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Money in the Dutch Republic

Everyday Practice and Circuits of Exchange

Sebastian Felten (Universität Wien, Austria)

$56.95

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English
Cambridge University Press
30 July 2025
The Dutch Republic was an important hub in the early modern world-economy, a place where hundreds of monies were used alongside each other. Sebastian Felten explores regional, European and global circuits of exchange by analysing everyday practices in Dutch cities and villages in the period 1600-1850. He reveals how for peasants and craftsmen, stewards and churchmen, merchants and metallurgists, money was an everyday social technology that helped them to carve out a livelihood. With vivid examples of accounting and assaying practices, Felten offers a key to understanding the internal logic of early modern money. This book uses new archival evidence and an approach informed by the history of technology to show how plural currencies gave early modern users considerable agency. It explores how the move to uniform national currency limited this agency in the nineteenth century and thus helps us make sense of the new plurality of payments systems today.
By:  
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
ISBN:   9781009102742
ISBN 10:   1009102745
Pages:   282
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Sebastian Felten is a historian of science, finance, and bureaucracy at the University of Vienna. He was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Berlin and co-edited Histories of Bureaucratic Knowledge (2020).

Reviews for Money in the Dutch Republic: Everyday Practice and Circuits of Exchange

'What counts as money? How is it used? These questions, newly relevant today, were of pressing concern in the past. In a book full of telling examples, Felten reveals how these questions were answered in practice rather than only in theory. He shows convincingly that successful money requires the willing participation of all its users.' Jan de Vries, University of California at Berkeley 'If you ever wondered what the lives of ordinary people can teach us about the functioning of society at large: read this book. Sebastian Felten's unique blend of big ideas and rich historical detail challenges us to rethink the use of money in early modern Europe.' Oscar Gelderblom, Antwerp University 'Felten utilizes a variety of disciplines and sources, providing an intriguing, accessible, and erudite analysis into the use of money. He illustrates exchange mechanisms that linked rural areas to urban centers and ultimately to global networks. Money in the Dutch Republic possesses a Braudelian feel for both local details and big structures.' Charles Parker, Saint Louis University


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