Economic History Books
fuente;
https://pseudoerasmus.com/economic-history-books/
Lecturas para el fin de semana: libros de historia económica publicados desde 2000
Lecturas para el fin de semana: libros de historia económica publicados desde 2000
Esta semana se ha desarrollado un animado debate en internet sobre los libros/artículos de historia económica más importantes publicados desde 2000. El primer salvo del debate fue lanzado por Vicent Geloso, que seleccionó diez libros/artículos en dos entradas en un blog (aquí los primeros cinco y aquí los segundos).
En mi opinión, la contribución más interesante a este debate ha sido la lista de los 25 libros más estimulantes de historia económica publicados desde 2000 que Pseudoerasmus, un amigo de este blog desde hace mucho años, ha preparado. Con su permiso, reproduzco aquí la lista en orden alfabético:
- Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective.
- Clark, A Farewell to Alms.
- Clark, The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility.
- De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Culture and the Household Economy, 1650-present.
- Engerman & Sokoloff, Economic Development in the Americas since 1500.
- Federico, Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800-2000.
- Findlay & O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium.
- Galor, Unified Growth Theory.
- Gat, War in Human Civilization.
- Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade.
- Kuran, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.
- Lee & Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000.
- Lieberman, Strange Parallels (2 volumes).
- Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850.
- Mitterauer, Why Europe? The Medieval Origins of its Special Path.
- North, Wallis & Weingast, Violence & Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History.
- O’Rourke & Williamson, Globalization and Histor: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy.
- Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.
- Seabright, The Company of Strangers: The Natural History of Economic Life.
- Smil, Vaclav (several).
- Temin, The Roman Market Economy.
- Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy.
- Turchin & Nefedov, Secular Cycles.
- Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization.
- Williamson, Trade and Poverty: How the Third World Fell Behind.De los 25 libros, tengo 23 (me faltan Feeding the World y los de Smil) y, efectivamente, la lista incluye una muy buena parte de lo que hemos aprendido en este campo desde 2000. Pseudoerasmus ha compilado también una completa lista de libros de historia económica más en general y es el autor uno de los blogs más creativos de economía. Esta entrada suya, por ejemplo, sobre las Calico Acts no tiene precio (y es una respuesta contundente a algunas cosas que se enseñan por ahí). Si alguno ha quedado saturado de análisis real o de redes neuronales, ya tiene alternativa: a libro por semana, ya estará ocupado hasta verano
- http://nadaesgratis.es/fernandez-villaverde/lecturas-para-el-fin-de-semana-libros-de-historia-economica-desde-2000
Last updated 27 July 2016 — I keep getting asked for survey-type books/articles on the economic history of particular regions or countries. In the list below, as much as possible, I stick to works of economic history which…
- have a quantitative orientation, or at least some support from data;
- are written by an economist, or someone using quantitative social science methods;
- incorporate recent academic research;
- which stress country and regional knowledge, not topical or thematic specialisation. (So no books focused on income inequality or international trade, etc.)
It’s intended as a list of references which give you an overview and guide for further reading, especially if you want to know more about particular countries and regions. I don’t list any “big history” books along the lines of Jared Diamond.
Edit (12 Jan. 2017): I have a completely separate post called the “25 most stimulating economic history books published since 2000“.
Suggestions are welcome! And I thank Daniel Shestakov for having made some already.
For someone with absolutely no clue about the basics of world economic history of the last 500 years, but who wants something written by an economist, a good primer is Robert Allen’s Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction. It’s a little gem, a masterpiece of parsimony, so short yet so much. Every sentence packs a mound of research, going from the “rise of the West” and the “great divergence” to the “big push” late industrialisation of Japan, the Soviet Union, and China. Yet unlike other books of this kind, it has an idiosyncratic touch that’s uniquely Allen.
Last updated 27 July 2016 — I keep getting asked for survey-type books/articles on the economic history of particular regions or countries. In the list below, as much as possible, I stick to works of economic history which…
- have a quantitative orientation, or at least some support from data;
- are written by an economist, or someone using quantitative social science methods;
- incorporate recent academic research;
- which stress country and regional knowledge, not topical or thematic specialisation. (So no books focused on income inequality or international trade, etc.)
It’s intended as a list of references which give you an overview and guide for further reading, especially if you want to know more about particular countries and regions. I don’t list any “big history” books along the lines of Jared Diamond.
Edit (12 Jan. 2017): I have a completely separate post called the “25 most stimulating economic history books published since 2000“.
Suggestions are welcome! And I thank Daniel Shestakov for having made some already.
For someone with absolutely no clue about the basics of world economic history of the last 500 years, but who wants something written by an economist, a good primer is Robert Allen’s Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction. It’s a little gem, a masterpiece of parsimony, so short yet so much. Every sentence packs a mound of research, going from the “rise of the West” and the “great divergence” to the “big push” late industrialisation of Japan, the Soviet Union, and China. Yet unlike other books of this kind, it has an idiosyncratic touch that’s uniquely Allen.
The Industrial Revolution in Britain
Joel Mokyr’s The Enlightened Economy and Robert Allen’s The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective are the key works. I say start with Allen first. But you definitely need both for a balanced perspective. Allen’s book is also a good entrée to the “great divergence” debate, contrasting European and Asian living standards just before the modern era. Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms offers a very heterodox take, but it’s also the best elementary introduction to the neo-Malthusian model. Deirdre McCloskey’s Bourgeois Dignity, which is basically a chapter-by-chapter criticism of nearly all theories of the Industrial Revolution, serves as an excellent if idiosyncratic survey of the literature on the IR. However, I recommend disregarding (or tearing out the pages of) McCloskey’s critique of Clark in chapters 31 and 32 of Bourgeois Dignity — the reason for which I will blog some day.
With the exception of the above volume, I prefer McCloskey from the early days of cliometrics in the 1970s to the early 1990s. The two editions of The Economic History of Britain since 1700 that Donald McCloskey edited with Roderick Floud (2 volumes, 1981; and 3 volumes, 1994) are great. I treasure my unfortunately outdated, but dog-eared, copies of the 1981 volumes. The 2004 update by Floud & Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (3 volumes) continues in that tradition.
The 2014 successor, Floud, Humphries & Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (2 volumes) is important as introductory material and updated literature survey. But the great chapter on overseas trade originally written by Knick Harley has been replaced with one by Nuala Zahedieh which seems keener on Immanuel Wallerstein.
For a more nuanced perspective which stresses the contribution of the external to European economic development, try Findlay & O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Not only does it serve as economic history of the world since the fall of Rome, but you might also notice in it a more sophisticated version of Beckert’s “war capitalism”. (What exactly was wrong with the word mercantilism anyway???)
For some Europe-wide perspectives on the “rise of the West”, see Broadberry & O’Rourke, ed., The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe (vol. 1). Unlike its predecessors in the same Cambridge series, this one is a very reader-friendly source. Another comparative look is Prados de la Escosura, Exceptionalism and Industrialisation: Britain and its European Rivals, 1688–1815.
Some books which go back farther in time for the origins of the modern European economy:
- van Zanden, The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution
- Bateman, Markets and Growth in Early Modern Europe
- Mitterauer, Why Europe? The Medieval Origins of its Special Path
- Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West
- Hoffman, Why did Europe Conquer the World?
- Iyigun, War, Peace, and Prosperity in the Name of God: The Ottoman Role in Europe’s Socioeconomic Evolution
- Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States 990-1992
- De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Culture and the Household Economy, 1650-present
Joel Mokyr’s The Enlightened Economy and Robert Allen’s The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective are the key works. I say start with Allen first. But you definitely need both for a balanced perspective. Allen’s book is also a good entrée to the “great divergence” debate, contrasting European and Asian living standards just before the modern era. Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms offers a very heterodox take, but it’s also the best elementary introduction to the neo-Malthusian model. Deirdre McCloskey’s Bourgeois Dignity, which is basically a chapter-by-chapter criticism of nearly all theories of the Industrial Revolution, serves as an excellent if idiosyncratic survey of the literature on the IR. However, I recommend disregarding (or tearing out the pages of) McCloskey’s critique of Clark in chapters 31 and 32 of Bourgeois Dignity — the reason for which I will blog some day.
With the exception of the above volume, I prefer McCloskey from the early days of cliometrics in the 1970s to the early 1990s. The two editions of The Economic History of Britain since 1700 that Donald McCloskey edited with Roderick Floud (2 volumes, 1981; and 3 volumes, 1994) are great. I treasure my unfortunately outdated, but dog-eared, copies of the 1981 volumes. The 2004 update by Floud & Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (3 volumes) continues in that tradition.
The 2014 successor, Floud, Humphries & Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (2 volumes) is important as introductory material and updated literature survey. But the great chapter on overseas trade originally written by Knick Harley has been replaced with one by Nuala Zahedieh which seems keener on Immanuel Wallerstein.
For a more nuanced perspective which stresses the contribution of the external to European economic development, try Findlay & O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Not only does it serve as economic history of the world since the fall of Rome, but you might also notice in it a more sophisticated version of Beckert’s “war capitalism”. (What exactly was wrong with the word mercantilism anyway???)
For some Europe-wide perspectives on the “rise of the West”, see Broadberry & O’Rourke, ed., The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe (vol. 1). Unlike its predecessors in the same Cambridge series, this one is a very reader-friendly source. Another comparative look is Prados de la Escosura, Exceptionalism and Industrialisation: Britain and its European Rivals, 1688–1815.
Some books which go back farther in time for the origins of the modern European economy:
- van Zanden, The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution
- Bateman, Markets and Growth in Early Modern Europe
- Mitterauer, Why Europe? The Medieval Origins of its Special Path
- Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West
- Hoffman, Why did Europe Conquer the World?
- Iyigun, War, Peace, and Prosperity in the Name of God: The Ottoman Role in Europe’s Socioeconomic Evolution
- Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States 990-1992
- De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Culture and the Household Economy, 1650-present
The spread of the industrial revolution
After my recent post on the Hobson-Lenin thesis, someone asked if there’s a good book on the “first globalisation” of 1870-1914. My answer: Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, by Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, the best summary-analysis of the vast empirical literature on the epic movement of people, goods, and capital in the long 19th century. If you’re interested in the impact of the “first globalisation” on today’s developing countries, then Williamson’s Trade and Poverty: How the Third World Fell Behind. (The name Williamson recurs almost infinitely in this literature…)
Broadberry, The Productivity Race: British Manufacturing in International Perspective, 1850–1990 covers three important themes: the so-called “decline of Britain”, the rise of Germany and the USA, and the “Second Industrial Revolution”. Trebilcock, The Industrialization of the Continental Powers 1780-1914, covers Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Spain. For a short article on how industrialisation spread from Britain to Europe, see Harley, “British and European Industrialisation“. Allen’s article “The Spread of Manufacturing” is more global but I don’t see a copy online. Both articles are contained in the 2nd volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism.
There are surprisingly not that many general economic histories of France or Germany in English with a quantitative orientation and updated findings.
France:
- Hoffman, Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside, 1450-1815
- Lévy-Leboyer & Bourguignon’s The French Economy in the Nineteeth Century: An Essay in Econometric Analysis dates from 1985/1990.
- Heywood, The Development of the French Economy (1992)
- Dormois, The French Economy in the Twentieth Century (2004)
- Crouzet’s survey article, “The Historiography of French Economic Growth in the Nineteenth Century” (2003), describes how the cliometric revolution was introduced into French economic history (and resisted by the older generation). But Grantham’s article (1997), “The French cliometric revolution: A survey of cliometric contributions to French economic history”, actually summarises the research.
- Definitely not an economic history, let alone a quantitative one, but Eugen Weber’s classic Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France is a classic narrative of a ‘backward’ country transforming into something a ‘modern’ one.
Germany:
- Pierenkemper & Tilly, The German Economy During the Nineteenth Century
- Despite the rather restrictive-sounding title, Grant’s Migration and Inequality in Germany in 1870-1913 is really an examination of German industrialisation and political economy from the perspective of development economics of the Arthur-Lewis-Simon-Kuznets variety.
- Tilly (2001), “German economic history and Cliometrics: A selective survey of recent tendencies”
United States
The most general survey is Atack & Passell, A New Economic View of American History (1994) or Hughes & Cain, American Economic History (a fairly simple undergraduate textbook). For the economic history of slavery, don’t read Fogel’s Time on the Cross. Instead, read his Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. It’s updated and corrected compared with the first, taking into consideration the extensive debates Fogel had with economists and historians after Time on the Cross was published. The “Fogel of Emancipation” is Ransom & Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation. Olmstead & Rhode, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development is an agricultural history of the United States which touches on many themes from slavery to innovation.
Lindert & Williamson, Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700, despite the title, is really a complete economic history of the United States. It’s the most updated of its kind. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: the US Standard of Living since the Civil War, conveys better than any other book how life was transformed by technological changes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and how the welfare gains from that are underestimated in GDP measurements).
Russia & the Soviet Union
Gatrell, The Tsarist Economy 1850-1917 is now rather old, but Gregory, Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five-Year covers roughly the period from the abolition of serfdom in 1861 to the end of the New Economic Policy in 1928. Mironov is mostly about biological living standards in the prerevolutionary period, but has a chapter or two on wages and prices.
Gregory & Stuart, Russian & Soviet Economic Performance is a textbook covering the entire period of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history from 1917 to the present.
- Allen’s Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution is a maddening, provocative history of Soviet industrialisation, roughly covering 1928-70.
- Hanson, The Rise and Fall of the The Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR from 1945
- Davis, Harrison & Wheatcroft, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945
Other current-OECD:
- McClean’s Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth
- Ó Gráda, Ireland: A New Economic History 1780-1939
- Since Irish late developent is so interesting, I add: Ó Gráda, Rocky Road: The Irish Economy since the 1920s
- Magnusson, The Economic History of Sweden
- Fenoltea, The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History: From Unification to the Great War and Toniolo, The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification.
- De Vries, “Dutch Economic Growth in Comparative Historical Perspective, 1500-2000“, an article, is much much shorter than De Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy (Netherlands, 1500-1815), which is very detailed.
- Costa et al. An Economic History of Portugal, 1143-2010
- Kalyvas, Modern Greece is not strictly speaking a work of history; it’s rather an FAQ-type backgrounder for the Greek financial crisis, with a lot of historical and country information.
- For Spain I would suggest Tortella, The Development of Modern Spain. But that and others in English are quite inadequate. Spain badly needs an updated book in English that incorporates the major themes of European economic history, such as the response to the Black Death and the “little divergence” between northern and southern Europe, but also covers country-specific issues such as the new understanding of Hapsburg state capacity, late industrialisation, the Franco years, etc.
After my recent post on the Hobson-Lenin thesis, someone asked if there’s a good book on the “first globalisation” of 1870-1914. My answer: Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, by Kevin O’Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson, the best summary-analysis of the vast empirical literature on the epic movement of people, goods, and capital in the long 19th century. If you’re interested in the impact of the “first globalisation” on today’s developing countries, then Williamson’s Trade and Poverty: How the Third World Fell Behind. (The name Williamson recurs almost infinitely in this literature…)
Broadberry, The Productivity Race: British Manufacturing in International Perspective, 1850–1990 covers three important themes: the so-called “decline of Britain”, the rise of Germany and the USA, and the “Second Industrial Revolution”. Trebilcock, The Industrialization of the Continental Powers 1780-1914, covers Germany, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Spain. For a short article on how industrialisation spread from Britain to Europe, see Harley, “British and European Industrialisation“. Allen’s article “The Spread of Manufacturing” is more global but I don’t see a copy online. Both articles are contained in the 2nd volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism.
There are surprisingly not that many general economic histories of France or Germany in English with a quantitative orientation and updated findings.
France:
- Hoffman, Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside, 1450-1815
- Lévy-Leboyer & Bourguignon’s The French Economy in the Nineteeth Century: An Essay in Econometric Analysis dates from 1985/1990.
- Heywood, The Development of the French Economy (1992)
- Dormois, The French Economy in the Twentieth Century (2004)
- Crouzet’s survey article, “The Historiography of French Economic Growth in the Nineteenth Century” (2003), describes how the cliometric revolution was introduced into French economic history (and resisted by the older generation). But Grantham’s article (1997), “The French cliometric revolution: A survey of cliometric contributions to French economic history”, actually summarises the research.
- Definitely not an economic history, let alone a quantitative one, but Eugen Weber’s classic Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France is a classic narrative of a ‘backward’ country transforming into something a ‘modern’ one.
Germany:
- Pierenkemper & Tilly, The German Economy During the Nineteenth Century
- Despite the rather restrictive-sounding title, Grant’s Migration and Inequality in Germany in 1870-1913 is really an examination of German industrialisation and political economy from the perspective of development economics of the Arthur-Lewis-Simon-Kuznets variety.
- Tilly (2001), “German economic history and Cliometrics: A selective survey of recent tendencies”
United States
The most general survey is Atack & Passell, A New Economic View of American History (1994) or Hughes & Cain, American Economic History (a fairly simple undergraduate textbook). For the economic history of slavery, don’t read Fogel’s Time on the Cross. Instead, read his Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. It’s updated and corrected compared with the first, taking into consideration the extensive debates Fogel had with economists and historians after Time on the Cross was published. The “Fogel of Emancipation” is Ransom & Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation. Olmstead & Rhode, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development is an agricultural history of the United States which touches on many themes from slavery to innovation.
Lindert & Williamson, Unequal Gains: American Growth and Inequality since 1700, despite the title, is really a complete economic history of the United States. It’s the most updated of its kind. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: the US Standard of Living since the Civil War, conveys better than any other book how life was transformed by technological changes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and how the welfare gains from that are underestimated in GDP measurements).
Russia & the Soviet Union
Gatrell, The Tsarist Economy 1850-1917 is now rather old, but Gregory, Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five-Year covers roughly the period from the abolition of serfdom in 1861 to the end of the New Economic Policy in 1928. Mironov is mostly about biological living standards in the prerevolutionary period, but has a chapter or two on wages and prices.
Gregory & Stuart, Russian & Soviet Economic Performance is a textbook covering the entire period of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history from 1917 to the present.
- Allen’s Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution is a maddening, provocative history of Soviet industrialisation, roughly covering 1928-70.
- Hanson, The Rise and Fall of the The Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR from 1945
- Davis, Harrison & Wheatcroft, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945
Other current-OECD:
- McClean’s Why Australia Prospered: The Shifting Sources of Economic Growth
- Ó Gráda, Ireland: A New Economic History 1780-1939
- Since Irish late developent is so interesting, I add: Ó Gráda, Rocky Road: The Irish Economy since the 1920s
- Magnusson, The Economic History of Sweden
- Fenoltea, The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History: From Unification to the Great War and Toniolo, The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification.
- De Vries, “Dutch Economic Growth in Comparative Historical Perspective, 1500-2000“, an article, is much much shorter than De Vries & van der Woude, The First Modern Economy (Netherlands, 1500-1815), which is very detailed.
- Costa et al. An Economic History of Portugal, 1143-2010
- Kalyvas, Modern Greece is not strictly speaking a work of history; it’s rather an FAQ-type backgrounder for the Greek financial crisis, with a lot of historical and country information.
- For Spain I would suggest Tortella, The Development of Modern Spain. But that and others in English are quite inadequate. Spain badly needs an updated book in English that incorporates the major themes of European economic history, such as the response to the Black Death and the “little divergence” between northern and southern Europe, but also covers country-specific issues such as the new understanding of Hapsburg state capacity, late industrialisation, the Franco years, etc.
Comparative historical development
Nathan Nunn “Historical Development” (a chapter in The Handbook of Economic Growth) and “The Importance of History for Economic Development” are indispensable readings. For the “deep roots” literature, Spolaore & Wacziarg’s “How deep are the roots of economic development” is the best entry way.
The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe — the greatest fucking debate in economic history ! The quasi-resolution of this debate is contained in Turchin & Nefedov, Secular Cycles, probably my single favourite book of quantitative history. Also worth mentioning: Hatcher & Bailey, Modelling the Middle Ages, an overview of the theories used to describe and explain economic change in the Middle Ages.
Routledge Handbook of Global Economic History (Boldizzoni & Hudson, ed.) is rather uneven, but this is a sui generis volume: there is no other place where you can read about the history of the economic historiography for the major regions and countries of the world.
The Cambridge History of Capitalism (2 volumes) has all kinds of short synoptic essays about many countries and regions, such as by Bresson (ancient Greece), Jongman (Roman empire), Pamuk (the Middle East), Roy (India), Jerven (Africa), and Atack (USA). I think Gareth Austin’s chapter in the 2nd volume, “Capitalism and the Colonies”, is the single best short treatment of the economic relationship between the imperial metropolis and the colonies.
Nathan Nunn “Historical Development” (a chapter in The Handbook of Economic Growth) and “The Importance of History for Economic Development” are indispensable readings. For the “deep roots” literature, Spolaore & Wacziarg’s “How deep are the roots of economic development” is the best entry way.
The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe — the greatest fucking debate in economic history ! The quasi-resolution of this debate is contained in Turchin & Nefedov, Secular Cycles, probably my single favourite book of quantitative history. Also worth mentioning: Hatcher & Bailey, Modelling the Middle Ages, an overview of the theories used to describe and explain economic change in the Middle Ages.
Routledge Handbook of Global Economic History (Boldizzoni & Hudson, ed.) is rather uneven, but this is a sui generis volume: there is no other place where you can read about the history of the economic historiography for the major regions and countries of the world.
The Cambridge History of Capitalism (2 volumes) has all kinds of short synoptic essays about many countries and regions, such as by Bresson (ancient Greece), Jongman (Roman empire), Pamuk (the Middle East), Roy (India), Jerven (Africa), and Atack (USA). I think Gareth Austin’s chapter in the 2nd volume, “Capitalism and the Colonies”, is the single best short treatment of the economic relationship between the imperial metropolis and the colonies.
Asian economic history
China
The very very recent The Economic History of China (2016) by Glahn has no equivalent. There is no other book at the moment which simultaneously contains a readable narrative of the full sweep of Chinese economic history; and reflects recent scholarship both Chinese and international; and covers the major themes and controversies of the historiography in the manner of Elvin’s The Patterns of the Chinese Past (which is now quasi-ancient but still worth reading). Glahn’s book might have dealt a little bit more with the controversies surrounding the revisionism of Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence, which really changed the terms of the debate. But I’m cavilling.
An older overview is Perkins, Agricultural Development in China 1368-1968. Slightly idiosyncratic choice: Bray’s The Rice Economies: Technology & Development in Asian Societies. Lee & Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000 is a demographic and family history of China. Rawski’s Chinese History in Economic Perspective is much more limited in scope than it sounds, but at least it’s free online !
China
The very very recent The Economic History of China (2016) by Glahn has no equivalent. There is no other book at the moment which simultaneously contains a readable narrative of the full sweep of Chinese economic history; and reflects recent scholarship both Chinese and international; and covers the major themes and controversies of the historiography in the manner of Elvin’s The Patterns of the Chinese Past (which is now quasi-ancient but still worth reading). Glahn’s book might have dealt a little bit more with the controversies surrounding the revisionism of Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence, which really changed the terms of the debate. But I’m cavilling.
An older overview is Perkins, Agricultural Development in China 1368-1968. Slightly idiosyncratic choice: Bray’s The Rice Economies: Technology & Development in Asian Societies. Lee & Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000 is a demographic and family history of China. Rawski’s Chinese History in Economic Perspective is much more limited in scope than it sounds, but at least it’s free online !
India
Tirthankar Roy’s The Economic History of India 1857-1947, which is used in both India and the UK as the South Asian intro, is the absolutely necessary first stop. It can be seen as an updated, reader-friendly version of the more detailed The Cambridge Economic History of Modern India, volume 2. Roy himself is responsible for a major new take on Indian economic history. After that general volume, turn to Chaudhary et al., A New Economic History of Colonial India, which focuses more sharply on fewer themes.
I cannot emphasise enough the importance of these two books by Roy and Chaudhary et al. In 1963, Morris D. Morris, an American economic historian of India, wrote:
It is dismaying to realize that even within very broad ranges of error we do not know whether during the past century-and-a-half the economy’s performance improved, stagnated, or actually declined.
The fact that we have no satisfactory basis for any judgments has not prevented the emergence of a widely-held interpretation of the career of the Indian economy in the nineteenth century. This conventional doctrine starts with a notion of “traditional India,” a subsistence economy which was self contained and static. Into this traditional socio-economic order came the shattering influence of market forces represented by Western commercial and industrial competition, reinforced by the power of the modern imperial state… Indian writers typically stress the exploitative features of British rule as the cause of nineteenth-century decay.
That’s no longer (as) true. Many things about the 19th century remain quite patchy, but the picture we now have is much more nuanced than “Britain impoverished India” — even though that crude and antiquated view still predominates in Western history departments or amongst nationalists and neo-Marxists in India.
For pre-colonial Indian economic history, see Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595: A Statistical Study.
Parthasarathi, How Europe Got Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850 (2011) tries to do for India what Kenneth Pomeranz had done for China — a case that Asia in 1800 was just as ready for the Industrial Revolution as Northwest Europe. But Parthasarathi doesn’t quite make the cut, and I can’t recommend the book. In my mind his book ends up being the best of a vast and obscure stockpile of writings accumulated by Indian writers in the last 100 years screaming from the rooftops about India’s contribution to the Industrial Revolution and railing against Britain’s hypocritical imposition of free trade on India.
But the historians Pomeranz and Parthasarathi (as well as Joseph Inikori) are so much better at writing economic history than others trained in history departments! In fact, if the “historians of capitalism” all reasoned and wrote like Pomeranz, Parthasarathi, and Inikori, I would probably still disagree with them but I would bitch less about them !
Tirthankar Roy’s The Economic History of India 1857-1947, which is used in both India and the UK as the South Asian intro, is the absolutely necessary first stop. It can be seen as an updated, reader-friendly version of the more detailed The Cambridge Economic History of Modern India, volume 2. Roy himself is responsible for a major new take on Indian economic history. After that general volume, turn to Chaudhary et al., A New Economic History of Colonial India, which focuses more sharply on fewer themes.
I cannot emphasise enough the importance of these two books by Roy and Chaudhary et al. In 1963, Morris D. Morris, an American economic historian of India, wrote:
It is dismaying to realize that even within very broad ranges of error we do not know whether during the past century-and-a-half the economy’s performance improved, stagnated, or actually declined.The fact that we have no satisfactory basis for any judgments has not prevented the emergence of a widely-held interpretation of the career of the Indian economy in the nineteenth century. This conventional doctrine starts with a notion of “traditional India,” a subsistence economy which was self contained and static. Into this traditional socio-economic order came the shattering influence of market forces represented by Western commercial and industrial competition, reinforced by the power of the modern imperial state… Indian writers typically stress the exploitative features of British rule as the cause of nineteenth-century decay.
That’s no longer (as) true. Many things about the 19th century remain quite patchy, but the picture we now have is much more nuanced than “Britain impoverished India” — even though that crude and antiquated view still predominates in Western history departments or amongst nationalists and neo-Marxists in India.
For pre-colonial Indian economic history, see Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595: A Statistical Study.
Parthasarathi, How Europe Got Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850 (2011) tries to do for India what Kenneth Pomeranz had done for China — a case that Asia in 1800 was just as ready for the Industrial Revolution as Northwest Europe. But Parthasarathi doesn’t quite make the cut, and I can’t recommend the book. In my mind his book ends up being the best of a vast and obscure stockpile of writings accumulated by Indian writers in the last 100 years screaming from the rooftops about India’s contribution to the Industrial Revolution and railing against Britain’s hypocritical imposition of free trade on India.
But the historians Pomeranz and Parthasarathi (as well as Joseph Inikori) are so much better at writing economic history than others trained in history departments! In fact, if the “historians of capitalism” all reasoned and wrote like Pomeranz, Parthasarathi, and Inikori, I would probably still disagree with them but I would bitch less about them !
Japan
Given Japan’s status as the premier non-Western late industrialiser, there should be more books on Japan’s economic development with updated research. An ideal volume would start from the late Tokugawa period with Japan’s own version of the “industrious revolution” and the Meiji Restoration. It should also cover not only Japan’s pre-war industrialisation but also assessments of Japan’s post-war industrial policy and state planning (as described by Chalmers Johnson). Some books with various shortcomings:
- Macpherson, The Economic Development of Japan 1868-1941 (1995)
- Alexander, The Arc of Japan’s Economic Development (2007)
- Mosk, Japanese Economic Development: Markets, Norms, Structures (2008)
- Francks, Japanese Economic Development (1999) is probably the least analytical and the most descriptive/qualitative of the four.
Given Japan’s status as the premier non-Western late industrialiser, there should be more books on Japan’s economic development with updated research. An ideal volume would start from the late Tokugawa period with Japan’s own version of the “industrious revolution” and the Meiji Restoration. It should also cover not only Japan’s pre-war industrialisation but also assessments of Japan’s post-war industrial policy and state planning (as described by Chalmers Johnson). Some books with various shortcomings:
- Macpherson, The Economic Development of Japan 1868-1941 (1995)
- Alexander, The Arc of Japan’s Economic Development (2007)
- Mosk, Japanese Economic Development: Markets, Norms, Structures (2008)
- Francks, Japanese Economic Development (1999) is probably the least analytical and the most descriptive/qualitative of the four.
Other Asia:
- Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization
- Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization
- van Zanden & Marks, The Economic History of Indonesia 1800-2000
Overall, the best economic history of Asia is still mostly found in papers. I will get to listing some of those later. Personally I think the relative dearth of East Asian economic history must be related to the near-absence of East Asia in development economics — despite the ‘historical turn’ taken by development studies in general. Acemoglu & Robinson’s Why Nations Fail barely has anything to say about Japan or South Korea! Here’s also a political economy of development syllabus with almost nothing about the region.
- Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization
- Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization
- van Zanden & Marks, The Economic History of Indonesia 1800-2000
Overall, the best economic history of Asia is still mostly found in papers. I will get to listing some of those later. Personally I think the relative dearth of East Asian economic history must be related to the near-absence of East Asia in development economics — despite the ‘historical turn’ taken by development studies in general. Acemoglu & Robinson’s Why Nations Fail barely has anything to say about Japan or South Korea! Here’s also a political economy of development syllabus with almost nothing about the region.
Africa:
- Akyeampong et al., Africa’s Development in Historical Perspective
- Frankema & Hillborn, ed., The History of African Development, an open access online textbook
- Some articles: Austin & Broadberry, “The Renaissance of African Economic History“; Hopkins, “The New Economic History of Africa” & a reply by Fenske, “The Causal History of Africa“
- Jerven, Africa: Why Economists Get It Wrong. Although this is a criticism of the way economists have done research on Africa (past and present), you learn a lot of African economic history & development from this book. An article worth reading: Austin, “The ‘Reversal of Fortune’ Thesis and the Compression of History“, an historian’s critique of various economists’ theories of African development.
- Bates, Markets & States in Tropical Africa
- Herbst, States & Power in Africa
- Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa — old but classic
- Feinstein, An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination, and Development
- Akyeampong et al., Africa’s Development in Historical Perspective
- Frankema & Hillborn, ed., The History of African Development, an open access online textbook
- Some articles: Austin & Broadberry, “The Renaissance of African Economic History“; Hopkins, “The New Economic History of Africa” & a reply by Fenske, “The Causal History of Africa“
- Jerven, Africa: Why Economists Get It Wrong. Although this is a criticism of the way economists have done research on Africa (past and present), you learn a lot of African economic history & development from this book. An article worth reading: Austin, “The ‘Reversal of Fortune’ Thesis and the Compression of History“, an historian’s critique of various economists’ theories of African development.
- Bates, Markets & States in Tropical Africa
- Herbst, States & Power in Africa
- Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa — old but classic
- Feinstein, An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination, and Development
Latin America:
- Engerman & Sokoloff, Economic Development in the Americas since 1500 qualifies as the “deep origins” analysis of Latin American economic development, examining the legacy of colonial institutions, geography, slavery, etc. You can also read an article distillation of the book in “Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World“
- A chronological economic history of Latin American is covered by Bertola & Ocampo’s Economic Development of Latin America Since Independence, which goes from independence to the present.
- More in-depth, with country-specific chapters: Cárdenas, Ocampo & Thorp, ed. volume 1 (roughly 1870-1930s); Thorp, volume 2 (the 1930s and 40s), and Cárdenas, Ocampo & Thorp, volume 3 (the post-war era to circa 1980, a lot of coverage of import-substitution industrialisation).
- Much less in-depth is Franko, The Puzzle of Latin American Economic Development, a textbook (very simple) covering roughly from the 1930s to the present.
- Dornbusch & Edwards, The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America deals with individual country experiences under populist governments in the post-war period.
- Haber, ed. How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914
- della Paolera & Taylor, ed., A New Economic History of Argentina
- Baer, The Brazilian Economy: Growth & Development which goes from colonial times to the present, but 3/4 of the book covers the post-1980 period.
- Moreno-Brid & Ros, Development & Growth in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective.
- Engerman & Sokoloff, Economic Development in the Americas since 1500 qualifies as the “deep origins” analysis of Latin American economic development, examining the legacy of colonial institutions, geography, slavery, etc. You can also read an article distillation of the book in “Institutions, Factor Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World“
- A chronological economic history of Latin American is covered by Bertola & Ocampo’s Economic Development of Latin America Since Independence, which goes from independence to the present.
- More in-depth, with country-specific chapters: Cárdenas, Ocampo & Thorp, ed. volume 1 (roughly 1870-1930s); Thorp, volume 2 (the 1930s and 40s), and Cárdenas, Ocampo & Thorp, volume 3 (the post-war era to circa 1980, a lot of coverage of import-substitution industrialisation).
- Much less in-depth is Franko, The Puzzle of Latin American Economic Development, a textbook (very simple) covering roughly from the 1930s to the present.
- Dornbusch & Edwards, The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America deals with individual country experiences under populist governments in the post-war period.
- Haber, ed. How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914
- della Paolera & Taylor, ed., A New Economic History of Argentina
- Baer, The Brazilian Economy: Growth & Development which goes from colonial times to the present, but 3/4 of the book covers the post-1980 period.
- Moreno-Brid & Ros, Development & Growth in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective.
The Middle East:
- Kuran’s The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East is essential reading, but it’s not a survey. But Jared Rubin is coming out with a new book. Stay tuned
- Owen & Pamuk, A History of Middle Eastern Economies in the Twentieth Century, which is insufficiently analytical, but the pickings for the Middle East aren’t prodigious.
- Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914
- There’s a crying need for an economic history of the Middle East & North Africa that covers both the 19th & 20th centuries, especially Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. Charles Issawi‘s books are now too old !
- Esfahani & Pesaran (2009), “The Iranian Economy in the Twentieth Century: A Global Perspective” [article]
- Not historical, but worth mentioning: Cammett et al. The Political Economy of the Middle East.
- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the World Bank & the Oxford University Press published a series of comparative country case studies edited by Lal & Myint; one of which was Hansen, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: Egypt and Turkey. This starts in the 1920s.
- Kuran’s The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East is essential reading, but it’s not a survey. But Jared Rubin is coming out with a new book. Stay tuned
- Owen & Pamuk, A History of Middle Eastern Economies in the Twentieth Century, which is insufficiently analytical, but the pickings for the Middle East aren’t prodigious.
- Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914
- There’s a crying need for an economic history of the Middle East & North Africa that covers both the 19th & 20th centuries, especially Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. Charles Issawi‘s books are now too old !
- Esfahani & Pesaran (2009), “The Iranian Economy in the Twentieth Century: A Global Perspective” [article]
- Not historical, but worth mentioning: Cammett et al. The Political Economy of the Middle East.
- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the World Bank & the Oxford University Press published a series of comparative country case studies edited by Lal & Myint; one of which was Hansen, The Political Economy of Poverty, Equity, and Growth: Egypt and Turkey. This starts in the 1920s.
Ancient Greece & Rome:
- Temin, The Roman Market Economy, definitively defends the idea that Rome had a market economy, contrary to the post-war view that it didn’t.
- Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, a material history documenting through archaeological data the collapse of a civilisation
- Scheidel, Morris & Saller, The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. This volume reflects the “new ancient history”, which is heavily influenced by neoclassical and institutional economics. It’s more than 900 pages long so it’s hardly light reading but it’s a standard reference.
- Ober, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece. It conjures up some Mickey Mouse economic growth ‘numbers’ through a combination of archaeological data and deductive sleight-of-hand. Then this ‘effluorescence’ is explained through the theoretical framework of new institutional economics.
- Temin, The Roman Market Economy, definitively defends the idea that Rome had a market economy, contrary to the post-war view that it didn’t.
- Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, a material history documenting through archaeological data the collapse of a civilisation
- Scheidel, Morris & Saller, The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World. This volume reflects the “new ancient history”, which is heavily influenced by neoclassical and institutional economics. It’s more than 900 pages long so it’s hardly light reading but it’s a standard reference.
- Ober, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece. It conjures up some Mickey Mouse economic growth ‘numbers’ through a combination of archaeological data and deductive sleight-of-hand. Then this ‘effluorescence’ is explained through the theoretical framework of new institutional economics.
Developing countries 1945-present
By the way, there isn’t a post-war economic history of developing countries, the “Global South” taken as a whole, that’s both up to date and written by an economist. You have Reynolds’s Economic Growth in the Third World 1850-1980, but that’s just hopelessly out of date. Little et al.’s Boom, Adjustment, and Crisis: The Macroeconomic Experience of Developing Countries is excellent but was published in 1993. Radelet’s The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World doesn’t quite fit the bill, either. Ideally you want a book which covers the colonial period, the postwar boom, the fad for import-substitution industrialisation and other kinds of state-led development, the external shocks of the 1970s and 1980s, and structural adjustment in the 1980s and 1990s. But I’m not aware of a book which fills this woeful lacuna.
I must say, the finest fusion of economics and psychology is not some book on nudges or biases, but The Hive Mind by Garett Jones. It’s also the first time that differential psychology has been substantively applied by an economist to the questions of economic development and political economy. The book is also a masterpiece of cunning ambiguity, causing different readers to have diametrically opposed interpretations of it!
(And yes, it’s true, I tend to slight monetary & financial histories — that’s because I’m largely concerned with economic growth, development, ‘modernisation’, etc. Will correct the slight eventually.)
Culture and cultural evolution
After my post on the origins of “pro-social institutions“, I have been asked about books on culture & economics, and the new(ish) interdisciplinary field of cultural evolution.
For the economistic perspective on culture, the key summary articles are Nathan Nunn, “Culture and the Historical Process“; and Alesina & Giuliano, “Culture and institutions“. Also see Sriya Iyer’s survey, “The New Economics of Religion“.
The best book on cultural evolution is by far Joe Henrich’s recent The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. (You can also see Henrich’s 15-minute presentation of his book.) It offers many delights, but my favourite bit is this. Henrich has a very interesting way of looking at (premodern) technology as a designerless-yet-designed, culturally evolved product for which no single person has any idea why it works but users have confidence in ancestrally transmitted methods. The best example is manioc processing — manioc is toxic yet the detoxification process is completely non-intuitive and users have no idea why any of the steps in the incredibly labourious system work. They just blindly imitate ancestral customs, but somehow this blind cultural evolution has an ‘intelligence’ and is highly efficient. If you skip one step in the process the whole thing fails. The manioc processing example is all the more evocative for its causal opacity — the damage from failure to follow all the steps in the traditional process (such as merely removing the bitter taste) is only apparent in the very long run, so there is no way individuals could have put 2 and 2 together and said it prevents toxin poisoning. I haven’t read a book with as many eureka! type insights in a long time.
Henrich’s book is compelling as narrative. But if you want more nuts-and-bolts description of what cultural evolution is about, especially in relationship with biological evolution, then Mesoudi’s Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences; and Boyd & Richerson’s Not By Genes Alone: How culture transformed human evolution. The mathematical theory is translated into ordinary language; it’s argued that cultures evolve in a way analogous with Darwinian biological evolution; and evidence (mostly) from the social sciences such as anthropology and sociology is put forward. Rest assured: this movement upholds culture as the driver of human social evolution, not genes or biology, but they reject the dichotomy between cultural and biological evolution, considering it a single process.
However, most of the cultural-evolution guys (Henrich, Mesoudi, Boyd, Richerson) are quantitatively orientated anthropologists who are more comfortable trucking in evolutionary game theory or talking about foraging bands like the Aché of Paraguay. You won’t get too much about the role of culture in history or economic life. For cultural evolution and recorded human history, the best (and almost the only) book-length exemplar is Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War: the Rise and Fall of Empires. This is the popularisation of theoretical modelling and empirical work he has done elsewhere. Not only does it apply the principles of cultural evolution to the dynamics of state formation and decay, but it also has the best single chapter describing the science of human sociality. Also worth a look is Turchin’s Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth with arguments drawn from anthropology, archaeology, religion, ancient history, as well as contemporary life. It’s also got a chapter with the best explanation-illustration of cultural group selection.
By the way, there isn’t a post-war economic history of developing countries, the “Global South” taken as a whole, that’s both up to date and written by an economist. You have Reynolds’s Economic Growth in the Third World 1850-1980, but that’s just hopelessly out of date. Little et al.’s Boom, Adjustment, and Crisis: The Macroeconomic Experience of Developing Countries is excellent but was published in 1993. Radelet’s The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World doesn’t quite fit the bill, either. Ideally you want a book which covers the colonial period, the postwar boom, the fad for import-substitution industrialisation and other kinds of state-led development, the external shocks of the 1970s and 1980s, and structural adjustment in the 1980s and 1990s. But I’m not aware of a book which fills this woeful lacuna.
I must say, the finest fusion of economics and psychology is not some book on nudges or biases, but The Hive Mind by Garett Jones. It’s also the first time that differential psychology has been substantively applied by an economist to the questions of economic development and political economy. The book is also a masterpiece of cunning ambiguity, causing different readers to have diametrically opposed interpretations of it!
(And yes, it’s true, I tend to slight monetary & financial histories — that’s because I’m largely concerned with economic growth, development, ‘modernisation’, etc. Will correct the slight eventually.)
Culture and cultural evolution
After my post on the origins of “pro-social institutions“, I have been asked about books on culture & economics, and the new(ish) interdisciplinary field of cultural evolution.
For the economistic perspective on culture, the key summary articles are Nathan Nunn, “Culture and the Historical Process“; and Alesina & Giuliano, “Culture and institutions“. Also see Sriya Iyer’s survey, “The New Economics of Religion“.
The best book on cultural evolution is by far Joe Henrich’s recent The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. (You can also see Henrich’s 15-minute presentation of his book.) It offers many delights, but my favourite bit is this. Henrich has a very interesting way of looking at (premodern) technology as a designerless-yet-designed, culturally evolved product for which no single person has any idea why it works but users have confidence in ancestrally transmitted methods. The best example is manioc processing — manioc is toxic yet the detoxification process is completely non-intuitive and users have no idea why any of the steps in the incredibly labourious system work. They just blindly imitate ancestral customs, but somehow this blind cultural evolution has an ‘intelligence’ and is highly efficient. If you skip one step in the process the whole thing fails. The manioc processing example is all the more evocative for its causal opacity — the damage from failure to follow all the steps in the traditional process (such as merely removing the bitter taste) is only apparent in the very long run, so there is no way individuals could have put 2 and 2 together and said it prevents toxin poisoning. I haven’t read a book with as many eureka! type insights in a long time.
Henrich’s book is compelling as narrative. But if you want more nuts-and-bolts description of what cultural evolution is about, especially in relationship with biological evolution, then Mesoudi’s Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory can explain human culture and synthesize the social sciences; and Boyd & Richerson’s Not By Genes Alone: How culture transformed human evolution. The mathematical theory is translated into ordinary language; it’s argued that cultures evolve in a way analogous with Darwinian biological evolution; and evidence (mostly) from the social sciences such as anthropology and sociology is put forward. Rest assured: this movement upholds culture as the driver of human social evolution, not genes or biology, but they reject the dichotomy between cultural and biological evolution, considering it a single process.
However, most of the cultural-evolution guys (Henrich, Mesoudi, Boyd, Richerson) are quantitatively orientated anthropologists who are more comfortable trucking in evolutionary game theory or talking about foraging bands like the Aché of Paraguay. You won’t get too much about the role of culture in history or economic life. For cultural evolution and recorded human history, the best (and almost the only) book-length exemplar is Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War: the Rise and Fall of Empires. This is the popularisation of theoretical modelling and empirical work he has done elsewhere. Not only does it apply the principles of cultural evolution to the dynamics of state formation and decay, but it also has the best single chapter describing the science of human sociality. Also worth a look is Turchin’s Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth with arguments drawn from anthropology, archaeology, religion, ancient history, as well as contemporary life. It’s also got a chapter with the best explanation-illustration of cultural group selection.
Libros de Historia económica
Último actualizado 27 de de julio de el año 2016 - me siguen dando pidió libros de tipo encuesta / artículos sobre la historia económica de las regiones o países en particular. En la siguiente lista, lo más posible , me quedo con trabajos de historia económica que ...
- tener una orientación cuantitativa, o al menos algo de apoyo a partir de datos;
- están escritos por un economista, o alguien utilizando métodos cuantitativos de las ciencias sociales;
- incorporar la investigación académica reciente;
- que hacen hincapié en los conocimientos nacionales y regionales, no especialización tópico o temática. (Así que no hay libros centrados en la desigualdad de ingresos o el comercio internacional, etc.)
Está pensado como una lista de referencias que le dan una visión general y guía para la lectura adicional, especialmente si usted quiere saber más acerca de determinados países y regiones. No indico ningún libro de historia "grande" en la línea de Jared Diamond.
Edición (12 de enero 2017) : Tengo un completamente separado post llamado los " 25 más estimulantes libros de historia económica publicados desde el año 2000 ".
Para alguien con absolutamente ninguna pista sobre los fundamentos de la historia económica mundial de los últimos 500 años, pero que quiere algo escrito por un economista, un buen manual es de Robert Allen Global Historia Económica: una introducción muy corta . Es una pequeña joya, una obra maestra de la parsimonia, sin embargo, tan corta tanto. Cada frase paquetes de un montón de investigación, que va desde el "ascenso de Occidente" y el "gran divergencia" a la "gran empuje" tardía industrialización de Japón, la Unión Soviética y China. Sin embargo, a diferencia de otros libros de este tipo, tiene un toque peculiar que sea únicamente Allen.
La revolución industrial en Gran Bretaña
Joel Mokyr de la economía Iluminado y Robert Allen de la revolución industrial británica en perspectiva global son las obras principales. Digo empezar con Allen en primer lugar. Pero que sin duda necesita tanto de una perspectiva equilibrada. El libro de Allen es también un buen plato principal para el debate "gran divergencia", contrastando los niveles de vida de Europa y Asia antes de la era moderna. De Gregory Clark Adiós a las limosnas ofrece una toma muy heterodoxa, pero también es la mejor introducción elemental a la modelo neomalthusiano. De Deirdre McCloskey dignidad burguesa , que es básicamente una crítica, capítulo por capítulo de casi todas las teorías de la revolución industrial, sirve como un excelente caso de estudio idiosincrásica de la literatura sobre el IR. Sin embargo, recomiendo sin tener en cuenta (o la demolición de las páginas de la crítica de McCloskey) de Clark en los capítulos 31 y 32 del Burgués Dignidad - la razón por la que voy a un blog algún día.
Con la excepción del volumen anterior, prefiero McCloskey desde los primeros días de cliometría en la década de 1970 a principios de 1990. Las dos ediciones de la historia económica de Gran Bretaña desde 1700 que Donald McCloskey editado con Roderick Floud (2 volúmenes, 1981; y 3 volúmenes, 1994 ) son grandes. Atesoro mis lamentablemente anticuadas, pero con las esquinas dobladas, las copias de los 1981 volúmenes. La actualización de 2004 por Floud & Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Bretaña (3 volúmenes) continúa en esa tradición.
El sucesor de 2014, Floud, Humphries & Johnson, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Bretaña (2 volúmenes) es importante como material de introducción y estudio de la bibliografía actualizada. Pero el gran capítulo sobre el comercio de ultramar escrito originalmente por Knick Harley ha sido sustituido por uno de Nuala Zahedieh que parece más partidarios de la Immanuel Wallerstein.
Para una perspectiva más matizada que hace hincapié en la contribución del exterior al desarrollo económico europeo, trate de Findlay y O'Rourke, la energía y la abundancia: Comercio, Guerra, y la economía mundial en el segundo milenio . No sólo sirven como la historia económica del mundo desde la caída de Roma, pero también se puede notar en él una versión más sofisticada del "capitalismo de guerra" de Beckert. (¿Qué es exactamente estaba mal con la palabra mercantilismo de todos modos ???)
Para algunas perspectivas a nivel europeo en el "ascenso de Occidente", ver Broadberry y O'Rourke, ed., The Cambridge Historia Económica de Europa Moderna (Vol. 1). A diferencia de sus predecesores en la misma serie Cambridge, ésta es una fuente muy amigable para el lector. Otro aspecto comparativo es Prados de la Escosura, Excepcionalismo y la industrialización: Gran Bretaña y sus rivales europeos, 1688-1815 .
Algunos libros que retroceden en el tiempo de los orígenes de la economía europea moderna:
- van Zanden, El largo camino hacia la revolución industrial
- Bateman, mercados y desarrollo de la Europa moderna
- Mitterauer, ¿Por qué Europa? Los orígenes medievales de su camino especial
- Herlihy, La Muerte Negro y la transformación de Occidente
- Hoffman, ¿Por qué Europa Conquistar el mundo?
- Iyigun, Guerra, paz y prosperidad en el Nombre de Dios: el papel socioeconómico otomana en la evolución de Europa
- Tilly, la coacción, el capital y los Estados europeos 990-1992
- De Vries, La revolución industriosa: cultura de consumo y la economía del hogar, 1650-presente
La propagación de la revolución industrial
Después de mi reciente post en la tesis de Hobson-Lenin , alguien le preguntó si hay un buen libro sobre la "primera globalización" de 1870-1914. Mi respuesta: La globalización y la historia: la evolución de una economía atlántica del siglo XIX , por Kevin O'Rourke y Jeffrey Williamson, el mejor resumen-análisis de la vasta literatura empírica sobre el movimiento épica de personas, bienes y capital en el largo Siglo 19. Si usted está interesado en el impacto de la "primera globalización" en los países en desarrollo de hoy en día, luego de Williamson comercio y pobreza: ¿Cómo el Tercer Mundo se quedó atrás . (El nombre de Williamson se repite infinitamente en esta literatura ...)
Broadberry, La Productividad Raza: British Manufacturing en perspectiva internacional, 1850-1990 abarca tres temas importantes: la denominada "decadencia de Gran Bretaña", el ascenso de Alemania y los EE.UU., y la "segunda revolución industrial". Trebilcock, la industrialización de los poderes Continental 1780-1914 , cubre Alemania, Francia, Rusia, Austria-Hungría, Italia y España. Durante un breve artículo sobre cómo la industrialización propagación de Gran Bretaña a Europa, s ee Harley, " británica y europea industrialización ". El artículo de Allen "La propagación de fabricación" es más global, pero no veo una copia en línea. Ambos artículos están contenidas en el segundo volumen de la historia de Cambridge del capitalismo .
No es sorprendente que no hay muchas historias económicas generales de Francia o Alemania en Inglés con una orientación cuantitativa y resultados actualizados.
Francia :
- Hoffman, el crecimiento en una sociedad tradicional: El Campo francés, 1450-1815
- Lévy-Leboyer y Bourguignon de la economía francesa en el siglo xix: un ensayo en el análisis econométrico data de 1985/1990.
- Heywood, el desarrollo de la economía francesa (1992)
- Dormois, la economía francesa en el siglo XX (2004)
- Artículo encuesta de Crouzet, "La historiografía del crecimiento económico de Francia en el siglo XIX" ( 2003 ), describe cómo se introdujo la revolución cliométrica en la historia económica francesa (y resistido por la generación de más edad). Pero el artículo de Grantham ( 1997 ), "La revolución francesa cliométrica: Una encuesta de las contribuciones a la historia económica cliométricos francesa", en realidad se resume la investigación.
- Definitivamente no es una historia económica, y mucho menos uno cuantitativo, pero clásicos de Eugen Weber campesinos a franceses: la modernización de Francia rural es una narración clásica de un país "atrasado" transformando en algo un "moderno" uno.
Alemania :
- Pierenkemper y Tilly, La economía alemana durante el siglo XIX
- A pesar del título más bien restrictiva de sonido, de Grant Migración y desigualdad en Alemania en 1870-1913 es realmente un examen de la industrialización alemana y la economía política desde la perspectiva de la economía del desarrollo de la variedad Arthur-Lewis-Simon-Kuznets.
- Tilly ( 2001 ), "la historia económica alemana y Cliometría: Una encuesta selectiva de las tendencias recientes"
Estados Unidos
La encuesta más general es Atack y Passell, una nueva visión económica de la historia de América (1994) o Hughes & Caín, historia económica de América (una bastante simple libro de texto de pregrado). Para la historia económica de la esclavitud, no lea de Fogel Tiempo en la cruz . En cambio, leer su sin el consentimiento o del contrato: El ascenso y la caída de la Esclavitud americana . Se actualiza y corregida en comparación con la primera, teniendo en cuenta los amplios debates Fogel tuvo con economistas e historiadores después de tiempo en la Cruz fue publicado. El "Fogel de la Emancipación" es Ransom y Sutch, un tipo de libertad: Las consecuencias económicas de la Emancipación . Olmstead y Rhode, crear abundancia: Innovación Biológica y Desarrollo Agropecuario es una historia de la agricultura de los Estados Unidos, que toca muchos temas de la esclavitud a la innovación.
Lindert y Williamson, ganancias desiguales: Crecimiento y Desigualdad América desde 1700 , a pesar del título, es en realidad una historia económica completa de los Estados Unidos. Es el más actualizado de su tipo. Gordon, Auge y caída del crecimiento de América: el estándar de vida estadounidense desde la Guerra Civil , transmite mejor que cualquier otro libro cómo la vida fue transformada por los cambios tecnológicos de finales del siglo 19 y 20 (y cómo las ganancias de bienestar de que son subestimado en las mediciones del PIB).
Rusia y la Unión Soviética
Gatrell, la economía zarista 1850-1917 es ahora bastante antiguo, pero Gregory, Antes de comandos: una historia económica de Rusia de Emancipación para los primeros cinco años cubre aproximadamente el periodo de la abolición de la servidumbre en 1861 hasta el final de la Nueva Económica política en 1928. Mironov es sobre todo acerca de los niveles de vida biológica en el período pre-revolucionario, pero tiene uno o dos capítulos sobre los salarios y los precios.
Gregory y Stuart, rusa y soviética desempeño económico es un libro de texto que cubre todo el período de la historia de Rusia soviética y postsoviética desde 1917 hasta el presente.
- De Allen granja a la fábrica: una relectura crítica de la revolución industrial soviética es una historia enloquecedor, provocador de la industrialización soviética, que cubre más o menos 1928-1970.
- Hanson, Auge y caída de la la economía soviética: una historia económica de la URSS a partir de 1945
- Davis, Harrison y Wheatcroft, T él la transformación económica de la Unión Soviética, 1913-1945
Otra corriente de la OCDE :
- De McClean Por qué Australia prosperado: Las Fuentes desplazamiento de Crecimiento Económico
- Ó Gráda, Irlanda: Una Nueva Historia Económica 1780-1939
- Desde finales de developent irlandesa es tan interesante, agrego: Ó Gráda, Rocky Road: La economía de Irlanda desde la década de 1920
- Magnusson, la historia económica de Suecia
- Fenoltea, la reinterpretación de la historia económica italiana: Desde la unificación de la Gran Guerra y Toniolo, El Manual de Oxford de la economía italiana desde la unificación .
- De Vries, " Crecimiento económico holandés en perspectiva comparada histórico, 1500-2000 ", un artículo, es mucho más corto que de Vries y van der Woude, la primera economía moderna (Holanda, 1500-1815), que es muy detallada.
- Costa et al. Una historia económica de Portugal, 1143-2010
- Kalyvas, Grecia moderna no es en sentido estricto un trabajo de historia; es más bien un tipo de antecedentes Preguntas más frecuentes sobre la crisis financiera griega, con una gran cantidad de información histórica y el país.
- Para España que sugeriría Tortella, El desarrollo de la moderna España . Pero ese y otros en Inglés son bastante inadecuada. España necesita urgentemente un libro actualizado en Inglés que incorpora los principales temas de la historia económica europea, como la respuesta a la muerte Negro y la "poca divergencia" entre el norte y el sur, sino que también abarca las cuestiones específicas de cada país, tales como la nueva comprensión de la capacidad del estado de los Habsburgo, la industrialización tardía, la época de Franco, etc.
desarrollo histórico comparativo
Nathan Nunn " Desarrollo Histórico " (un capítulo en el Manual del crecimiento económico ) y " La importancia de la historia para el Desarrollo Económico " son lecturas indispensables. Para la literatura "raíces profundas", Spolaore y Wacziarg de " ¿A qué profundidad son las raíces del desarrollo económico " es la mejor manera de la entrada.
El Brenner Debate: Estructura de clases agraria y desarrollo económico en la Europa pre-industrial - el mayor puto debate en la historia económica! La resolución de este debate cuasi está contenida en Turchin y Nefedov, ciclos seculares , probablemente mi único libro favorito de la historia cuantitativa. También vale la pena mencionar: Hatcher y Bailey, Modelización de la Edad Media , una visión general de las teorías utilizadas para describir y explicar el cambio económico en la Edad Media.
Manual de Routledge de Historia Económica Mundial (. Boldizzoni & Hudson, ed) es bastante irregular, pero esto es una sui generis volumen: no hay otro lugar donde se puede leer acerca de la historia de la historiografía económica de las principales regiones y países de la mundo.
La historia de Cambridge del Capitalismo (2 volúmenes) tiene todo tipo de ensayos sinópticos cortos sobre muchos países y regiones, como por Bresson (Grecia antigua), Jongman (Imperio Romano), Pamuk (Oriente Medio), Roy (India), Jerven (África), y Atack (EE.UU.). Creo que el capítulo de Gareth Austin en el segundo volumen, "El capitalismo y las colonias", es la única y mejor tratamiento a corto de la relación económica entre las metrópolis imperiales y las colonias.
la historia económica de Asia
China
La muy muy reciente la historia económica de China, (2016) por Glahn no tiene equivalente. No hay otro libro en el momento en el que simultáneamente contiene una narrativa legible del barrido completo de la historia económica de China; y refleja estudios recientes tanto en chino e internacional; y cubre los principales temas y controversias de la historiografía a la manera de de Elvin Los patrones del pasado chino (que ahora es cuasi-antigua pero aún así vale la pena leer). El libro de Glahn podría haber dado un poco más con las controversias que rodean el revisionismo de Pomeranz de la Gran Divergencia , que realmente ha cambiado los términos del debate. Pero estoy cavilling.
Una visión general de más edad es Perkins, el desarrollo agrícola en China 1368-1968 . Ligeramente elección idiosincrásica: Bray de las economías de arroz: Tecnología y Desarrollo en las sociedades asiáticas . Lee & Feng, una cuarta parte de la humanidad: la mitología de Malthus y realidades chinas, 1700-2000 es una historia demográfica y familiares de China. Rawski de Historia de China en perspectiva económica está mucho más limitado en su alcance de lo que parece, pero al menos es gratis en línea !
India
De Roy tirthankar la historia económica de la India 1857-1947 , que se utiliza en la India y el Reino Unido como la introducción del sur de Asia, es la primera parada absolutamente necesario. Puede verse como una versión actualizada, de fácil lectura de la más detallada La Cambridge Historia Económica de la India moderna , volumen 2. Roy mismo es responsable de una importante nueva toma en la historia económica de la India. Después de que el volumen en general, recurrir a Chaudhary et al., Una Nueva Historia Económica de la India colonial , que se centra más claramente en un menor número de temas.
No puedo enfatizar lo suficiente la importancia de estos dos libros de Roy y Chaudhary et al. En 1963, Morris D. Morris, historiador de la economía estadounidense de la India, escribió :
Se desalentador darse cuenta de que incluso dentro de márgenes muy amplios de error que no sabemos si durante la ejecución del pasado siglo y medio de la economía mejoró, se estancó o disminuyó.El hecho de que no tenemos ninguna base satisfactoria para cualquier juicio no ha impedido el surgimiento de una interpretación, ampliamente difundida, de la carrera de la economía de la India en el siglo XIX. Esta doctrina convencional comienza con una noción de "tradicional de la India," una economía de subsistencia, que era autónomo y estático. En este orden socio-económico tradicional vino la influencia rompiendo las fuerzas del mercado representados por la competencia comercial e industrial occidental, reforzada por el poder del estado ... imperiales modernos escritores india normalmente hincapié en las características de explotación del dominio británico como la causa de la decadencia del siglo XIX .
Eso ya no es (como) verdadera. Muchas cosas sobre el siglo 19 siguen siendo bastante irregular, pero la imagen que tenemos ahora es mucho más matizado que "Gran Bretaña empobrece la India" - a pesar de que el crudo y anticuado punto de vista todavía predomina en los departamentos de historia occidentales o entre nacionalistas y neo-marxistas en la India.
Para la historia económica de la India pre-colonial, véase Moosvi, La economía del Imperio Mughal c. 1595: un estudio estadístico .
Parthasarathi, Cómo se hizo rico Europa y Asia qué no: La divergencia económica mundial, 1600-1850 (2011) trata de hacer de la India lo que Kenneth Pomeranz había hecho por China - un caso que Asia en 1800 era tan listo para la revolución industrial como del noroeste Europa. Pero Parthasarathi no acaba de hacer el corte, y no puedo recomendar el libro. En mi mente su libro termina siendo el mejor de una vasta y oscura reserva de escritos acumulados por los escritores de la India en los últimos 100 años gritando a los cuatro vientos sobre la contribución de la India a la revolución industrial y la barandilla contra la imposición hipócrita británica de libre comercio en la India.
Pero los historiadores Pomeranz y Parthasarathi (así como José Inikori ) son mucho mejores en la escritura de la historia económica que otros formados en los departamentos de historia! De hecho, si los " historiadores del capitalismo " todo razonada y escribía como Pomeranz, Parthasarathi, y Inikori, que probablemente todavía no estar de acuerdo con ellos, pero yo perra menos acerca de ellos!
Japón
Dada la condición de Japón como el premier industrialiser finales no occidental, no debe haber más libros sobre el desarrollo económico de Japón con la investigación actualizada. Un volumen ideal sería comenzar a partir del último período Tokugawa con la propia versión de Japón de la "revolución industriosa" y la Restauración Meiji. También debe cubrir no sólo la industrialización antes de la guerra de Japón, sino también las evaluaciones de la política industrial de la posguerra de Japón y la planificación de estado (como se describe por Chalmers Johnson ). Algunos libros con varias deficiencias:
- Macpherson, El desarrollo económico de Japón 1868-1941 (1995)
- Alexander, El Arco de Desarrollo Económico de Japón (2007)
- Mosk, Desarrollo Económico japonesa: Mercados, Normas, Estructuras (2008)
- Francks, Desarrollo Económico de Japón (1999) es probablemente el menos analítica y la más descriptiva / cualitativa de los cuatro.
Otros países de Asia:
- Wade, que rige el mercado: Teoría económica y el papel del gobierno en la industrialización de Asia Oriental
- Amsden, de Asia el próximo gigante: Corea del Sur y la industrialización tardía
- van Zanden y Marcas, la historia económica de Indonesia 1800-2000
En general, la mejor historia económica de Asia todavía se encuentra en su mayoría en los papeles. Voy a llegar al listado de algunos de los que más tarde. Personalmente creo que la relativa escasez de la historia económica de Asia Oriental debe estar relacionado con la casi ausencia de Asia Oriental en la economía del desarrollo - a pesar de la "giro histórico" tomada por los estudios de desarrollo en general. Acemoglu y Robinson de las Naciones Falla ¿Por qué casi no tiene nada que decir acerca de Japón o Corea del Sur! Aquí es también una economía política del desarrollo programa con casi nada de la región.
África :
- Akyeampong et al., Desarrollo de África en perspectiva histórica
- Frankema y Hillborn, ed., La historia del desarrollo de África , un acceso abierto en línea de libros de texto
- Algunos artículos: Austin y Broadberry, " El Renacimiento de Historia Económica de África "; Hopkins, " La Nueva Historia Económica de África " y una respuesta por Fenske, " La Historia Causal de África "
- Jerven, África: ¿Por qué los economistas se equivocan . Aunque se trata de una crítica a la forma en que los economistas han realizado investigaciones sobre África (pasado y presente), se aprende mucho de la historia económica de África y el desarrollo de este libro. Un artículo vale la pena leer: Austin, " La 'Inversión de la fortuna' Tesis y la compresión de la Historia ", la crítica de un historiador de las teorías sobre el desarrollo de África varios economistas.
- Bates, Mercados y Estados de África tropical
- Herbst, Estados & Power en África
- Hopkins, una historia económica de África Occidental - antiguo pero clásico
- Feinstein, una historia económica de Sudáfrica: la conquista, la Discriminación y el Desarrollo
América Latina :
- Engerman y Sokoloff, Desarrollo Económico en las Américas desde 1500 es calificado como el análisis de "orígenes profunda" del desarrollo económico de América Latina, el examen de la herencia de las instituciones coloniales, la geografía, la esclavitud, etc. También puede leer un artículo de la destilación del libro en " instituciones, dotación de factores y vías de desarrollo en el Nuevo Mundo "
- Una historia económica cronológico de América Latina está cubierta por Bertola y de Ocampo Desarrollo Económico de América Latina desde la Independencia , que va desde la independencia hasta el presente.
- Más en profundidad, con capítulos específicos de cada país: Cárdenas, Ocampo y Thorp, ed. volumen 1 (más o menos 1870-1930s); Thorp, volumen 2 (1930 y 40), y Cárdenas, Ocampo y Thorp, volumen 3 (la era post-guerra a alrededor de 1980, una gran cantidad de cobertura de la industrialización por sustitución de importaciones).
- Mucho menos profundo es Franko, El rompecabezas del Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Económico , un libro de texto (muy simple), que abarca aproximadamente desde la década de 1930 hasta la actualidad.
- Dornbusch y Edwards, la macroeconomía del populismo en América Latina se ocupa de las experiencias de los distintos países bajo gobiernos populistas en el período posterior a la guerra.
- Haber, ed. Cómo América Latina se quedó atrás: Ensayos sobre la historia económica de Brasil y México, 1800-1914
- della Paolera y Taylor, ed., Una Nueva Historia Económica de Argentina
- Baer, la economía brasileña: Crecimiento y desarrollo que va desde la época colonial hasta el presente, pero 3/4 del libro abarca el período posterior a 1980.
- Moreno-Brid y Ros, desarrollo y crecimiento de la economía mexicana: Una perspectiva histórica .
Oriente Medio :
- De Kuran la divergencia larga: Cómo islámica Ley frenado el Oriente Medio es una lectura esencial, pero no es una encuesta. Pero Jared Rubin está saliendo con un nuevo libro. Manténganse al tanto
- Owen y Pamuk, Una Historia de las economías de Oriente Medio en el siglo XX , que no es lo suficientemente analítica, pero las ganancias para el Oriente Medio no son prodigioso.
- Owen, el Oriente Medio en la economía mundial, 1800-1914
- Hay una necesidad urgente de una historia económica de Oriente Medio y el Norte de África que cubre tanto el 19 y 20 siglos, especialmente Egipto, Turquía e Irán. Charles Issawi 's libros ahora son demasiado viejo!
- Esfahani y Pesaran (2009), " La economía de Irán en el siglo XX: una perspectiva global " [artículo]
- No es histórica, pero vale la pena mencionar: Cammett et al. La economía política de Oriente Medio .
- A finales de 1980 y principios de 1990, el Banco Mundial y la Oxford University Press publicó una serie de estudios de casos de países comparativos editado por Lal y Myint; uno de los cuales era Hansen, La economía política de la Pobreza, equidad y crecimiento: Egipto y Turquía . Esto comienza en la década de 1920.
Grecorromano antiguo :
- Temin, La Economía de Mercado Romano , defiende definitivamente la idea de que Roma tenía una economía de mercado, en contra de la opinión de post-guerra que no fue así.
- Ward-Perkins, La caída de Roma y el fin de la civilización , una historia material que documenta a través de los datos arqueológicos del colapso de una civilización
- Scheidel, Morris & Saller, The Cambridge Historia Económica en el Mundo grecorromano . Este volumen refleja la "nueva historia antigua", que está fuertemente influenciado por la economía neoclásica e institucionales. Es más de 900 páginas de largo, así que es difícil lectura ligera pero es una referencia estándar.
- Ober, Auge y caída de la Grecia clásica . Se evoca algunas de crecimiento económico de los números 'Mickey Mouse a través de una combinación de datos arqueológicos y deductiva apretones de mano. A continuación, este 'effluorescence' se explica a través del marco teórico de la nueva economía institucional.
Los países en desarrollo 1945-presente
Por cierto, no es una historia económica de la posguerra de los países en desarrollo, el "Sur Global", tomado en su conjunto, que a la vez al día y escrito por un economista. Tiene Reynolds de crecimiento económico en el Tercer Mundo 1850-1980 , pero eso es sólo desfasada sin remedio. . Poco et al Boom, ajuste y crisis: la experiencia macroeconómica de los países en vías de desarrollo es excelente, pero se publicó en 1993. El Radelet La gran oleada: La subida del mundo en desarrollo no encaja el proyecto de ley, tampoco. Lo ideal sería tener un libro que abarca el período colonial, el auge de la posguerra, la moda para la industrialización por sustitución de importaciones y otros tipos de desarrollo dirigido por el Estado, los choques externos de los años 1970 y 1980, y el ajuste estructural en los años 1980 y 1990. Pero no estoy al tanto de un libro que llena este vacío muy débil.
Debo decir, la mejor fusión de la economía y la psicología no es un libro sobre empujones o sesgos, pero la mente de la colmena por Garrett Jones. Es también la primera vez que la psicología diferencial se ha aplicado sustancialmente por un economista a las cuestiones del desarrollo económico y la economía política. El libro es también una obra maestra de astucia ambigüedad, causando diferentes lectores tener interpretaciones diametralmente opuestas de la misma!
(Y sí, es cierto, tiendo a ligeras historias monetarias y financieras - eso es porque estoy en gran medida relacionados con el crecimiento económico, el desarrollo, la "modernización", etc. corregirá la ligera con el tiempo.)
La cultura y la evolución cultural
Después de mi post sobre los orígenes de " instituciones pro-sociales ", me han preguntado acerca de libros sobre la cultura y la economía, y el nuevo (ISH) campo interdisciplinario de la evolución cultural.
Para la perspectiva economicista en la cultura, los artículos principales de resumen son Nathan Nunn, " cultura y el proceso histórico "; y Alesina y Giuliano, " cultura y las instituciones ". También vea la encuesta de Sriya Iyer, " La Nueva Economía de la religión ".
El mejor libro sobre la evolución cultural es, con mucho, de Joe Henrich reciente El secreto de nuestro éxito: cómo la cultura está conduciendo la Evolución Humana, La domesticación de nuestra especie, y hacernos más inteligentes . (También puede ver 15 minutos de Henrich presentación de su libro.) Se ofrece muchos placeres, pero mi parte favorita es la siguiente. Henrich tiene una forma muy interesante de mirar a la tecnología (premoderno) como un producto aún diseñado designerless, culturalmente evolucionada para el que ninguna persona tiene alguna idea de por qué funciona pero los usuarios tienen confianza en los métodos de transmisión ancestralmente. El mejor ejemplo es el procesamiento de mandioca - mandioca es tóxico sin embargo, el proceso de desintoxicación es completamente no-intuitiva y los usuarios no tienen idea de por qué ninguno de los pasos en el sistema de trabajo muy laborioso. Ellos simplemente imitar ciegamente costumbres ancestrales, pero de alguna manera esta evolución cultural ciego tiene una "inteligencia" y es altamente eficiente. Si se salta un paso en el proceso de toda la cosa falla. El ejemplo de procesamiento de la yuca es tanto más evocador para su opacidad causal - el daño de la desatención a todos los pasos en el proceso tradicional (por ejemplo, simplemente quitando el sabor amargo) es sólo aparente en el muy largo plazo, por lo que no hay manera los individuos podrían haber puesto 2 y 2 juntos y dijo que previene la intoxicación de la toxina. No he leído un libro con el mayor número de eureka! escriba ideas en mucho tiempo.
El libro de Henrich es convincente como narrativa. Pero si quieres Descripción-tuercas y pernos más de lo que se trata de la evolución cultural, especialmente en relación con la evolución biológica, a continuación, de Mesoudi evolución cultural: ¿Cómo puede explicar la teoría darwiniana cultura humana y sintetizar las ciencias sociales ; y Boyd y Richerson de No por los genes solo: ¿Cómo cultivo transformado la evolución humana . La teoría matemática se traduce en el lenguaje ordinario; se argumenta que las culturas evolucionan de una manera análoga a la evolución biológica darwiniana; y la evidencia (en su mayoría) de las ciencias sociales como la antropología y la sociología se plantea. Tenga la seguridad: este movimiento defiende la cultura como motor de la evolución social humana, no los genes o la biología, pero rechaza la dicotomía entre la evolución biológica y cultural, teniendo en cuenta que un solo proceso.
Sin embargo, la mayoría de los chicos culturales-evolución (Henrich, Mesoudi, Boyd, Richerson) están orientadas cuantitativamente antropólogos que se sienten más cómodos de transporte por carretera en la teoría de juegos evolutiva o hablar de forrajeo bandas como los Aché del Paraguay. Usted no recibirá demasiado sobre el papel de la cultura en la historia o la vida económica. Para que la evolución cultural y la historia de la humanidad, la mejor (y casi la única) de longitud del libro ejemplar es de Peter Turchin Guerra y Paz y Guerra: Auge y declive de los Imperios . Esta es la popularización de la modelización teórica y el trabajo empírico que ha hecho en otros lugares. No sólo aplicar los principios de la evolución cultural de la dinámica de la formación del Estado y la decadencia, pero también tiene el mejor solo capítulo que describe la ciencia de la sociabilidad humana. También merece la pena ver de Turchin Ultrasociety: ¿Cómo 10.000 años de guerra hizo a los humanos los cooperadores más grandes en la Tierra con argumentos propios de la antropología, arqueología, religión, historia antigua, así como la vida contemporánea. También tiene un capítulo con la mejor explicación-ilustración de la selección de grupos culturales.
---
otros enlaces
http://brujulaeconomica.blogspot.com.es/2016/08/enlaces-para-estudiantes-de-economicas.html
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario