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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Economic history
This two-volume collection analyses the evolution of wine production in European regions across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. France and Italy in particular have shaped modern viticulture, by improving oenological methods and knowledge, then disseminating them internationally. This second volume looks closely at wine markets and trade, also examining the role of institutions and quality regulation.
What were the origins of British ideas on rural poverty, and how did they shape development practice in Malawi? How did the international development narrative influence the poverty discourse in postcolonial Malawi from the 1960s onwards? In The State and the Legacies of British Colonial Development in Malawi: Confronting Poverty, 1939-1983, Gift Wasambo Kayira addresses these questions. Although by no means rehabilitating colonialism, the book argues that the intentions of officials and agencies charged with delivering economic development programs were never as ill-informed or wicked as some theorists have contended. Raising rural populations from poverty was on the agenda before and after independence. How to reconcile the pressing demand of stabilizing the country's economy and alleviating rural poverty within the context of limited resources proved an impossible task to achieve. Also difficult was how to reconcile the interests of outside experts influenced by international geopolitics and theories of economic development and those of local personnel and politicians,. As a result, development efforts always fell short of their goals. Through a meticulous search of the archive on rural and industrial development projects, Kayira presents a development history that displays the shortfalls of existing works on development inadequately grounded in historical study.
This essential book collects together, for the first time, the writings of Deirdre McCloskey on economic history and the rhetoric of economics. The essays have been presented to show McCloskey's evolution over time: from economist to critic, positivist to postmodernist, conventional economist to feminist economist, man to woman. Measurement and Meaning in Economics allows the reader to experience an astonishing personal and intellectual journey with one of today's most fascinating economists.McCloskey argues that economics has become ahistorical and narrowly scientific, which is a harmful development for a moral science. In all of the papers presented in this volume she writes with historical consciousness and critical understanding, in an attempt to repair the dysfunctional relationship between economics and the humanities. This book should be read not only by students and scholars of economic history and philosophy, but by all those concerned with the state of economics and its place in the social sciences.
The first book of its kind: a fascinating and entertaining examination of hedge funds today Shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 'An enormously satisfying book: a gripping chronicle of the cutting edge of the financial markets and a fascinating perspective on what was going on in these shadowy institutions as the crash hit' Observer Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge-find managers have emerged as the stars of twenty-first century capitalism. Based on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. This is the inside story of their origins in the 1960s and 1970s, their explosive battles with central banks in the 1980s and 1990s, and finally their role in the financial crisis of 2007-9. Hedge funds reward risk takers, so they tend to attract larger-than-life personalities. Jim Simons began life as a code-breaker and mathematician, co-authoring a paper on theoretical geometry that led to breakthroughs in string theory. Ken Griffin started out trading convertible bonds from his Harvard dorm room. Paul Tudor Jones happily declared that a 1929-style crash would be 'total rock-and-roll' for him. Michael Steinhardt was capable of reducing underlings to sobs. 'All I want to do is kill myself,' one said. 'Can I watch?' Steinhardt responded. A saga of riches and rich egos, this is also a history of discovery. Drawing on insights from mathematics, economics and psychology to crack the mysteries of the market, hedge funds have transformed the world, spawning new markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of capitalism. And while major banks, brokers, home lenders, insurers and money market funds failed or were bailed out during the crisis of 2007-9, the hedge-fund industry survived the test, proving that money can be successfully managed without taxpayer safety nets. Anybody pondering fixes to the financial system could usefully start here: the future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.
The purpose of this book is to discuss the relationship between information and distribution, with special reference to the role of the merchant in a market economy under conditions of risk and uncertainty. By working with simple models of the market economy and conducting a sequence of comparative analyses, the authors shed new light on an important yet rather neglected area in economics. In a historical perspective, the merchants of Ohmi, the former name of Shiga Prefecture in western Japan, are known to have put great faith in the principles of Sampo Yoshi or the all-around advantages of trading. It is hoped that the results presented in this book will provide some solid ground for such an old principle that can be seen in a new light. Applications to regional and many related problems are also discussed here. A distribution system is broadly defined as the systematic mechanisms and structures that regulate business operations, and its function is to maximize corporate value. Some of the following functions have previously been identified as distinguishing features of the Japanese distribution system compared with distribution systems in Europe and the United States: not only transactions, transportation, and storage, but also information, risk-bearing functions, and other characteristics. This book provides an overview of the distribution system in Japan, including changes that its practice have undergone and its current state; identifies current problems; and considers how these problems should be addressed.
Standard histories of European integration emphasize the immediate aftermath of World War II as the moment when the seeds of the European Union were first sown. However, the interwar years witnessed a flurry of concern with the reconstruction of the world order, generating arguments that cut across the different social sciences, then plunged in a period of disciplinary soul-searching and feverish activism. Economics was no exception: several of the most prominent interwar economists, such as F. A. Hayek, Jan Tinbergen, Lionel Robbins, Francois Perroux, J. M. Keynes and Robert Triffin, contributed directly to larger public discussions on peace, order and stability. This edited volume combines these different strands of historical narrative into a unified framework, showing how political economy was integral to the interwar literature on international relations and, conversely, how economists were eager to incorporate international politics into their own concerns. The book brings together a group of scholars with varied disciplinary backgrounds, whose combined perspectives allow us to explore three analytical layers. The first part studies how different forms of economic knowledge, from economic programming to international finance, were used in the quest for a stable European order. The second part focuses on the existence of conflicting expectations about the role of social scientific knowledge, either as a source of technical solutions or as an input for enlightened public discussion. The third part illustrates how certain ideas and beliefs found concrete expression in specific institutional settings, which amplified their political leverage. The three parts are enclosed by an introductory essay, laying out the broad topics explored in the volume, and a substantial postscript tying all the historical threads together.
This book explores and traces the progressive activism and radical ideas of several elite women in Italy beginning in the early 20th century. It discusses the shared political culture that shaped the thinking and the activity of these women, mainly oriented towards political philanthropy and work, seen as the cornerstone of a comprehensive redefinition of gender relations. It also discusses the connections linking them to an international network of women involved in similar political actions and economic initiatives addressing women's' interests, as well as their legacy for the next generations. With essays from a range of scholars, this book provides an interdisciplinary framework for understanding these activists and deals with methodological and historiographical issues in reconstructing women's contribution to history.
This book is about national economic policy responses to the Great Depression of the interwar period. Taking off from a generally liberal starting point in the 1920s, states diverged greatly in their responses. Some were daring while others remained conservative. The two groups further differed among themselves in both degree and kind. The book gives a certain shape to this messy reality by identifying broad policy patterns (paradigms), and offers an explanation of it which emphasizes the ideational disposition of policy actors while recognizing the context that limits what they can do. More specifically, it argues that the ideas held by rulers and the strategies they consequently developed regarding three major groups of interest - business, labour, and, most critically, agrarians - largely determined economic policy variation across nations.
This edited volume represents the latest research on intersections of war, state formation, and political economy, i.e., how conflicts have affected short- and long-run development of economies and the formation (or destruction) of states and their political economies. The contributors come from different fields of social and human sciencies, all featuring an interdisciplinary approach to the study of societal development. The types of big issues analyzed in this volume include the formation of European and non-European states in the early modern and modern period, the emergence of various forms of states and eventually modern democracies with extensive welfare states, the violent upheavals that influenced these processes, the persistence of dictatorships and non-democratic forms of government, and the arrival of total war and its consequences, especially in the context of twentieth-century world wars. One of the key themes is the dichotomy between democracies and dictatorships; namely, what were the origins of their emergence and evolution, why did some revolutions succeed and other fail, and why did democracies, on the whole, emerge victorious in the twentieth-century age of total wars? The contributions in this book are written with academic and non-academic audiences in mind, and both will find the broad themes discussed in this volume intuitive and useful.
Money is more than just a medium of financial exchange: across time and place, it has performed all sorts of cultural, political, and social functions. This volume traces money in German-speaking Europe from the late Renaissance until the close of the twentieth century, exploring how people have used it and endowed it with multiple meanings. The fascinating studies gathered here collectively demonstrate money's vast symbolic and practical significance, from its place in debates about religion and the natural world to its central role in statecraft and the formation of national identity.
Human capital is of utmost importance for the future of our knowledge economies and societies. However, it is unequally distributed in Europe, contributing to marked spatial patterns of economic prosperity within and across countries. In many cases, these patterns have a long history. To understand them better, it requires to go back in time, when mass schooling was starting to become a reality across Europe. Taking a long-run perspective over more than 150 years, this book shows the development and the distribution of human capital in the regions of Europe and its connections with the economy. It provides insights into recent research findings in this area, including theoretical advances and the use of new empirical data.
This book uses money as a lens through which to analyze the social and economic impact of colonialism on African societies and institutions. It is the first book to address the monetary history of the colonial period in a comprehensive way, covering several areas of the continent and different periods, with the ultimate aim of understanding the long-term impact of colonial monetary policies on African societies. While grounding an understanding of money in terms of its circulation, acceptance and impact, this book shows first and foremost how the monetary systems that resulted from the imposition of colonial rule on African societies were not a replacement of the old currency systems with entirely new ones, but were rather the result of the convergence of different orders of value and monetary practices. By putting histories of people using money at the heart of the story, and connecting them to larger imperial policies, the volume provides a new and fresh perspective on the history of the establishment of colonial rule in Africa. This book is the result of a collaborative and interdisciplinary research project that has received funding by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. The contributors are both junior and senior scholars, based at universities in Europe, Africa, Asia and the US, who are all specialists on the history of money in Africa. It will appeal to an international audience of scholars and educators interested in African Studies and History, Economic History, Imperial and Colonial History, Development Studies, Monetary Studies.
This book aims to shed light on the roots of sustainability in the Iberian Peninsula that lie in the interrelations between shipbuilding and forestry from the 14th to the 19th centuries, combining various geographical scales (local, regional and national) and different timespans (short-term and long-term studies). Three main themes are discussed in depth here: firstly, the roots of current conservationism in the Iberian Peninsula; the evolution of the forest policies set in motion at the local, regional, and national levels to meet the demand for wood and timber; and the long-standing impact of naval empirical forestry on the conservation and transformation of the forest landscape. Therefore, the book attempts, on the one hand, to unravel the forest policies and empirical forestry implemented in the Iberian Peninsula as the roots or origins of what we refer to nowadays as "sustainability", to assess the contribution of imperial forestry to landscape planning and the conservation of forest resources, on the other, and, finally, to break away from the prevailing theological narrative that shipbuilding was the main agent of forest destruction in the Early Modern Iberian Peninsula, for which both quantitative and qualitative analyses will be conducted. This book could be of maximum interest to environmental and social historians and researchers, and anyone devoted to conducting research on the emergence and evolution of the concept of "sustainability" with respect to the governance and the historical transformation of woodlands around the world.
This book examines how convicts played a key role in the development of capitalism in Australia and how their active resistance shaped both workplace relations and institutions. It highlights the contribution of convicts to worker mobilization and political descent, forcing a rethink of Australia's foundational story. It is a book that will appeal to an international audience, as well as the many hundreds of thousands of Australians who can trace descent from convicts. It will enable the latter to make sense of the experience of their ancestors, equipping them with the necessary tools to understand convict and court records. It will also provide a valuable undergraduate and postgraduate teaching tool and reference for those studying unfree labour and worker history, social history, colonization and global migration in a digital age.
This volume documents recent efforts to track the transformation and trajectory of silver during the early modern period, from its origins in ores located on either side of the Atlantic to its use as currency in the financial centres of continental Europe. As a point of comparison, copper mining and its monetary use in the early modern Atlantic World will also be considered. Contributors rely mainly on economic and economic history methodologies, complemented by geographical and cultural history approaches. The use of novel software applications as tools to explain economic-historical episodes is also detailed.
This book focuses on the trans-Meiji Restoration story of the ideological transformation that made modern capitalism possible in Japan. At the end of the Tokugawa era, there was a shift away from traditionally hostile Confucian views of commercial growth toward economic development as the main source of national wealth, power and prestige. To illustrate this transformation, the book looks at four key architects of Meiji Japan's capitalist institutions: Okubo Toshimichi, Godai Tomoatsu, Matsukata Masayoshi and Maeda Masana.
This edited volume presents the key unresolved debates in monetary macroeconomics, covering the five topics of budget, trade, taxes, exchange rates and monetary policy. For each topic, there are two authors - one arguing for a certain policy and one against. The book takes an approach eschewing mathematics or econometrics, instead presenting arguments in the spirit of political economy - while incorporating the most recent thinking in macroeconomics. This approach, combined with the objective of encouraging debate, makes the book ideal reading for students of monetary macroeconomics, researchers seeking alternative views, and the general public.
How did some of the most savage and desolate islands in the world, scattered across the Pacific and Caribbean, become U.S. territories? The Great Guano Rush describes the fascinating and little-known history of this earliest example of American overseas expansion. "Guano" (bird droppings) was the 19th century's most important fertilizer and in 1856 Congress, believing that American farmers were being gouged on guano sales by foreign monopolists, authorized U.S. citizens to claim and exploit unowned guano-rich islands around the world. The legacy of this decision is a strange group of American "appurtenances", ranging from Haiti to the central Pacific and with a highly diverse subsequent history, from the notorious near-slavery on Navassa Island to the contemporary issue of the Johnston Atoll chemical weapon destruction plant. The Great Guano Rush is an important book for its insights on both 19th century America and the history of a key commodity. But it is also important in establishing that, contrary to the American free enterprise myth, the success of this country has always been based on a close cooperation between business and government.
Paper and the British Empire examines the evolution of the paper industry within British organisational frameworks and highlights the role of the Empire as a market and business-making area in a world of shrinking commerce and rising trade barriers. Drawing on a valuable range of primary sources, this book covers the period 1861-1960 and examines events from the establishment of free trade backed by the gold standard to Britain's membership of the European Free Trade Association. In the field of the paper industry, the speed and intensity of the industrialisation process around the globe have been shaped by a wide variety of variables, including the surrounding institutional framework; entrepreneurial and organisational strategies; the cost and accessibility of transport; and the availability of capital, knowledge, energy resources, and technology. The supply of papermaking raw materials has also been key and has historically been the most important determinant for geographical location and dominance. The research in this work focuses on the roles played by such variants, on the one hand, and demand characteristics on the other. In particular, it considers developments connected to a quest for Empire-grown raw materials in order to tackle the problem of the lack of indigenous raw materials and the resulting dependence on Scandinavian wood pulp imports. This text is of considerable interest to advanced students and researchers in economic history, business history, and the paper industry, and will also be useful to organisations working within the pulp and paper industries.
The writings of Thomas Robert Malthus continue to resonate today, particularly An Essay on the Principle of Population which was published more than two centuries ago. Malthus Across Nations creates a fascinating picture of the circulation of his economic and demographic ideas across different countries, highlighting the reception of his works in a variety of nations and cultures. This unique book offers not only a fascinating piece of comparative analysis in the history of economic thought, but also places some of today's most pressing debates into an accurate historical perspective, thereby improving our understanding of them. Providing a complex and multi-faceted analysis of the reception and dissemination of the works of Malthus, this book examines how his approach was misunderstood and distorted throughout his lifetime and beyond. It illuminates the different ways in which groups of actors, including laymen, politicians and experts, have reacted to his work in specific historical and intellectual contexts, and with particular theoretical, political and moral concerns. Detailed breakdowns of the main controversies over his work are also explored. An insightful read for scholars studying economics and history of economic thought, this book guides readers from Malthus's original publications to their continuing impact today. This will also be a useful volume for ethics, political thought and intellectual history students. Contributors include: D. Andrews, J.L. Cardoso, D. Donnini Maccio, G. Faccarello, C. Gehrke, M. Izumo, M. Markov, D. Melnik, A. Mendes Cunha, H. Morishita, R. Romani, J. San Julian Arrupe, R. Walter
This book explores the business practices of the British publishing industry from 1843-1900, discussing the role of creative businesses in society and the close relationship between culture and business in a historical context. Marrisa Joseph develops a strong cultural, social and historical discussion around the developments in copyright law, gender and literary culture from a management perspective; analysing how individuals formed professional associations and contract law to instigate new processes. Drawing on institutional theory and analysing primary and archival sources, this book traces how the practices of literary businesses developed, reproduced and later legitimised. By offering a close analysis of some of publishing's most influential businesses, it provides an insight into the decision-making processes that shaped an industry and brings to the fore the 'institutional story' surrounding literary business and their practices, many of which can still be seen today.
This is an invaluable survey of the most influential theoretical approaches adopted for the study of medieval economy and society. It offers a readily intelligible introduction to medieval economic history, an up-to-date critique of established models, and a succinct treatise on historiographical method, and will be essential reading for graduate students and historians of medieval and early modern England.
This book examines financial markets from a historical perspective. Bringing together contributions from leading historians of economic thought, economists and economic historians, it offers an integrated approach and reflects on the workings of financial markets, their impact on and relation with the rest of the economy and how their role was and is understood by economics. The contributions cover topics such as classical and modern economic thinking on financial markets and institutions, as well as financial models and innovations, and also present case studies on financial history and on policy issues. The historical perspective leads to a representation of markets not as abstract and timeless mechanisms but as institutions populated by a diversity of agents, subject to rules and customs, and influenced by scientific developments and economic theories.
In 1776 the United States government started out on a shoestring and quickly went bankrupt fighting its War of Independence against Britain. At the war's end, the national government owed tremendous sums to foreign creditors and its own citizens. But lacking the power to tax, it had no means to repay them. The Founders and Finance is the first book to tell the story of how foreign-born financial specialists-immigrants-solved the fiscal crisis and set the United States on a path to long-term economic success. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas K. McCraw analyzes the skills and worldliness of Alexander Hamilton (from the Danish Virgin Islands), Albert Gallatin (from the Republic of Geneva), and other immigrant founders who guided the nation to prosperity. Their expertise with liquid capital far exceeded that of native-born plantation owners Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, who well understood the management of land and slaves but had only a vague knowledge of financial instruments-currencies, stocks, and bonds. The very rootlessness of America's immigrant leaders gave them a better understanding of money, credit, and banks, and the way each could be made to serve the public good. The remarkable financial innovations designed by Hamilton, Gallatin, and other immigrants enabled the United States to control its debts, to pay for the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and-barely-to fight the War of 1812, which preserved the nation's hard-won independence from Britain. |
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