Debts Unpaid

Louise E. Walker is Professor of History at Northeastern University. Her previous publications include the prize-winning Waking from the Dream: Mexico's Middle Classes after 1968 (2013).

'A truly original and important book. Using new archival sources in innovative ways, Walker brings creditors and debtors together and explores the fight for social power and legal position over a long span of Mexican history. And yet, this is a story about risk and reward that resonates beyond Mexico, reminding us that not paying debts is as much a part of the history of capitalism as debt itself.' Jeremy I. Adelman, University of Cambridge

• Introduction; 1. Little debts: Justice and citizenship in small claims, 1810s–1860s; 1.1 A contractual society; 1.2 The judicial city; 1.3 Mediating debt disputes in the juicios verbales; 1.4 The parameters of economic justice; 1.5 Continuity and change after 1812; 1.6 The humdrum as historic; 2. Broken contracts: Precaution and risk in litigation and law, 1860s–1870s; 2.1 Debt litigation on the rise; 2.2 Trading information with friends and strangers; 2.3 Risk, uncertainty, and the providencias precautorias; 2.4 Property seizure and the politics of property rights; 2.5 Avoiding obligations and litigating trust; 2.6 Law and economy: Making rules for unpaid debts; 2.7 Between two worlds; 3. Unworthy: Economic information in credit reports, 1880s–1920s; 3.1 Credit reports and the new horizon of bureaucratic trust; 3.2 Banamex and financial exclusion; 3.3 Evaluating creditworthiness; 3.4 Institutional lending in a time of revolution; 3.5 Defining the boundaries of economic honour; 3.6 Economic information from gossip to bureaucracy; 4. Bad cheques: Property crime and the moral economy of financialisation, 1930s–1980s; 4.1 The criminalisation of uncovered cheques; 4.2 Economic citizenship and financial inclusion; 4.3 Misuse, malfeasance, and the growing pains of financial modernity; 4.4 Social inertia, friction, and the latent coercion of financialisation; 4.5 From delinquency to vulnerability; 5. Asking for help: Letters about fairness and dispossession, 1990s–2000s; 5.1 From citizens to financial service users; 5.2 Institutional borrowing in an era of crisis; 5.3 Indebtedness and dehumanisation; 5.4 Economic storytelling and the power of the president; 5.5 Usury and the new purgatory; 5.6 The Credit Bureau and the Black List; 5.7 Villains and victims; Conclusion; Notes; References; Index.