Synopses & Reviews
How did banking, borrowing, investing, and even losing moneyand#8212;in other words, participating in the modern financial systemand#8212;come to seem like
routine activities of everyday
life?
Genres of the Credit Economy addresses
this question by examining the history of financial instruments and representations of finance in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.
Chronicling the process by which some of our most important conceptual categories were naturalized, Mary Poovey explores complex relationships among forms of writing that are not usually viewed together, from bills of exchange and bank checks, to realist novels and Romantic poems, to economic theory and financial journalism. Taking up all early forms of financial and monetarywriting, Poovey argues that these genres mediated for early modern Britons the operations of a market system organized around credit and debt. By arguing that genre is a critical tool for historical and theoretical analysis and an agent in the events that formed the modern world, Poovey offers a new way to appreciate the character of the credit economy and demonstrates the contribution historians and literary scholars can make to understanding its operations.
Much more than an exploration of writing on and around money, Genres of the Credit Economy offers startling insights about the evolution of disciplines and the separation of factual and fictional genres.
Review
“Mary Poovey relocates and revives the question of literary value by recasting it as one about kinds of writing in emergent credit-based society. Her placement of literature and its institutions on a huge spectrum along with economics, credit, and political economy aligns it with systems of finance as a vehicle for managing value in and of itself. Poovey joins matchless scope, intellectual vigor, and argumentative force to stunning originality.”
John Bender, Stanford University
Review
“No one with an interest in the current state of literary studies will be able to ignore this book. No one with an interest in the histories of the disciplines of economics and literary criticism will fail to learn from this book. Everyone with an interest in the development of the humanities will be in debt to this book. It lays bare the traffic between money and writing, fact and fiction, literature and economy, and value and knowledge in ways that will alter our understanding of modernity. Its most powerful analytic insights are produced by an extraordinarily brilliant conception of genre which allows Poovey to chart the warps and wrinkles in the development of the Credit Economy, tracking the incommensurability of ways of valuing and representing value. Not since Foucault began to unlock the history of systems of thought through the incision of his concept of discourse has there been an analytic intervention of such power and fecundity.
Genres of the Credit Economy will join Pooveys earlier
A History of the Modern Fact in opening up the futures of knowledge production.”
Peter de Bolla, King's College, University of Cambridge
Review
“
Genres of the Credit Economy is a phenomenal accomplishment. Tracking the intersecting and diverging paths of economic, imaginative and monetary genres of writing about (and mediating) value from the late-seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, the book provides a stunningly original account of how the disciplines of literature and economics emerged, what they value, and the critical situation in which literary studies, in particular, currently finds itself. Working within and dynamically expanding the boundaries of the ‘new economic criticism,
Genres of the Credit Economy both provides a path-breaking study in the history of modern practices of writing and exemplifies a provocative new mode of reading, one which Poovey convincingly argues can help us answer the most pressing questions of the discipline: What is the function of literary study? What is its value? As timely in the questions it raises as it is rich in the history it unfolds, the archive it assembles, and the argument it frames
, Genres of the Credit Economy seems destined to become a defining work in the fields of literary and economic study, genre theory, and the history of the disciplines.”
Ian Baucom, Duke University
Review
"Mary Poovey is one of our most influential scholars of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture, and this is her most ambitious book. . . . [It is] full of historical detail and complex argument reflecting the major concerns of literary criticism of recent decades, and therefore will provoke criticism as well as praise." Regenia Gagnier
Review
"Poovey's objective is to shake up our thinking about economic subjects, forcing discussion across disciplinary divides. With this learned, informative, sometimes difficult, yet ultimately rewarding book, she has succeeded admirably." Victorian Studies
Review
"Try convincing a mainstream economist that economic theory has something in common with literary theory and you are likely to be met with complete incredulity. Yet this is precisely what Mary Poovey . . . sets out to do in this impressive monogrpah. . . . Her erudition is dazzling, and novel connections are prodigious." Deborah Valenze - Journal of British Studies
Review
andldquo;This is not a simple history of ideas or a tracing of practices of incorporationandmdash;we already have enough of those. It is rather a deconstruction of the concept of the business corporation that asks in any number of ways how it is that these behemoths came to be naturalized and familiar to us. Sophisticated and always engaging, Literature Incorporated ranks up there with those great works that provide a history to a concept that weandrsquo;d never thought of before.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Theoretically insightful and timely in the questions it raises, Literature Incorporated is an electrifying contribution to recent work on the relation of economics and imaginative writing from the mid-seventeenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. Oandrsquo;Brien reshapes the critical conversation in important ways, drawing attention to the actions the corporation made possible and the crises it precipitated. This is an exciting, substantial, and original study.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Literature Incorporated uses the metaphor of incorporation to explore actual early corporations, Lockeandrsquo;s writings on money, the South Sea Bubble, insurance, abolitionist narratives, and eighteenth-century banking. This is an informed, intelligent, and unfailingly interesting example of how literary theory and economic history can enlighten each other.andrdquo;
Synopsis
How did banking, borrowing, investing, and even losing money--in other words, participating in the modern financial system--come to seem likeroutine activities of everydaylife? Genres of the Credit Economy addressesthis question by examining the history of financial instruments and representations of finance in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain.
Chronicling the process by which some of our most important conceptual categories were naturalized, Mary Poovey explores complex relationships among forms of writing that are not usually viewed together, from bills of exchange and bank checks, to realist novels and Romantic poems, to economic theory and financial journalism. Taking up all early forms of financial and monetarywriting, Poovey argues that these genres mediated for early modern Britons the operations of a market system organized around credit and debt. By arguing that genre is a critical tool for historical and theoretical analysis and an agent in the events that formed the modern world, Poovey offers a new way to appreciate the character of the credit economy and demonstrates the contribution historians and literary scholars can make to understanding its operations.
Much more than an exploration of writing on and around money, Genres of the Credit Economy offers startling insights about the evolution of disciplines and the separation of factual and fictional genres.
Synopsis
Long before
Citizens United and modern debates over corporations as people, such organizations already stood between the public and private as both vehicles for commerce and imaginative constructs based on groups of individuals. In this book, John Oandrsquo;Brien explores how this relationship played out in economics and literature, two fields that gained prominence in the same era.
Examining British and American essays, poems, novels, and stories from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, Oandrsquo;Brien pursues the idea of incorporation as a trope discernible in a wide range of texts. Key authors include John Locke, Eliza Haywood, Harriet Martineau, and Edgar Allan Poe, and each chapter is oriented around a type of corporation reflected in their works, such as insurance companies or banks. In exploring issues such as whether sentimental interest is the same as economic interest, these works bear witness to capitalismandrsquo;s effect on history and human labor, desire, and memory. This periodandrsquo;s imaginative writing, Oandrsquo;Brien argues, is where the unconscious of that process left its mark. By revealing the intricate ties between literary models and economic concepts, Literature Incorporated shows us how the business corporation has shaped our understanding of our social world and ourselves.
About the Author
Mary Poovey is Samuel Rudin University Professor of the Humanities and professor of English at New York University. Her two most recent books, A History of the Modern Fact and Genres of the Credit Economy, examine the emergence of the modern disciplines. Her history of the modern financial model, co-authored with Kevin R. Brine, is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgmentsand#160;
INTRODUCTION
and#160;
PREAMBLE / Mediating Genres
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Imaginative Genres
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Financial Writing
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Monetary Genres
and#160;
ONE / Mediating Value
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Writing about Money in the New Credit Economy
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Fact/Fiction Continuum
and#160;
TWO / Generic Differentiation and the Naturalization of Money
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Inciting Belief through Print
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Sir James Steuartand#8217;s Principles of Political Economy: Between Fiction and Theoryand#160;
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Money Talks: Thomas Bridgesand#8217;s Adventures of a Bank-Note
and#160;
INTERCHAPTER ONE / and#8220;The Paper Ageand#8221;
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Takeoff in the Book Trade
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Proliferation of Bank Paper
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Differential Formsand#160;
THREE / Politicizing Paper Money
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The First Currency Radical: William Cobbett Pits Paper against Gold
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Labor Notes and a Coinage of Pottery: Robert Owen and John Bray
and#160;
FOUR / Professional Political Economy and Its Popularizers
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Raising the Profile of Economic Theory: Ricardo, McCulloch, Chalmers, and John Stuart Mill
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Financial Journalism: Economic Writing for Middle-Class Readers
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; W. Stanley Jevons and the Narrowing of Economic Science
and#160;
FIVE / Delimiting Literature, Defining Literary Value
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Literary Value and a Hierarchy of Imaginative Genres
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Hierarchies of Reading
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Facts, Fictions, and Literary Value
and#160;
INTERCHAPTER TWO / Textual Interpretation and Historical Description
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Reading Martineauand#8217;s Illustrations of Political Economy: Exemplary Interpretations
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Historical Description
and#160;
SIX / Literary Appropriations
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Jane Austenand#8217;s Gestural Aesthetic
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; From Gesture to Formalism: Little Dorrit and Silas Marner
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Rewards of Form: The Last Chronicle of Barset
and#160;
CODA
and#160;
Notes
Bibliography
Index