Alternative Exchanges: Second-Hand Circulations from the Sixteenth Century to the Present(10 International Studies in Social History)

Exchanges have always had more than economic significance: values circulate and encounters become institutionalized. This volume explores the changing meaning of the circulation of second-hand goods from the Renaissance to today, and thereby examines the blurring of boundaries between market, gifts, and charity. It describes the actors of the market - official entities such as corporations, recognized professions, and established markets but also the subterranean circulation that develops around the need for money. The complex layers that not only provide for numerous intermediaries but also include the many men and women who, as sellers or buyers, use these circulations on countless occasions are also examined.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Introduction Laurence Fontaine Chapter 1. Second-hand Dealers in the Early Modern Low Countries: Institutions, Markets and Practices Harald Deceulaer Chapter 2. Using Things as Money: An Example from Late Renaissance Rome Renata Ago Chapter 3. Prostitution and the Circulation of Second-hand Goods in Early Modern Rome Tessa Storey Chapter 4. “The Magazine of All Their Pillaging”: Armies as Sites of Second-hand Exchanges during the French Wars of Religion Brian Sandberg Chapter 5. The Exchange of Second-hand Goods between Survival Strategies and “Business” in Eighteenth-century Paris Laurence Fontaine Chapter 6. Uses of the Used: The Conventions of Renewing and Exchanging Goods in French Provincial Aristocracy Valérie Pietri Chapter 7. The Scope and Structure of the Nineteenth-century Second-hand Trade in the Parisian Clothes Market Manuel Charpy Chapter 8. “What Goes ’Round Comes ’Round”: Second-hand Clothing, Furniture and Tools in Working-class Lives in the Interwar USA Susan Porter Benson Chapter 9. Moving On: Overlooked Aspects of Modern Collecting Jackie Goode Chapter 10. The Second-hand Car Market as a Form of Resistance Bernard Jullien Chapter 11. Utopia Postponed? The Rise and Fall of Barter Markets in Argentina, 1995–2004 Ruth Pearson Chapter 12. Charity, Commerce, Consumption: The International Second-hand Clothing Trade at the Turn of the Millennium – Focus on Zambia Karen Tranberg Hansen Conclusion Laurence Fontaine Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

About the Author :
Laurence Fontaine studied History and Sociology at Paris-Sorbonne University and was appointed by the C.N.R.S. in 1989. She was Professor in the History Department of the European University Institute, Florence, Italy from 1995 until 2003 and is currently Directrice de Recherche in the C.N.R.S., attached to the EHESS in Paris.

Review :
“[This volume] gathers a rich collection of rigorous essays based on case studies. The topics selected exemplify the recent trends in social history, which reveal new areas for research.”  ·  Sixteenth Century Journal “…this volume offers an array of insights into the multifaceted means employed to construct material advantage…and into a creative management that took many forms and varied across time.”  ·  Journal of Social History