Providing an exceptional overview and analysis of the global economy, from the origins of Homo sapiens to the present day, Colin White explores our past to help understand our economic future. He veers away from traditional Eurocentric approaches, providing a truly global scope for readers. A History of the Global Economy takes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach, beyond the narrow application of economic theory, to include the impact of climate change, genetics and culture. The main themes include the creative innovativeness of humans and how this generates economic progression, the common economic pathway trodden by all societies and the complementary relationship between government and the market. The book moves through the four key economic stages of human history - foraging, agriculture, industry and services - to finally examine where the direction of our future may lie. This comprehensive and ambitious book is a must-read for economists, particularly economic historians, as well as anthropology and political history scholars. It not only explores the history and origins of the global economy but also provides a valuable analysis of the current state of economic affairs, making it an ideal book for those wishing to understand more about our ever-evolving global society.

Warren Samuels's second and concluding selection of essays focuses on early 20th century economists who, while relatively well-known in their times, have tended to be obscured by the more prominent stars of the discipline. It illustrates that economics is more diverse and complex than conventional histories of economic thought tend to identify. In particular it includes contributions on those economists who were not in the mainstream, or, if in the mainstream, practised economics in a somewhat alternative manner. Warren Samuels has assembled a collection of essays on thirteen economists - six German and seven Italian - who remain noteworthy of study to this day. The economists featured in the volume represent a variety of ways of practising economics - theoretical, methodological and policy-orientated - who all contributed to the understanding of economic processes and institutions at the deepest levels. European Economists of the Early 20th Century will appeal to all those with an interest in the philosophy and evolution of economics and to historians of economic thought.

Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from poverty and made our lives far healthier and longer. As a result, the unfettered pursuit of growth defines economic life around the world. Yet this prosperity has come at an enormous price: deepening inequalities, destabilizing technologies, environmental destruction and climate change.

Confusion reigns. For many, in our era of anaemic economic progress, the worry is slowing growth - in the UK, Europe, China and elsewhere. Others understandably claim, given its costs, that the only way forward is through 'degrowth', deliberating shrinking our economies.

At this time of uncertainty about growth and its value, award-winning economist Daniel Susskind has written an essential reckoning. In a sweeping analysis full of historical insight, he argues that we cannot abandon growth but shows instead how we must redirect it, making it better reflect what we truly value. He explores what really drives growth, and offers original ideas for combatting our economic slowdown.

Lucid, thought-provoking and brilliantly researched, Growth: A Reckoning is a vital guide to one of our greatest preoccupations.

The Theory of Economic Growth compares the main theories of growth from Adam Smith to the present day in order to isolate their logical structures, theoretical domains and methodological underpinnings. The book provides original solutions to theoretical questions still debated in contemporary literature and points out new directions for further research.The authors carry out a 'vertical' or in-depth analysis of the three main schools of thought; classical, Keynesian and neo-classical. They perform a 'horizontal' analysis of a wide range of items connected with growth theory, such as competition, technical change, division of labour, business cycles, the impact on environment, and the financial intermediation. Attention is also given to the evolutionary approach to economic growth. This book will be of great interest to scholars of economic growth, macroeconomics, and historians of economic thought.

This volume historicizes the use of the notion of self-interest that at least since Bernard de Mandeville and Adam Smith's theories is considered a central component of economic theory. Having in the twentieth century become one of the key-features of rational choice models, and thus is seen as an idealized trait of human behavior, self-interest has, despite Albert O. Hirschman's pivotal analysis of self-interest, only marginally been historicized. A historicization(s) of self-interest, however, offers new insights into the concept by asking why, when, for what reason and in which contexts the notion was discussed or referred to, how it was employed by contemporaries, and how the different usages developed and changed over time. This helps us to appreciate the various transformations in the perception of the notion, and also to explore how and in what ways different people at different times and in different regions reflected on or realized the act of considering what was in their best interest. The volume focuses on those different usages, knowledges, and practices concerned with self-interest in the modern Atlantic World from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, by using different approaches, including political and economic theory, actuarial science, anthropology, or the history of emotions. Offering a new perspective on a key component of Western capitalism, this is the ideal resource for researches and scholars of intellectual, political and economic history in the modern Atlantic World.

This book aims to study, from an approach linked to epistemology and the history of ideas, the evolution of economic science and its differing seminal systems. Today mainstream economics solves certain problems chosen within the scope of "normal science," without questioning the epistemological foundations that support the paradigm within which they were conceived. Contrary to a Neoclassical interpretation, the historicist interpretation shows that, from the incommensurability of the different paradigms, it is impossible to conceive of a progress of economic science, in a long-term perspective. This book ultimately reveals, from the different economic schools of thought analyzed, that there is no pure form of episteme, or system of understanding. Each concrete episteme in the history of economic thought is by nature hybrid in the sense that it contains components from preceding systems of knowledge.

Private bankers have been defined as owner-managers of their bank, irrespective of their type of activity, which could be in any field of banking, sometimes in conjunction with another one, especially commerce in the earlier periods. Analysing the experiences of European private bankers from the early modern period to the early twenty-first century, this book starts by examining the slow emergence of specialist private bankers, largely from amongst those who provided commercial credit. This initial consideration culminates in a focus upon the roles that they played, both during the onset of the continent's industrialization, and in orchestrating the finances of the emerging world economy. Its second theme is private banking's waning importance with the rise of joint-stock competitors, which became increasingly apparent in Britain during the mid-nineteenth century, and elsewhere within Europe some decades later. Lastly, attention is paid to the decline of private bankers in the twentieth century -a protracted and uneven decline, combined with the persistence and even the enduring success of some segments of the profession. It concludes with the revival of private banking in the late twentieth century as a response to the development of a new market - the management of personal wealth.

This fully revised and updated edition of a seminal reference work provides a detailed chronological account of the development of European integration. The history of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which began immediately after World War II, is recounted in the form of a descriptive summary of the most significant events, measures, arrangements and conferences. The chronology concludes at the end of 2001 with what is arguably one of the most important events in European history; the introduction of the euro notes and coins in twelve nation states. Throughout, Wim Vanthoor offers a detailed yet concise account of the evolution of the economic and political ideas which have culminated in this defining moment. The book is interspersed with quotations from the addresses, orations and comments of politicians and those closely involved with the process of European integration. This accessible book will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of European integration.

Despite their common emphasis upon uncertainty as a key economic variable, Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes viewed its role from different ethical perspectives. These attitudes were derived from contrasting formative influences and differing views regarding the role of economic theory as applied to the real world.William Greer reveals that the intellectual atmosphere into which Keynes was born led him to consider individual and collective action positively, enabling policymakers to take purposeful, deliberate action, in the face of an uncertain, non-ergodic future. The conservative, theological era from which Knight emerged left him accepting of a predetermined, ergodic world in which the government should assume a minimal role in ensuring the smooth operation of a system of otherwise free markets. Ethics and Uncertainty explores how two economists, who both placed 'uncertainty' at the heart of their economic theories, come to drastically different and opposing policy recommendations. The volume illustrates that the important lesson to learn from both Knight and Keynes is that ethics and the desire to improve mankind should be the focus of economic enquiry. This fascinating volume will be essential reading for followers of Keynes and Knight. The book will also be welcomed by scholars in the field of economic thought, and those interested in the development of modern macroeconomics and microeconomics.

It has often been assumed that the subjects of the Ottoman sultans were unable to travel beyond their localities - since peasants needed the permission of their local administrators before they could leave their villages. According to this view, only soldiers and members of the governing elite would have been free to travel. However, Suraiya Faroqhi's extensive archival research shows that this was not the case; pious men from all walks of life went on pilgrimage to Mecca, slaves fled from their masters and craftspeople travelled in search of work. Most travellers in the Ottoman era headed for Istanbul in search of better prospects and even in peacetime the Ottoman administration recruited artisans to repair fortresses and sent them far away from their home towns. In this book, Suraiya Faroqhi provides a revisionist study of those artisans who chose - or were obliged - to travel and those who stayed predominantly in their home localities. She considers the occasions and conditions which triggered travel among the artisans, and the knowledge that they had of the capital as a spatial entity. She shows that even those craftsmen who did not travel extensively had some level of mobility and that the Ottoman sultans and viziers, who spent so much effort in attempting to control the movements of their subjects, could often only do so within very narrow limits. Challenging existing historiography and providing an important new revisionist perspective, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Ottoman history.

Charles MacKay's groundbreaking examination of a staggering variety of popular delusions, crazes and mass follies is presented here in full with no abridgements. The text concentrates on a wide variety of phenomena which had occurred over the centuries prior to this book's publication in 1841. Mackay begins by examining economic bubbles, such as the infamous Tulipomania, wherein Dutch tulips rocketed in value amid claims they could be substituted for actual currency. As we progress further, the scope of the book broadens into several more exotic fields of mass self-deception. Mackay turns his attention to the witch hunts of the 17th and 18th centuries, the practice of alchemy, the phenomena of haunted houses, the vast and varied practices of fortune telling and the search for the philosopher's stone, to name but a handful of subjects. Today, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds is distinguished as an expansive, well-researched and somewhat eccentric work of social history.

This book presents a multi-sited ethnographic study of the global development of the Taiwanese Buddhist order Fo Guang Shan. It explores the order's modern Buddhist social engagements by examining three globally dispersed field sites: Los Angeles in the United States of America, Bronkhorstspruit in South Africa, and Yixing in the People's Republic of China. The data collected at these field sites is embedded within the context of broader theoretical discussions on Buddhism, modernity, globalization, and the nation-state. By examining how one particular modern Buddhist religiosity that developed in a specific place moves into a global context, the book provides a fresh view of what constitutes both modern and contemporary Buddhism while also exploring the social, cultural, and religious fabrics that underlie the spatial configurations of globalization.

Prompted by the 'linguistic turn' of the late 20th century, intellectual and conceptual historians continue to devote a great deal of attention to the study of concepts in history. This innovative and interdisciplinary volume builds on such scholarship by providing a new history of the term 'economy'. Starting from the Greek idea of the law of the household, Luigi Alonzi traces the different meanings assumed by the word 'economy' during the middle ages and early modern era, highlighting the semantic richness of the word and its uses in various political and cultural contexts. Notably, there is a particular focus on the so-called Oeconomica literature, tracking the reception of works by Plato, Aristotle, the 'pseudo' Aristotle and Xenophon in the Italian and France Renaissance. This tradition was incredibly influential in civic humanism and in texts devoted to power and command and thus affected later debates on Natural Law and the development of new scientific disciplines in the 17th and 18th centuries. In exploring this, the analysis of the function of translations in the transmission and transformation of meanings becomes central. 'Economy' in European History shines much-needed light on an important challenge that many historians repeatedly face: the fact that words can, and do, change over time. It will thus be a vital resource for all scholars of early modern and European economic history.

Crossing Cultural Boundaries in East Asia and Beyond explores the personal complexities and ambiguities, and the successes and failures, of crossing borders and boundaries. While the focus is on East Asia, it universalizes cultural anxieties with comparative cases in Russia and the United States. The authors primarily engage the individual experiences of border-crossing, rather than more typically those of political or social groups located at territorial boundaries. Drawing on those individual experiences, this volume presents an array of attempts to negotiate the discomforts of crossing personal borders, and attends to the intimate experiences of border crossers, whether they are traveling to an unfamiliar cultural location or encountering the "other" in local settings such as the classroom or the coffee shop.

The book Southwest China in Regional and Global Perspectives (c. 1600-1911) is dedicated to important issues in society, trade, and local policy in the southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan during the late phase of the Qing period. It combines the methods of various disciplines to bring more light into the neglected history of a region that witnessed a faster population growth than any other region in China during that age. The contributions to the volume analyse conflicts and arrangements in immigrant societies, problems of environmental change, the economic significance of copper as the most important "export" product, topographical and legal obstacles in trade and transport, specific problems in inter-regional trade, and the roots of modern transnational enterprise.

Taiwan's economic development experience represents a unique case study especially in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Taiwan has performed outstandingly in terms of macroeconomic and industrial development, particularly during recent democratic and social change. This book aims to provide a broad picture of these institutional reforms and policy evolutions. The expert contributors detail and examine the interactive relationship between Taiwan's economic liberalization, political democratization and social pluralization. Taking 1980 as a watershed, the book highlights the impact these economic and cultural changes have exerted on SMEs, foreign trade and investment, technological progress, industrial development and policy, and the reform of financial and fiscal systems. They investigate the contentious issue of whether political democratization is beneficial for economic development and go on to discuss the creation of an efficient Taiwanese economy and the resolution of conflicts created by social pluralization. The book analyses the comparative advantage of Taiwan over comparable countries, paying particular attention to the Asian financial crisis. The authors offer a fresh approach by observing Taiwanese development post 1980 and integrating economic, political and social analysis. As such, development economists and scholars of Asian economics will find this unique book both useful and enlightening.

This volume of new, original essays reflects the lifelong concerns and writings of the person they honor, Professor Howard Sherman. Sherman wrote on a wide range of topics - the causes of recessions, depressions and mass unemployment under capitalism; the difficulties and challenges of establishing viable democratic planning systems under socialism; the down-to-earth realities of economic life in the United States, the Soviet Union and elsewhere; and the theoretical traditions he drew upon to inform these empirical studies, i.e. Keynesianism, institutionalism and, most especially, Marxism. The contributors follow in Sherman's tradition through their careful analysis of topics such as the long-term trends in contemporary global capitalism; the relationship between Marxism and institutionalism; debates over the usefulness of class analysis; the political economy of financial liberalization; lessons from the demise of socialism in the Soviet Union and China; and the possibilities for advancing a workable egalitarian economic agenda. This book demonstrates the continued vibrancy and relevance of radical political economy as a mode of social scientific analysis. Scholars and students in economics, sociology, history, philosophy and political science will find the essays thought-provoking and informative.