Shylock's children: economics and Jewish identity in modern Europe

Abstract

Throughout much of European history. Jews have been strongly associated with commerce and the money trade, rendered both visible and vulnerable, like Shakespeare's Shylock, by their economic distinctiveness. Shylock's Children tells the story of perceptions of this economic difference and its effects on modern identity. Derek Penslar explains how Jews in modern Europe developed the notion of a distinct Jewish economic man, an image that grew ever more complex and nuanced between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.