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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Economic history
A pathbreaking history of art that uses digital research and economic tools to reveal enduring inequities in the formation of the art historical canon Painting by Numbers presents a groundbreaking blend of art historical and social scientific methods to chart, for the first time, the sheer scale of nineteenth-century artistic production. With new quantitative evidence for more than five hundred thousand works of art, Diana Seave Greenwald provides fresh insights into the nineteenth century, and the extent to which art historians have focused on a limited-and potentially biased-sample of artwork from that time. She addresses long-standing questions about the effects of industrialization, gender, and empire on the art world, and she models more expansive approaches for studying art history in the age of the digital humanities. Examining art in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Greenwald features datasets created from indices and exhibition catalogs that-to date-have been used primarily as finding aids. From this body of information, she reveals the importance of access to the countryside for painters showing images of nature at the Paris Salon, the ways in which time-consuming domestic responsibilities pushed women artists in the United States to work in lower-prestige genres, and how images of empire were largely absent from the walls of London's Royal Academy at the height of British imperial power. Ultimately, Greenwald considers how many works may have been excluded from art historical inquiry and shows how data can help reintegrate them into the history of art, even after such pieces have disappeared or faded into obscurity. Upending traditional perspectives on the art historical canon, Painting by Numbers offers an innovative look at the nineteenth-century art world and its legacy.
This edited collection focuses on migrant women and their families, aiming to study their migration patterns in a historical and gendered perspective from early modernity to contemporary times, and to reassess the role and the nature of their commitment in migration dynamics. It develops an incisive dialogue between migration studies and gender studies. Migrant women, men and their families are studied through three different but interconnected and overlapping standpoints that have been identified as crucial for a gender approach: institutions and law, labour and the household economy, and social networks. The book also promotes the potential of an inclusive approach, tackling various types of migration (domestic and temporary movements, long-distance and international migration, temporary/seasonal mobility) and arguing that different migration phenomena can be observed and understood by posing common questions to different contexts. Migration patterns are shown to be multifaceted and stratified phenomena, resulting from a range of entangled economic, cultural and social factors. This book will be of interest to academics and students of economic history, as well as those working in gender studies and migration studies.
In September 2008, beset by mounting losses on high-risk mortgages and mortgage securities, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation teetered on the brink of insolvency. Fearing that confidence in the housing market would collapse completely if Freddie Mac and its competitor Fannie Mae failed, the US government made the difficult decision to place the two firms into conservatorship, taking control away from shareholders. Although the taxpayer commitment of hundreds of billions was meant to stabilize the housing finance system, Freddie's fall at the start of the financial crisis set off shockwaves around the world. In Days of Slaughter, Susan Wharton Gates, a former 19-year Freddie Mac employee and vice president of public policy, provides a vivid eyewitness account of the competing economic and political forces that led to massive losses for shareholders, investors, homeowners-and taxpayers. With a keen eye to the policy landscape, Gates relates the fateful decisions that led to Freddie Mac's downfall and desperate rescue. She also examines today's worrisome headlines about potential future bailouts, the uneven housing recovery, and stymied congressional reform efforts. Throughout the book, Gates argues convincingly that policymakers will be unable to safely reform the massive housing finance system that currently rests squarely on taxpayer shoulders without addressing deeper issues of ideology, moral hazard, and interest group politics. The first book to tell the story of Freddie Mac from an insider perspective-while casting a prophetic eye to the future-this first-hand account of housing policies, complex financial transactions, and the crazy quilt of federal and state actors involved in the Great Recession is a must-read. A cautionary tale of failed policies and corporate mismanagement that compellingly addresses previously unexplored issues of political ideology, organizational dynamics, and ethics, Days of Slaughter will appeal to readers everywhere who want a fuller explanation of what went awry in the US housing market.
Pitting fascists and communists in a showdown for supremacy, the Spanish Civil War has long been seen as a grim dress rehearsal for World War II. Francisco Franco's Nationalists prevailed with German and Italian military assistance-a clear instance, it seemed, of like-minded regimes joining forces in the fight against global Bolshevism. In Hitler's Shadow Empire Pierpaolo Barbieri revises this standard account of Axis intervention in the Spanish Civil War, arguing that economic ambitions-not ideology-drove Hitler's Iberian intervention. The Nazis hoped to establish an economic empire in Europe, and in Spain they tested the tactics intended for future subject territories. "The Spanish Civil War is among the 20th-century military conflicts about which the most continues to be published...Hitler's Shadow Empire is one of few recent studies offering fresh information, specifically describing German trade in the Franco-controlled zone. While it is typically assumed that Nazi Germany, like Stalinist Russia, became involved in the Spanish Civil War for ideological reasons, Pierpaolo Barbieri, an economic analyst, shows that the motives of the two main powers were quite different. -Stephen Schwartz, Weekly Standard
Banking, Projecting, and Politicking uncovers a previously understudied and unacknowledged financial institution in late-seventeenth-century England known as Thompson and Company. Whilst the institution has been briefly mentioned in literary studies focusing on the poet and politician Andrew Marvell, it has never been the sole focus of an economic, financial, commercial, or political study in its own right. As such, nothing is known of how it operated, where it sits in the history of English finance, why it collapsed, or what it can tell us about wider Restoration society and its economic and political culture. Through a microhistorical study, the book reconstructs the institution of Thompson and Company, the social networks of its partners, the identity of its creditors, and the events and circumstances that led to its collapse. The book situates the reconstructed institution within its economic, commercial, financial, and political contexts, using the evidence accrued to question the traditional narrative of financial and commercial development, credit systems, the relationship between economics, finance, commerce and politics, and the place of risk and strategy in gendered relations, credit, and social status. The book will be of interest to academics and students in economic history, financial and business history.
Scholars have studied the nineteenth century's unprecedented labor flows in global and specific country contexts, but have lacked a comprehensive analysis of the world's old economic core, the Mediterranean. This work provides answers to important questions, such as: If the Mediterranean labor market really was integrated, then why did globalization affect the Western and Eastern Mediterranean so differently? Why did wage inequality rise in the East while it fell in the rest of the labor-abundant periphery? More broadly, was low emigration from Iberia and the East to blame for the Mediterranean's failed integration with the fast-expanding global economy? This ground-breaking research relates these questions to ongoing historical debates on the intensity of intra-Mediterranean integration in goods and labor, to current heated debates on North African emigration to Europe, and to discussions on European economic integration more generally.
Through an examination of election campaign propaganda and various public relations campaigns, reflecting new electioneering techniques borrowed from the United States, this work explores how conservative political and economic groups sought to construct and sell a political meaning of the Social Market Economy and the Economic Miracle in West Germany during the 1950s.The political meaning of economics contributed to conservative electoral success, constructed a new belief in the free market economy within West German society, and provided legitimacy and political stability for the new Federal Republic of Germany.
Originally published in 1987, this book examines how much industrialisation improved the standard of living of the British worker, based on the experience of one representative city: Glasgow. It analyses whether there was an increase in skilled as opposed to unskilled labour in major industrial centres - as for example in Glasgow, manufacturing shifted from textiles to engineering. Other important issues such as the rate of housing construction, public health, local politics and leisure pursuits are also considered. Glasgow has a long history of working-class culture and is therefore a particularly interesting city to study.
Who are the greatest economic thinkers of Sweden? Seventeen essays on seven Swedish economists aim to answer this question, exploring the contributions of Knut Wicksell, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin, Torsten Gardlund, Sven Rydenfelt, Staffan Burenstam Linder and Jaime Behar. Swedish academic economists have by and large withdrawn from the public debate but this book celebrates Swedish Economic Thought from Knut Wicksell to the present.
Adam Smith, who has towered over economics for more than two hundred years, was not alone in Scotland in creating systems of analysis which would explain how economies function and prosper. Writers of various backgrounds - there being no such profession as 'economist' - who were inspired by issues of the day as well as by the writings of Smith and other Scots, made significant contributions to the development of economic theory and policy that are often overlooked today. In the Shadow of Adam Smith, a landmark work in the history of economic thought, surveys and integrates the ideas of eighty Scottish writers from the 18th and 19th centuries to reveal a startlingly rich tapestry of argument and debate on a wide variety of economic subjects, both philosophical and practical, that remain highly pertinent today. Government debt, economic growth, banking, credit, taxation - all were tackled by this remarkable, diverse collection of writers. Through reading their contributions to economics we both understand modern economic issues and thought more deeply, and gain a richer understanding of Adam Smith's thought and inheritance. Written in a crisp and readable style with a minimum of technical detail, this is an ideal book for students of the history of economics, as well as academics and general readers.
This book showcases the wide variety of commercial cosmopolitan practices that arose from the global economic entanglements of the early modern period. Cosmopolitanism is not only a philosophical ideal: for many centuries it has also been an everyday practice across the globe. The early modern era saw hitherto unprecedented levels of economic interconnectedness. States, societies, and individuals reacted with a mixture of commercial idealism and commercial anxiety, seeking at once to exploit new opportunities for growth whilst limiting its disruptive effects. In highlighting the range of commercial cosmopolitan practices that grew out of early modern globalisation, the book demonstrates that it provided robust alternatives to the universalising western imperial model of the later period. Deploying a number of interdisciplinary methodologies, the kind of 'methodological cosmopolitanism' that Ulrich Beck has called for, chapters provide agency-centred evaluations of the risks and opportunities inherent in the ambiguous role of the cosmopolitan, who, often playing on and mobilising a number of identities, operated in between and outside of different established legal, social, and cultural systems. The book will be important reading for students and scholars working at the intersection of economic, global, and cultural history.
This first volume, History and its Betrayal, traces the development of major themes of liberalism from the increase in human population beyond the limits of the face-to-face society of tribalism and small groups up until the present day. It shows that the principles underlying liberalism are the evolutionary development of social organizations that have resulted from the complexity of human action rather than any conscious design or purpose. This book draws out the differences between the classical liberalism dependent upon spontaneous and tacit ordering as a result of evolution, and the explicit or conscious or directed version of progressivism. It shows that the most important recent developments in the philosophy of rationality and the methodology of scientific research, as well as in evolutionary epistemology and the philosophy of biology, actually stem from the theories of complex social organization of the moralists such as Hume, Ferguson, and Smith. The book shows clearly that classical liberalism was never refuted-indeed, no attempt to do so has been offered-it has simply been ignored in favour of programs which sound beneficial and soothing but which cannot be instituted without returning to tribalism.
This book tells the story of Holocaust survivor and prominent banker Marcel Goldman, born in Krakow in 1926. Goldman started his studies in economics in Krakow and completed them in Israel, where he became a respected banker. In telling his story, this book analyzes Israel's social and economic development, its causes and circumstances. Following Goldman as our main character, we take a close look at the birth of the private banking sector and the building of modern economy in Israel. The book also describes the life of Polish Jews in Israel in general, the way in which they settled there, and built the prosperity of the state. The story of Marcel Goldman is an example of how Israel's success is the sum of its citizens' successes.
At the beginning of the transition process, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe faced the task of creating a functioning financial system where none had existed before. A decade later, high-level practitioners and well-known experts take stock of banking and monetary policy in the region, centering on: the governance of banks; the spread of financial crisis; and, perspectives for monetary policy and banking sector development.
Dilemmas of Internationalism focuses on the French labour movement as it deals with the French syndicalists' attitude towards internationalism and anti-militarism in the pre-1914 period.
German economic crises from the past two hundred years have provoked diverse responses from journalists, politicians, scholars, and fiction writers. Among their responses, storylines have developed as proposals for reducing unemployment, improving workplace conditions, and increasing profitability when stock markets tumble, accompanied by inflation, deflation, and overwhelming debt. The contributors to Invested Narratives assess German-language economic crisis narratives from the interdisciplinary perspectives of finance, economics, political science, sociology, history, literature, and cultural studies. They interpret the ways German society has tried to comprehend, recover from, and avoid economic crises and in doing so widen our understanding of German economic debates and their influence on German society and the European Union.
This book updates African maritime economic history to analyse the influence of seaports and seaborne trade, processes of urbanization and development, and the impact of globalization on port evolution within the different regions of Africa. It succeeds the seminal collection edited by Hoyle & Hilling which was conceived during a phase of sustained economic growth on the African continent, and builds on a similar trend where African economies have experienced processes of economic growth and the relative improvement of welfare conditions. It provides valuable insights on port evolution and the way the maritime sector has impacted the hinterland and the regional economic structures of the affected countries, including the several and varied agents involved in these activities. African Seaports and Maritime Economics in Historical Perspective will be useful for economists, historians, and geographers interested in African and maritime issues, as well as policy makers interested in path-dependence and long-term analysis
A BBC History Magazine Best Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year The history the Chinese Communist Party has tried to erase: the dramatic political debates of the 1980s that could have put China on a path to greater openness. On a hike in Guangdong Province in January 1984, Deng Xiaoping was warned that his path was a steep and treacherous one. "Never turn back," the Chinese leader replied. That became a mantra as the government forged ahead with reforms in the face of heated contestation over the nation's future. For a time, everything was on the table, including democratization and China's version of socialism. But deliberation came to a sudden halt in spring 1989, with protests and purges, massacre and repression. Since then, Beijing has worked intensively to suppress the memory of this era of openness. Julian Gewirtz recovers the debates of the 1980s, tracing the Communist Party's diverse attitudes toward markets, state control, and sweeping technological change, as well as freewheeling public argument over political liberalization. The administration considered bold proposals from within the party and without, including separation between the party and the state, empowering the private sector, and establishing an independent judiciary. After Tiananmen, however, Beijing systematically erased these discussions of alternative directions. Using newly available Chinese sources, Gewirtz details how the leadership purged the key reformist politician Zhao Ziyang, quashed the student movement, recast the transformations of the 1980s as the inevitable products of consensus, and indoctrinated China and the international community in the new official narrative. Never Turn Back offers a revelatory look at how different China's rise might have been and at the foundations of strongman rule under Xi Jinping, who has intensified the policing of history to bolster his own authority.
This book explores the deep meaning-the nature or essence-of the economy and its fundamental components. As a monograph on the philosophy of the economy and economics, it deduces the metaphysical nature of these two, going step by step from more general to more specific realities to finally arrive at the adequate features of the economic sciences and their methods. It builds on a largely Aristotelian approach, but also draws extensively from modern scholarship in the area. Usefully and pertinently, the book covers both general aspects of the economy and particular historically specific features. Among the important topics covered in the book are the meanings of the economy, the nature and role of economic agents, the nature of the macroeconomy, the nature and role of money, and so on. The book concludes with chapters on the nature of economics itself and its methodologies.
In Poverty from the Wealth of Nations , the author presents an analysis of the evolution of global disparities that goes beyond the earlier neo-Marxist critiques of global capitalism. He moves beyond their narrative by inserting two additional asymmetries into the global economy - those created by 'unequal races' and unequal states. The author analyzes not only the power of markets, but the powers that shaped these markets. More importantly, he marshals cross-country evidence to show that loss of sovereignty retarded industrialization, human capital formation and economic growth.
First published in 1977. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
In the postsoviet decade Russian railways remained highly centralized, evaded the upheavals of mass privatization, and remained the backbone of a demoralized economy. Preserving much of Soviet practice, the Railways Ministry mounted a skilled rearguard action that achieved a gradual and considered adaptation to the market economy rather than the pell-mell, western-orientated, liberalization that afflicted other branches of the economy. This book describes that rearguard action, and goes on to show how railway managers are coping with the new conditions.
This book examines the structures and texture of rural social relationships, using one type of document found in abundance over all the four component parts of Britain and Ireland: petitions from tenants to their landlords. The book offers unexpected angles on many aspects of society and economy on estates in the 17th and 18th centuries. |
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