Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historial Study
9781465680068
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The object of this book is to trace some strands in the development of religious thought on social and economic questions in the period which saw the transition from medieval to modern theories of social organization. It does not carry the subject beyond the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it makes no pretense of dealing with the history either of economic theory or of economic practice, except in so far as theory and practice were related to changes in religious opinion. In reality, however, the connection between them was intimate and vital. The revolutions, at once religious, political and social, which herald the transition from the medieval to the modern world, were hardly less decisive for the economic character of the new civilization than for its ecclesiastical organization and religious doctrines. The economic categories of modern society have their roots in the economic expansion and social convulsions which accompanied the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation.
