The Character of Credit: Personal Debt in English Culture, 1740-1914

Abstract

Margot Finn?s book The Character of Credit: Personal Debt in English Culture, 1740?1914 is the first volume in a new series published by Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories) which seeks to draw social and cultural history more closely together. In this respect the book is a resounding success, charting the ways in which economic and social relations were mediated through cultural forms. Many of the themes will be familiar to readers of Craig Muldrew?s work on credit in early modern England, which revealed the extent to which economic transactions took place within a web of social relationships.(1) It is Margot Finn?s achievement to demonstrate conclusively that the social and cultural relations created by credit continued to play a major role in the lives of all classes between 1740 and 1914. Economic activity remained a fundamentally social activity, embedded in historically specific cultural norms and expectations that profoundly limit the usefulness of analytic categories derived from classical political economy.