A History of Civilizations by Fernand Braudel

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Ĭohen, Walter. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978. In Court Masques: Jacobean and Caroline Entertainments, 1605–1640. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.Ĭarew, Thomas.

The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Queen Elizabeth Late Queen of England. New York: Fontana Press, 1985.īry, Theodore de. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–l8th Century, Volume I: The Structures of Everyday Life. 1979 New York: Harper & Row, 1982.īraudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–I8th Century, Volume II: The Wheels of Commerce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.Īshton, Robert. Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550–1750. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.Īgnew, Jean-Christophe. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. As Fernand Braudel points out, descriptions of capitalism as a coherent economic system derive from the mid-nineteenth century, and even Marx does not refer to “capitalism” in this sense at any point in his writings ( The Wheels of Commerce 237). This essay attempts to complicate the use of the term “capitalism” in critical accounts of the play by noting the important differences between early modern forms of capital and capitalism as a mode of production. I wish to highlight two important problems implicit in Cohen’s statements: the presentation of capitalism as a unitary object of analysis and the conflation of capitalism and mercantilism.

Yet, in the same passage, Cohen also describes the ethos represented by Antonio as “native bourgeois mercantilism” (771). Despite their differences, these readings generally follow the precedent established by Cohen, and link the play’s economic language and commentary to the institutions and social relations approximating that of “capitalism.” Cohen asserts that the play, and the character of Antonio in particular, can be seen as “the harbinger of capitalism” (771). A number of recent discussions of The Merchant of Venice, including essays by Walter Cohen, Thomas Moison, Michael Nerlich, Lars Engle, and Michael Ferber, have emphasized the range of economic contexts and concerns that are evoked in the play.

A History of Civilizations by Fernand Braudel