Proceedings of the International Conference of Economic and Social History - Rethymno, 10-13.12.2008

PUBLICATIONS OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY, University of Crete, Alexandria, Athens 2012 ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΕΙΑ, ΑΘΗΝΑ 2012

The proceedings are available (in .pdf format)in the page The Conference 2008

This version of the proceedings do not have ISBN yet.

In seventeenth-century France, families were essential as both agents and objects in the shaping of capitalism and growth of powerful states -- phenomena that were critical to the making of the modern world. For household members, neighbors, and authorities, the family business of the management of a broad range of tangible and intangible resources -- law, borrowing, violence, and marital status among them -- was central to political stability, economic productivity and cultural morality. The business of family life involved relationships that could be intimate (family and neighbors), intermediate (litigant and judge) or distant (governing authority and subject), and the resources in question were the currency of the early modern world these people knew. In all these regards, litigation was a key means of negotiating and contesting the challenges of daily life and the larger developments in which they were embedded.

The relationships between families, economies, and states have often been reframed but the perils as well as promises have persisted. Then, as now, husbands and wives found the experience of marriage to be fraught with uncertainty and risk; economic insecurity and ubiquitous borrowing were profound challenges; domestic violence was a telling marker of inequality in families. Julie Hardwick examines a critical period in the long history of family business to highlight the centrality of the lived experiences of working families in major political, economic, and cultural transitions.

Review: from Lawrence Fontaine in Law and History Review 28 (2010): 851-852.

The island of Crete was conquered by the Ottomans in the mid-seventeenth century, and was their last significant, and long-lasting, conquest of territory not previously held. Ottoman Crete has in recent years attracted historians’ attention for a number of reasons, among which two particularities related to broader themes in Ottoman history stand out: the institution of private landownership in 1670 in breach of the age-long tradition of the miri (‘state’) land system, and the emergence of a large Muslim population, mainly through the conversion of locals to Islam. The papers in this volume bring to light new archival, narrative, and epigraphic sources for Ottoman Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean, and aspire to contribute to the exploration of these but also other themes: centre-periphery relations and administration of an insular province, taxation, agricultural production, social life, and culture.

This volume is dedicated to Professors Elizabeth A. Zachariadou and Vassilis Demetriades in recognition of their contribution to Ottoman history, and more particularly to the establishment of Ottoman studies at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FO.R.T.H and the University of Crete.

Buying a car, the old adage tells us, is "the most important purchase you will ever make, after your home." Sally Clarke has written an extremely important and insightful book that explores the never-ending tug-of-war between companies, consumers, and the state to define the parameters of America's most important market. At the core of this broad, longitudinal study, is the simple yet elegant notion that the marketplace, and the relationship between consumers and firms, shapes not only the organization and structure of a firm, but how notions of trust and power play out in the real world of auto making and selling. Utilizing a vast and impressive array of approaches and sources, Clarke takes a political economist's unsentimental approach to unravel how the car market, built as much on emotion as on rationality, emerged and evolved.
Initially, at the automobile market's creation, innovation was difficult and costly as automakers sold imperfect vehicles to willing auto enthusiasts. Recognizing the threat of liability from defective autos, manufacturers sold their cars to dealer networks in order to deflect lawsuits. This forced consumers and dealers to shoulder the cost of innovation. The practice ended with the important 1916 Macpherson v. Buick case. Judge Benjamin

"Trust and Power: Consumers the Modern Corporation, and the Making of the United States Automobile Market" review by Gary Cross