Les Juifs et l’argent dans l’imaginaire chrétien et la pensée économique (Jean-François Chauvard)
DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.62.
First phrase:
Juifs et capitalisme. Aux origines d’une légende. De quelle légende – oubliée – s’agit-il ? Celle de l’origine juive de la police d’assurance et de la lettre de change, qui aurait permis aux Juifs, expulsés de France à la fin du xive siècle, de mettre à l’abri leurs avoirs à l’étranger.
Les sources du droit, source de la légende ? (Luisa Brunori & Jean-Louis Halpérin)
DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.63
Abstract:
Francesca Trivellato’s analysis begins with the first chapter of Étienne Cleirac’s Us et coustumes de la mer (1647), focusing on insurance and bills of exchange. The difficulties of integrating these two instruments of commercial law into the framework set out in Romanist legal sources led Cleirac to attribute their invention to Jews. This essentially technical endeavor to adjust the system of legal sources was nevertheless in line with the prevailing mindset of the early modern period, and that of the centuries that followed. By revealing the role of jurists in crafting an antisemitic narrative, The Promise and Peril of Credit prompts a reflection on the reciprocal contributions in recent years between intellectual history and legal history.
L’antisémitisme et la réforme de la Bourse de Paris (1893-1898) (Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur)
DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.64.
Abstract:
The reforms of the Paris Stock Exchange between 1893 and 1898 gave rise to manifestations of antisemitism that were very much of their time. Supporters of the stockbrokers’ monopoly branded their opponents who participated in the free market (known as coulissiers) as Jews. Beyond the conservative defense of a privileged guild and its liberal contestation, this episode illuminates two conceptions of the financial market that are still current today. The coulissiers favored liquidity and speed of execution, professional financiers, and international exchanges, potentially at the cost of trading security and equality, and to the detriment of small traders and market stability. The official brokers (agents de change) had opposite priorities. The debate was complexified by the emergence of a third, socialist position that rejected both liberal and conservative visions, proposing a public-service stock exchange that would favor transparency and security without benefiting a privileged group. Although this position did not win out, it nevertheless heralded new conceptions of the market economy.
Les Juifs, la lettre de change : le peuple-caste et l’esprit du premier capitalisme (Maurice Kriegel)
DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.65
Abstract:
In the wake of Francesca Trivellato’s book, this article sheds light on the extent to which the legend of the Jewish invention of bills of exchange shaped views of Jewish history over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and more specifically the characterization of their economic activities. In the eighteenth century, Montesquieu praised the sophistication of commercial instruments, capable of resisting the arbitrary actions of governments and therefore ensuring freedoms. Prominent figures of the Enlightenment contended that the commercial function of Jews had ensured their survival despite their dispersal, thereby proposing a non-theological version of Jewish history. In the nineteenth century, the anxieties and hopes generated by the expansion of industry and trade, as well as the invention of medievalism, prompted new debates about the historical circumstances in which “trade” had emerged and the role of Jews in its growth.
Toutes les dettes ne se valent pas (Francesca Trivellato) (transl. Guillaume Calafat)
DOI 10.1017/ahss.2024.66.
Abstract:
This article responds to the comments by Jean-François Chauvard, Luisa Brunori and Jean-Louis Halpérin, Pierre-Cyrille Hautcœur, and Maurice Kriegel on my book The Promise and Peril of Credit, translated into French as Juifs et capitalisme. The book examines the cultural meanings attached to the diffusion of paper credit instruments of private finance after the seventeenth century, with particular regard to the manifold associations with Jews and usury that these instruments elicited. My response takes its cues from an exhibition conceived by the Swiss artist Christoph Büchel and titled Monte di pietà, held at the Fondazione Prada in conjunction with the Sixtieth Venice Art Biennale in 2024. The exhibition favors free associations over analytical or historical contextualization. Because of its ambiguous allusions to Jews and the State of Israel in relation to its main theme—the role of indebtedness in war and human degradation and exploitation—the exhibition evokes a central issue in my research, namely, the tenacity of stereotypes but also their malleability. I therefore take this opportunity to review salient features of my approach to this thorny issue and to discuss the complementary approaches to historical contextualization suggested by the contributors to this forum.
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