The Economy of Promises - 9780691238098

Princeton University Press

The Economy of PromisesTrust, Power, and Credit in America\nAuthor(s): Bruce G. Carruthers\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Princeton University Press, United States\nImprint: Princeton University Press\nISBN-13: 9780691238098, 978-0691238098\nSynopsis\nA comprehensive and illuminating account of the history of credit in Americaand how it continues to divide the haves from the have-nots\n\nThe Economy of Promises is a far-reaching study of credit in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Synthesizing and surveying economic and social history, Bruce Carruthers examines how issues of trust stitch together the modern [url] economy. In the case of credit, that trust involves a commitment by debtors to repay money they have borrowed from lenders. Each promise poses a fundamental question: why does the lender trust the borrower?\n\nThe book tracks the dramatic shift from personal qualitative judgments to the impersonal quantitative measurements of credit scores and ratings, which make le.