ABSTRACT
In Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Slovak urban history, one would hardly find a more extensively studied subject than that of the early modern urban economy. This (main)stream of scholarship, beginning with pioneers of urban history like Zikmund Winter, Bedřich Mendl, Jan Ptaśnik and Elemér Mályusz, reached its pinnacle in the postwar period being overtly favoured by the Marxist historiography. While seeking in socioeconomic structures both the seeds and signs of social class division, the Marxist historians substantially contributed to the investigation of the organization of urban production and trade and they also explored the inherent trends in early modern economies. Notwithstanding the abundance of literature, a scholarly debate is still marked, to a large extent, by two contradictory and extreme approaches that render rather unsatisfactory outcomes.
