Hidden Interests in Credit and Finance

Book excerpt: In this book, James B. Greenberg and Thomas K. Park take an anthropological approach to the economic history of the past one thousand years and define credit as a potentially transformative force involving inequalities. Traveling through the Mediterranean and Europe, from the medieval period to the modern day, Greenberg and Park reorient financial history and position social capital and ethical thought at its center. They examine the multicultural origins of credit and finance, from banking to credit cards and predatory lending to the collapse of global credit markets in 2007–2008. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, history, economics, religion, and sociology.