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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Economic history
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.
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.
First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
After the end of the Second World War businessmen and economists
throughout the world feared that the American postwar inflationary
boom would end in a serious slump. The slump took a long time to
come, and when it did appear in 1949 it was both mild and short
lived. In its mildness and brevity it foreshadowed the American
business recessions since that time and, indeed, may foreshadow the
end of the business cycle as it has been known in the past. This
book presents the first full-scale study of the 194849 recession in
the United States, making it the focal point of a detailed,
analytical account of American business fluctuations from the end
of the Second World War until the beginning of the Korean War. The
main part of the book is prefaced by a review of fluctuations from
1945 to 1967 and of the business cycle theory, which places the
postwar events in perspective. Of special importance are the
studies of the ending, in early 1948, of the period of re-stocking
and re-equipment; of the impact of the changedfarm situation in
this deflationary atmosphere, and use of modern consumption theory
to explain the changes in household spending after the war and
during the recession.
Dr. Blyth has drawn extensively upon the results of modern
economic research, and has woven the econometric findings and the
historical narrative together with a theoretical analysis. He
conclusively rejects the theory that recent U.S. business cycles
are the result of any largely self-perpetuating fluctuation in
investment in stocks. Instead he draws attention to the persistent
destabilizing roles of changes in defense expenditure and of
changes in monetary policy-inventory investment performs the
largelypassive role of aggravating these changes.
The book, first published in 1969, will be of value not only to
specialists in business cycle studies, but to economists and others
concerned with the problems of stability and growth in the
international economy, as well as to economic historians.
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.
The pit brow lasses who sorted coal and performed a variety of jobs
above ground at British coal mines prompted a violent debate about
womens work in the nineteenth century.
Seen as the prime example of degraded womanhood, the pit brow woman
was regarded as an aberration in a masculine domain, cruelly torn
from her natural sphere, the home. The, attempt to restrict womens
work at the mines in the 1880s highlights the dichotomy between the
fashionable ideal of womanhood and the necessity and reality of
female manual labour.
Although only a tiny percentage of the colliery labour force, the
pit lasses aroused an interest out of all proportion to their
numbers and their work became a test case for womens outdoor manual
employment. Angela John discusses the implications of this debate,
showing how it encapsulates many of the ambivalences of late
Victorian attitudes towards working-class female employment, and at
the same time raises wider questions both about womens work in
industries seen as traditionally male enclaves, and about the ways
in which women within the working community have been presented by
historians.This book was first published in 1980.
Technical changes in the first half of the nineteenth century led
to unprecedented economic growth and capital formation throughout
Western Europe; and yet Ireland hardly participated in this process
at all. While the Northern Atlantic Economy prospered, the Great
Irish Famine of 184550 killed a million and a half people and
caused hundreds of thousands to flee the country. Why the Irish
economy failed to grow, and why Ireland starved remains an
unresolved riddle of economic history.
Professor Mokyr maintains that the Hungry Forties were caused by
the overall underdevelopment of the economy during the decades
which preceded the famine. In Why Ireland Starved he tests various
hypotheses that have been put forward to account for this
backwardness. He dismisses widespread arguments that Irish poverty
can be explained in terms of over-population, an evil land system
or malicious exploitation by the British. Instead, he argues that
the causes have to be sought in the low productivity of labor and
the insufficient formation of physical capital results of the
peculiar political and social structure of Ireland, continuous
conflicts between landlords and tenants, and the rigidity of Irish
economic institutions.
Mokyrs methodology is rigorous and quantitative, in the tradition
of the New Economic History. It sets out to test hypotheses about
the causal connections between economic and non-economic phenomena.
Irish history is often heavily coloured by political convictions:
of Dutch-Jewish origin, trained in Israel and working in the United
States. Mokyr brings to this controversial field not only wide
research experience but also impartiality and scientific
objectivity.
The book isprimarily aimed at numerate economic historians,
historical demographers, economists specializing in agricultural
economics and economic development and specialists in Irish and
British nineteenth-century history. The text is, nonetheless, free
of technical jargon, with the more complex material relegated to
appendixes. Mokyrs line of reasoning is transparent and has been
easily accessible and useful to readers without graduate training
in economic theory and econometrics since ists first publication in
1983.
Dr Dorothy Marshall covers a vital period in English social
development, during which the traditional social hierarchy of order
and degree was giving place to a class society marked by the growth
of a self-conscious working class.
The author shows how, between 1776 and 1851, industrialization
brought about major changes in the structure of society, so that by
1851 the outlines of modern urban and industrial society had been
irrevocably drawn. She examines the social implications of the
Industrial Revolution, referring in particular to the growth of
urban society, the repercussions on the rural community and the
resulting alterations in the social structure. She examines upper-,
middle- and working-class opinions on such topics as religion and
education, and traces the effect of the economic and social changes
on the constitution and on political life. In the final chapter Dr
Marshall describes the way in which the abuses of the new society
brought about the demand for parliamentary legislation to deal with
the injustices of the Poor Law, the factory system, and the problem
of sanitation. This fascinating book was first published in
1973.
This is a fascinating insight into some of the most important
thinking of the industrial revolution in Israel.
Technological revolution, rapid industrialization and higher
levels of productivity all drew more and more people from the
agricultural workforce and new ideas were needed to combat this
serious loss of labour.
At the time this book was first published, Professor Halperim's
had somthing new and original to offer. He argued that agriculture
could be combined with industry without undermining that age-old
social asset, the village community, and bring it into line with
changing conditions.
As he predicted the development of areas comprising a score or
more of villages, ranging around non-agriculture has been
preserved, and rural society has continued to exist although it has
assumed different forms. The name proposed by the author for this
new formation is Agrindus, as it expresses the integration of
AGRiculture and INDUStries.
First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
First Published in 2005. This book has been written as an outline
history of the development of Japanese business. A good deal of
literature exists on some aspects, and some periods, but this is
the first attempt to follow the entire course from the Tokugawa
period to the present, and to analyse the salient features from the
vantage point of modernisation. A separate section in each chapter
deals exclusively with the value problem and the impact of values
on business and economic development. The Glossary gives an
explanation of Japanese terms that are used in the text.
First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &
Francis, an informa company.
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