Hidden Interests in Credit and Finance takes an anthropological approach to the roots of Western finance and credit in ancient societies from early Mesopotamia to eleventh-century Islam. The authors reveal that credit is not just an economic transaction but also a social relationship and a technology of power.

By James B. Greenberg and Thomas K. Park

Chapter 1: Finance in the Middle Ages and the Scholastic Tradition
Chapter 2: Credit and Faith in Medieval Iberia: The Road not Taken
Chapter 3: Early European Finance 1050-1650
Chapter 4: Transcending Feudal Finance in Western Europe
Chapter 5: Mercantile Credit and the Atlantic Slave Trade
Chapter 6: Chayanov, Marx, and hidden interests in Rural Morocco
Chapter 7: Ethnicity and Social Capital in 1970s Sefrou
Chapter 8: Problematizing Modern Consumer Credit
Chapter 9: An Anthropology of the 2008 Credit Crisis
Conclusion: Hidden Interests and the Development of Finance