In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Alternative Exchanges: Second-Hand Circulations from the Sixteenth Century to the Present
  • Beverly Lemire
Alternative Exchanges: Second-Hand Circulations from the Sixteenth Century to the Present. Edited by Laurence Fontaine (New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008. ix plus 270 pp. $90.00).

Scarcity was the norm for most of human history, the underlying force that directed human affairs, only occasionally interrupted by times of surplus. The [End Page 600] exigencies devised in response to these pressures produced complex intersecting systems of exchange that linked aristocrats and street sellers, seamstresses and soldiers, prostitutes and shopkeepers through the flows of goods that passed through their hands and their lives. The past two decades have brought a more intensive analysis of the practice and culture of the second-hand trade, finding in its historical practice a gauge of economic and social development and a measure of cultural norms. This volume, edited by Laurence Fontaine, showcases the latest research in this field with a rich array of case studies. Collectively and individually, these works will be of great interest to those who teach and research in the fields of social, economic and cultural history, as well as those in women's and development studies.

This is an interdisciplinary collection, ranging from Renaissance Rome to twenty-first century Zambia; seven of the twelve chapters focus on continental Europe (1500-1900), with the remainder ranging over the Atlantic world. Among the authors are prominent scholars outside the field of history, such as Ruth Pearson, Chair of Women and Development, University of Leeds. She and Karen Tranberg Hansen anchor the volume with two compelling contemporary chapters that address the complexities of informal economic exchange systems. For historians, these modern works are timely reminders of the persistence of practices deemed archaic or out-moded by economists of the formal financial world. Financial crises produce a resurgence of systems once familiar to our grandparents, demanding new sets of skills and new modes of thinking about goods and their value. Similarly, the complexities and culturally specific demands of the second-hand clothing trade in Zambia offer another view of the agency unleashed through a seemingly marginal commercial activity.

Fernand Braudel defined economic life as having a tripartite form - the top layer involves the workings of great corporations, banks and trading companies; the middle level of economic life is visible on our main streets. But in addition there is the complex informal sector that is the stuff of everyday life, what Braudel called a, "rich zone, like a layer covering the earth, I have called for want of a better expression material life or material civilization."1 This volume further unpacks the practices found within "material civilization", where the value of goods at every stage of their life-cycle remained constantly in focus and innovative ways were found for turning a profit from these materials. Tracking the intersection of informal and formal economic activity is a challenge. However, this challenge has been met and mastered by the authors represented here. In Harald Deceulaer's opening chapter the wealth of guild records for this trade are meticulously explored for the Southern Netherlands, as he traces the factors affecting the fluctuating prosperity of second-hand dealers. Women figured prominently in this trading sector, even when it was managed by guilds and while many women traded without guild sanction, we see a profile of their activities in this chapter, reiterated with variations in subsequent entries. Buying, selling, pawning, renting out high quality garments, or arranging auctions: each of these was an element of the second-hand trade that contributed to its profitability.

The value of a gift took many forms and the etiquette and mutability of the gift were well known to early modern men and women, aristocrat and commoner alike. Renato Ago explores the efforts by members of the Roman aristocracy to realize profit through the negotiation of gifts in the marketplace. Currency was in short supply and goods such as jewels, rich clothing and special foods or flowers [End Page 601] could take the place of cash as required and yield compensation. Fontaine likewise touches on this facet of exchange revealing how some aristocrats developed a passion for the process...

pdf

Share