the Jews’ in the economy of early modern Western Europe. The end result is a convincing, fresh and careful analysis of three related but potentially explosive topics that are rarely dealt with appropriately in academia and beyond: Jews, money and modernity. This is a convincing, learned and path-breaking analysis of several different, yet related, fields that add significantly to the study of early modern Europe, the birth of modern economic and political thought, and the place and role of “the Jews” in all three of these discourses.” —Religious Studies Review

Editorial Reviews

Magisterial…” -The Leo Baeck Institute Newsletter

“Rarely have scholars undertaken, as Jonathan Karp does in this new book, to position the ongoing debates on Jewish emancipation within larger debates over trade, commerce, and political economy within European intellectual history. And no scholar to date has done so in such a wide-ranging and thorough manner as Karp, looking at so many different national contexts and at such a broad field of early-modern history. This is…a major book that should be required reading for scholars and graduate students in Jewish history, in early-modern history more generally, and in the history of Western economic thought.” —The International History Review

“The Politics of Jewish Commerce is an important and stimulating contribution to at least three areas of study—Jewish history, modern economic thought, and the Enlightenment. Its value lies in the originality of its perspectives, which flow from the author’s excellent decision to adopt an intellectual-historical approach to European economic thought in the period 1650 to 1850 insofar as it relates to the political debate about the place of Jews in modern society.” —Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“This original and thoroughly researched book carefully analyzes debates surrounding the place and role of ‘the Jews’ in the economy of early modern Western Europe. The end result is a convincing, fresh and careful analysis of three related but potentially explosive topics that are rarely dealt with appropriately in academia and beyond: Jews, money and modernity. This is a convincing, learned and path-breaking analysis of several different, yet related, fields that add significantly to the study of early modern Europe, the birth of modern economic and political thought, and the place and role of “the Jews” in all three of these discourses.” —Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher