Livre - The familiarity of strangers

“This is a signal book, a model to be emulated, a tour de force in modern historiographical skill, one of the best I have ever read.” KENNETH STOW, American Historical Review This groundbreaking book takes a new approach to the study of cross-cultural trade, blending archival research with historical narrative and economic analysis. The author focuses on the early modern Jewish community of Livorno, Tuscany, and its extensive business ties with Jews and non-Jews across the Mediterranean, Europe, and Portuguese India. “Trivellato has accomplished something special—a brilliant description of a family, of a nation, of a period of history, of an economy and of a culture…. This is one of the best and most original books on Jewish history published this year.” SETH J. FRANTZMAN, Jerusalem Post “The Familiarity of Strangers offers ground-breaking perspectives on social networks and the market, the culture of trust, the history of Sephardic Jews, and the global reach of early modern commerce. It successfully challenges our stereotypes about capitalism, rational choice, cosmopolitanism, and the role of kin in commercial life. With access to archives in numerous countries, it offers an exciting and new approach to the interaction of culture and economic life.” MARGARET C. JACOB, University of California, Los Angeles Winner of the American Historical Association’s 2010 Leo Gershoy Award for the most outstanding work published in English on any aspect of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European history. Co-winner of the 2010 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for the best book in Early Modern and Modern Jewish History published in English between 2006 and 2010. Francesca Trivellato is Frederick W. Hilles Professor of History at Yale University.