Trust: A History

From 22 September 2014

Geoffrey Hosking's new volume argues that social trust is mediated through symbolic systems, such as religion and money, and the institutions associated with them, such as churches and banks.

Historically these institutions have nourished trust, but the resulting trust networks have tended to create quite tough boundaries around themselves, across which distrust is projected against outsiders. He asserts that in the modern world it has become common to entrust major resources to institutions we know little about, and suggests that we need to learn from historical experience and temper this with more traditional forms of trust, or become an ever more distrustful society, with potentially very destabilising consequences.

The new publication will be launched at SSEES next month.

Trust: A History by Geoffrey Hosking. Oxford University Press, 2014. 

ISBN: 978-0-19-871238-1.