Notes: Course Repeatable for Credit. Debt is a ubiquitous element of modern social and economic life. Although incurring debt may be useful to finance consumption or investment, is it a necessary feature of capitalism? This course explores the evolution of European capitalism to understand whether morals, politics, and religion played a role in creating and changing the practices and meaning of debt and credit. Following the shift of the core of European capitalism from Renaissance Italy and the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and the Northwest during the French and the Industrial revolutions, we will assess to what extent Church excommunication for debt, imprisonment, and even torture and the death penalty for bankrupts contributed to economic development and the maintaining of the social and political order in the continent. This course fulfills the following History Major requirements: Advanced, European and Pre-1800s