Did the inhabitants of `s-Hertogenbosch benefit from the economic ebb
and flow of the long sixteenth century (1500-1650)? Through this central
question, Affluence and Inequality addresses wider issues of
economic growth and decline in an (advanced) pre-industrial economy.
Challenging traditional questions with innovative and ground-breaking
methods leads to a fresh perspective on the economic and social history
of the early modern Low Countries.
Building on individual and household experience, connecting fiscal,
financial, occupational and social dots, Jord Hanus shows that the
so-called structural decline of the seventeenth-century Southern Low
Countries was in fact a next step in a series of structural
transformations characterizing the Low Countries during the
pre-industrial period. Also, even though poverty was very real for a
minority of the urban populace, for the majority, the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries brought agreeable living standards. In contrast to
a range of southern European cities framed equal in poverty, the urban
centres of the Low Countries were both unequal and affluent.
- ISBN13 9789042931466
- Publish Date 31 December 2014
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country BE
- Imprint Peeters Publishers
- Format Paperback
- Pages 356
- Language English