S. R. Epstein (1960-2007) was Professor of Economic History and Head of the Economic History Department at the London School of Economics. His numerous publications include Freedom and Growth: Markets and States in Europe, 1300-1750 (2000) and, as editor, Town and Country in Europe, 1300-1800 (2002). Maarten Prak is Professor of Social and Economic History at Utrecht University. He is author and editor of several books, including The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (2005).

• Acknowledgements; List of contributors; Introduction: guilds, innovation, and the European economy, 1400–1800 S. R. Epstein and Maarten Prak; 1. Craft guilds, the theory of the firm, and early modern proto-industry Ulrich Pfister; 2. Craft guilds, apprenticeship and technological change in pre-industrial Europe S. R. Epstein; 3. Subcontracting in guild-based export trades, thirteenth–eighteenth centuries Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly; 4. Circulation of skilled labour in late medieval and early modern Central Europe Reinhold Reith; 5. Painters, guilds and the art market during the Dutch Golden Age Maarten Prak; 6. Craft guilds and technological change: the engine loom in the European silk ribbon industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Ulrich Pfister; 7. Guilds, technology and economic change in early modern Venice Francesca Trivellato; 8. Inventing in a world of guilds: silk fabrics in eighteenth-century Lyon Liliane Perez; 9. 'Not to hurt of trade': guilds and innovation in horology and precision instrument making Anthony Turner; 10. Reaching beyond the city wall: London guilds and national regulation, 1500–1700 Ian Anders Gadd and Patrick Wallis; 11. Guilds in decline? London livery companies and the rise of a liberal economy, 1600–1800 Michael Berlin; Index.

Review of the hardback: 'This is undoubtedly an important collection of essays that brings the vibrancy of the early modern industry to the fore.' The Historical Association