It is a familiar fact from philosophy of science that often highly specialized sub-fields of the same discipline or different disciplines will use the same word for slightly different phenomena or concepts.
Thoroughly underwhelmed by Brown. She admits that her objections to "feudalism" are equally applicable to concepts like "capitalism" and "mercantilism". And in this she displays the characteristic vices of historiography: nuance (see Kieran Healy) and neutrality (often rendered as "anti-presentism"). In this context, I don't see any need to concede that historians own the turf. It's perfectly reasonable to use their research and dismiss their analytical framework. Happens all the time with economics, and rightly so.
Oops! That's the kind of error I sometimes make. I found a 1974 piece "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe", by Elizabeth Brown (maybe via Wikipedia) and somehow assumed it was the one by Reynolds that you were referring to.
"Why Lords Went for Luxuries: A Riff on Adam Smith and David Hume, 500–1600"
(a 20 minute scholarly YouTube video):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBrQJL70i58
nicely done.
Thanks Eric.
Thoroughly underwhelmed by Brown. She admits that her objections to "feudalism" are equally applicable to concepts like "capitalism" and "mercantilism". And in this she displays the characteristic vices of historiography: nuance (see Kieran Healy) and neutrality (often rendered as "anti-presentism"). In this context, I don't see any need to concede that historians own the turf. It's perfectly reasonable to use their research and dismiss their analytical framework. Happens all the time with economics, and rightly so.
Who is Brown?
Oops! That's the kind of error I sometimes make. I found a 1974 piece "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe", by Elizabeth Brown (maybe via Wikipedia) and somehow assumed it was the one by Reynolds that you were referring to.