These unique papers were originally read at a conference on the new economic history of Britain at Harvard in 1970, and each is accompanied by a summary of the discussion that followed it. The participants of the conference represented a broad range of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic.
The first eleven papers deal with a variety of topics covering a period from 1840 to the 1920s. They focus on the performance of the British economy, and especially its businessmen, during the time of Britain's industrial maturity and relative decline. The papers and discussions reached a novel conclusion tha, contrary to commonly held opinion, the British economy performed well and that British businessmen were not lacking in entrepreneurial vigour compared with their German or American counterparts. But even more important for British historiography than this finding was the demonstration that economic and statistical methods can be applied successfully to the study of economic history. The papers in the concluding section discuss the origins and development of the new economic history and show that, as a substantial supplement to work along more traditional lines, its methods and application are both desirable and possible.
This collection serves as an interesting report of research into a key period in British history, and also as a useful introductory account of the new economic history in the United Kingdom.
This book was first published in 1971.

T.S. Ashton has sought less to cover the field of economic history in detail than to offer a commentary, with a stress on trends of development rather than on forms of organization or economic legislation.

This book seeks to interpret the growth of population, agriculture, maufacture, trade and finance in eighteenth-century England. It throws light on economic fluctuations and on the changing conditions of the wage-earners. The approach is that of an economist and use is made of hitherto neglected statistics. But treatment and language are simple. The book is intended not only for the specialist but also for others who turn to the past for its own sake or for understanding the present.

This book was first published in 1955.

Banking in Scotland has a long and distinguished history - to this day Scotland is served by its own banks which form a distinct regional group within the wider British banking system. Yet, until this volume, there had been no book which gives a full account of modern Scottish banking, analyzing its position within the British banking structure.
With this comprehensive study, this gap in the literature of modern British financial institutions has now been filled. Here, all aspects of Scottish banking are covered. The author describes the structure of the system and the pattern of branch banking, examining the position and practices of Scottish banks in regard to deposits and asset holding. He sets out the modern position of Scottish bank note issues and analyzes their significance both for the banks themselves and for the British system as a whole. The book gives valuable appraisal of the performance of the Scottish banks as lenders to the private business sector.
The author is not concerned with Scottish banks simply as institutions domestic to Scotland. He traces their relationship with the City of London and fully analyzes their role within the operations of wider British Monetary policy. This fascinating study, first published in 1965, concludes with a consideration of the future prospects of the Scottish banks within British banking as a whole.

These six papers were originally delivered to a conference at Sheffield University in 1969 and represent an overview of a research project led by Professor Pollard, which aimed to construct a series of annual figures of capital formation for the Industrial Revolution in Britain - both in aggregate and broken down into main sectors. Each paper is accompanied by a summary of the discussion which followed.

The problems encountered in such an undertaking are examined, a major one being definition: what to include in the term 'capital', how to measure or isolate expenditure under that heading, and how to deal with changes which have made the definitions and practices of present-day national income estimates inapplicable to earlier centuries. Sources are also examined in depth as statistical information is not only uncertain and often unreliable, but of different value and completeness for different sectors of the economy.

This book was first published in 1971.

How has British industry financed itself in the past? With the current debate on industry's financial strategy, this study of the past sixty years is a particularly timely contribution to the discussions on the future financing of industry.
This book gives, for the inter-war years, a detailed examination of the main sources of funds, covering long-term and short-term funding. It also traces the transition in the new issue market and explores the course of firms' own internal funds, and ends his coverage of the pre-war years with a chapter on the Macmillan Gap.
Dr Thomas puts particular emphasis on the influence of government policy on the financing of industry in post-war Britain. He also explains the effects the new sources of finance have had on industry and the major public corporations. His last chapter surveys the later developments in the main sources and uses of funds and the factors responsible for them, and includes an illuminating comparison of financial practices in some of the major overseas industrial countries.
Dr. Thomas has written a clear and objective account describing the trends in finance since the First World War. His notably well-documented book is an essential reference work.

The original establishment of life assurance upon a sound basis was largely the achievement of The Society for Equitable Assurances on Lives and Survivorships (now known as The Equitable Life Assurance Society and still affectionately called the 'Old Equitable'), and of the men who served her.
Old Equitable was the first life assurance society to grant long-term contracts for either a stated period or the whole of life, with premiums calculated according to age and type of assurance. Published in 1962 to mark this Society's bicentenary, this book charts its long history in a way that will interest not only those actually engaged in the assurance business, but any intelligent policy holder to whom perhaps the mechanics of life assurance is still a mystery.
This book traces the development of life assurance from untried theory into established practice, through the interplay of ideas of many individuals. Their activities, ranging far beyond the quiet walls of a life office, are part ofthe stuff of history. It tells the story of how James Dodson's vision of mutual life assurance became realized in the pioneer 'experiment' of the Equitable.

The studies assembled in this volume are dedicated to the memory of Albert Baldein, a professional numismatist whose chief interest lay in helping other numismatists, professionals, students and collectors alike, some of whom record their appreciations here. The contributions, though they are drawn from a wide variety of fields - Greek, Roman, Dark Age, Byzantine, English, Scottish, Irish and European medieval coins, and medals - are all concerned with one or more facets of the theme set out in the title. Within the general concept, the essays deal with a diversity of subjects:
* identification of mints
* attribution of coins to specific mints
* coinage current in particular periods
* composition of groups of coins in a given series
* establishment of the correct sequence of issues of such groups.
The essays also demonstrate the use of particular numismatic techniques such as die-linking, the analysis of hoards and their statistics, the minute observation of changes in titulature and inscriptions and comparison of portrait styles. There is much new, exciting and well-illustrated material for numismatists, and chapters such as those on Scottish mints and Hadrian's COS III coins will be of interest to historians.

This is the first history of finance - broadly defined to include money, banking, capital markets, public and private finance, international transfers etc. - that covers Western Europe (with an occasional glance at the western hemisphere) and half a millennium.
Charles Kindleberger highlights the development of financial institutions to meet emerging needs, and the similarities and contrasts in the handling of financial problems such as transferring resources from one country to another, stimulating investment, or financing war and cleaning up the resulting monetary mess. The first half of the book covers money, banking and finance from 1450 to 1913; the second deals in considerably finer detail with the twentieth century.
This major work casts current issues in historical perspective and throws light on the fascinating, and far from orderly, evolution of financial institutions and the management of financial problems. Comprehensive, critical and cosmopolitan, this book is both an outstanding work of reference and essential reading for all those involved in the study and practice of finance, be they economic historians, financial experts, scholarly bankers or students of money and banking.
This groundbreaking work was first published in 1984.

The economic and social problems of modern Scotland are at the centre of current debate about regional economic growth, social improvement and environmental rehabilitation. In this book, as relevant today as when it was first published in 1975, Anthony Slaven argues that the extent and causes of these problems are frequently underestimated, thus making development policies less than fully effective.
The major economic and social weaknesses of the west of Scotland are shown to be rooted in the regions former strengths. The author demonstrates how, although the region and its people have resisted change, a thriving and self reliant nineteenth-century economy, based on local resources and manpower, has given way in the present century to vanishing skills and products, unemployment and social deprivation. Since 1945 economic and social planning has helped to improve the situation, although many difficulties remain.
Seen in the historical perspective provided by this revealing study, the present industrial problems of the west of Scotland, and their remedies, become clearer. Mr Slaven argues that the older industries deserve more help, for without this, he believes, the ineffectiveness of development policies is likely to be perpetuated.
This book was first published in 1975.

Professor Youngson's book is an ubiased review of Britain's past experience and present difficulties. Few sacred cows are spared. There is no pretence that fundamental problems were resolved at the time of its first publication in 1967.
Many econmic historians fail in their assessment of Britian's economic prospects as there is a tendency to look only at recent events to explain current problems. Youngson saw that this was short sighted. An economy, like an airliner, cannot suddenly change its course; it is subject to persistent forces and tendencies; it is powerfully affected by what has happened in the recent and sometimes in the not so recent past. Therefore to understand the problems of today we must know somthing of how persistent they are, and about what solutions have already been tried.
This book provides a thorough examination of Britain's economic growth from 1920-1966 and contextualises Britain's situation within its true historical perspective.
This book was first published in 1967.

This book is a sequal to "Britain's Economic Prospects, "the report issued in 1968 by the Brookings Institution and universally accepted as the most thorough and comprehensive study of the British Economy to have ever appeared.
Two years later, just after the British General election, six fo the American economists who prepared the Brookings Report met with a number of other leading economists from Britain and the United States, at a weekend conference at Ditchley Park, to review the findings of the report. Papers submitted to the conference by four of the British Economists (R.C.C. Matthews, G.D.N. Worswick, E.H. Phelps Brown and M.V. Posner) covered the same ground as the Brookings Report - the role of demand management, trade and balance-of-payments problems, labour policies, and industrial policies. The conference also had before it a fifth paper, on fiscal policy and stabilization, which took issue with some of the views expressed in the Brookings report.
These papers form the coreof this book, which also contains an account of the conference discussions and concluding reflections by its Chairman, Sir Alec Cairncross, formerly Chief Economic Adviser to H.M. Government.
"Britain's Economic Prospects Reconsidered "is neither a detailed critique of the Brookings Report nor a rejoinder to it, but rather an attempt to reassess British performance and policies in the light of experience since devaluation. Its central concern is the question of why economic growth in Britain since the war has been slower than in other countries.
This book was first published in 1971.

First Published in 2005. Economic History has been briefly defined as the study of material progress. Economic History deals primarily with the material side of human progress, but it is not therefore a materialistic study.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A history of the rise of industrialism in modern Europe, containing a description of the revolutionary changes which transformed industry, commerce and agriculture at the beginning of the last century, with an account of their reactions on the political and economic condition of the chief European nations.

The social problems created by this momentous revolution are discussed in detail, and a historical survey is given of the various attempts to correct the evils of industrialism, on the one hand through state intervention by means of poor laws, factory laws, schemes of social insurance, etc., and on the other through voluntary effort as manifested in movements like trade unionism, co-operation, profit sharing and co-partnership. Post-war developments such as the Russian Revolution and international labour legislation are also described in detail and depth. This book was first published in 1930.

Historians have long considered the ways in which the expansion of English trade beyond Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries contributed to the growth of English overseas trade as a whole, and to the coming of the Industrial Revolution. Their concentration on trade between England and her own colonies has led them, however, to neglect the importance of trade with the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas. Dr Fishers examination of Anglo-Portuguese trade between 1700 and 1770, and of the commercial links between the English North American colonies and Portugal, thus gives a wider perspective to our knowledge of the English Commercial Revolution.
This study, based on a wide range of primary sources in England and Portugal, analyses the impressive growth of English trade with Portugal to 1760 and its subsequent decline in the 1760s, particular attention being given to the role of the Brazilian market and Brazilian gold-mining in these movements. The business practice of the merchants engaged in the principal constituent branches of the tradetextiles, foodstuffs, wines, and goldis made clear and compared, while the characteristic instability of international commerce is borne out in the examination of the seasonal and yearly fluctuations which took place. On a more general level, the concluding chapter explores the relationship between the Portugal trade and the development of the English economy during this period. This book was first published in 1971.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book provides a comprehensive description of the protectionist system that has for some years been in force in Great Britain.

It explains in simple language the principles and difficulties involved in framing and administering a customs and excise tariff, which has both revenue and political purposes. There is a in-depth description of the United Kingdom collecting machinery, an historical account of the tariff since 1914, and a discussion of the political objects such as Imperial Preference. The problems of tariff negotiating are discussed, and trade agreements made, including that with the U.S.A., are summarized.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Britains role in the mid-nineteenth century as the worlds greatest economic power was an extraordinary phenomenon, foreshadowed in the Industrial Revolution of the century before and originating from a unique combination of global and indigenous factors.
In this study Francois Crouzet analyses the growth and in late Victorian Britain decline of the nations economy, drawing on an immense amount of quantitative data to examine and explain its development. The book begins with a macroeconomic survey of the period, reviewing broad fluctuations in economic growth and the question of the mid-Victorian boom, structural changes in the balance of the economy, demographic movements, capital formation and the influence of Free Trade. Professor Crouzet then goes on to look in detail at the different sectors of the economy, assessing the effects of the relative decline of agriculture against industry, the growth of the tertiary sector, the rise of new industries such as armaments and the transport revolution. His final chapter analyses the reality of and reasons for Britains subsequent decline as a world economic superpower.
This study, first published in 1982, draws together a wide range of material and provides an invaluable framework for the understanding of a complex and richly-documented period.

First Published in 2005. This book is a part of the studies in Economic and Political Science series and is a study of the British Clothing Trades. The first aim is to describe the present-day structure and localization of the Clothing Industry in Great Britain. The second is to compare existing conditions in the industry with those which prevailed some twenty years ago and to determine the causes to which the changes which have taken place are due.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Most historical accounts of economic policy set out to describe the way in which governments have attempted to solve their economic problems and to achieve their economic objectives. Jim Tomlinson, however, focuses on the problems themselves, arguing that the way in which areas of economic policy become problems for policy makers is always problematic itself, that it is never obvious and never happens naturally.
This approach is quite distinct from the Marxist, the Keynesian or the neo-classical accounts of economic policy, the schools of thought which are described and criticized in the introduction. Subsequent chapters use the issues of unemployment, the gold standard and problems of trade and Empire to demonstrate that these competing accounts all obscure the true complexities of the process. Because they adhere to simple assumptions about the role of economic theory or of vested interests previous histories have been unable adequately to explain the dramatic change after the First World War in attitudes to unemployment, for instance, or the decision to return to gold in 1925. Jim Tomlinson surveys the institutional circumstances, the conflicting political pressures and the theories offered at the time in an attempt to discover the conditions which characterized the questions as economic problems and contributed to the choice of solutions.
The result is a sophisticated and intellectually compelling account of matters which have remained at the forefront of political debate since its first publication in 1981.

First Published in 2005. This book is written for the general reader and not for the specialist. It is an attempt to put the Industrial Revolution in its place in history, and to give an idea both of its significance and of the causes that determined the age and the society in which it began. The book is divided into three parts: in part one authors discuss the development of commerce before the Industrial Revolution; part two describes the changes in transport which preceded the railways, the dissolution of the peasant village, the destruction of custom in industry, and the free play that capital found in consequence. Part three examines the first social effects of the change from a peasant to an industrial civilization.

The economic history of the Middle East and North Africa is quite extraordinary.
This is an axiomatic statement, but the very nature of the economic changes that have stemmed directly from the effects of oil resources in these areas has tended to obscure longterm patterns of economic change and the fundamental transformation of Middle Eastern and North African economies and societies over the past two hundred years.
In this study Professor Issawi examines and explains the development of these economies since 1800, focusing particularly on the challenge posed by the use and subsequent decline of Western economic and political domination and the Middle Eastern response to it. The book beg ins with an analysis of the effects of foreign intervention in the area: the expansion of trade, the development of transport networks, the influx of foreign capital and resulting integration into international commercial and financial networks. It goes on to examine the local response to these external forces: migration within, to and from the region, population growth, urbanization and changes in living standards, shifts in agricultural production and land tenure and the development of an industrial sector. Professor Issawi discusses the crucial effects of the growth of oil and oil-related industries in a separate chapter, and finally assesses the likely gains and losses in this long period for both the countries in the area and the Western powers. He has drawn on long experience and an immense amount of material in surveying the period, and provides a clear and penetrating survey of an extraordinarily complex area.