Set chiefly in Nuremberg, this historical work follows the lives of ordinary people in a medieval city. Through the spread of the money economy, artisans' worlds, festivals, gift exchange, women, and Jews, it depicts medieval Europe as a society in which human relationships and social structures were being deeply transformed.

Looking beyond the cliché of a dark age, the book reveals a major transformation in medieval Europe through ordinary people's lives.

Yoshihiko Uchida uses close readings of Adam Smith, Hajime Kawakami, Nakae Chomin, and others to present the social sciences as a living practice of thought. Rather than observing institutions and theory from outside, he enters their language and structure as one would read a literary work, showing how social understanding can become a question of one's own life.

The book rethinks social science not as abstract theory but as a work through which people read and live society.