Cambridge Economic History Research Articles

The Cambridge Economic History of China: Volume II By Richard vonGlahn and DebinMa (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. pp. 864. 29 figs. ISBN 9781108348485. Hbk £120

The Economic History ReviewEarly View BOOK REVIEW The Cambridge Economic History of China: Volume II By Richard von Glahn and Debin Ma (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. pp. 864. 29 figs. ISBN 9781108348485. Hbk £120 Melanie Meng Xue, Corresponding Author Melanie Meng Xue [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0002-2112-4884 London School of Economics & Political Science Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author Melanie Meng Xue, Corresponding Author Melanie Meng Xue [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0002-2112-4884 London School of Economics & Political Science Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 02 June 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13267Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue RelatedInformation

What The Cambridge Economic History of China Teaches Us about China and Tells Us About Economic History

Considering the 1500+ pages making up the 39 chapters of this work on Chinese economic history from ancient times to the present, this review essay suggests ways The Cambridge Economic History of China contributes new perspectives on economic history more generally and on plausible connections between the pathways of Chinese economic change that begin in the distant past and point toward the future. The essay addresses specifically Chinese elements in its economic history and identifies the ways in which nineteenth- and twentieth-century engagement with Westerners contributed to the Chinese economy’s future development but in no comprehensive manner explain how modern Chinese economic change took place. Among the highlighted features of Chinese economic history that chapters of this work make visible are the persistent presence of state efforts to manage and shape economic activity forming a distinct tradition of political economy and the long-standing awareness of many of the relationships between population, agriculture, and the natural environment.

Can the economic growth of interwar Latvia be estimated by contemporary national accounts?

ABSTRACT The paper provides an examination of interwar Latvia’s national accounts, checking their usability for estimating interwar economic growth performance. According to the authoritative account of Roses and Wolf [(2010). Aggregate growth, 1913–1950. In S. Broadberry, & K. H. O’Rourke (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe, vol 2. 1870 to the present (pp. 183–207). Cambridge UP.], based on indirect estimation methods, Latvia’s GDPpc growth rate from 1929 to 1938 was the highest in Europe. However, according to Aizsilnieks [(1968). Latvijas saimniecības vēsture, 1914–1945. Daugava.] interwar national income estimates show that the Latvian economy stagnated in the 1930s. This paper’s main findings are that applying historical price indices to the existing interwar output estimates supports the stagnation thesis. However, the national income estimates lack validity and reliability due to unpersistent or unknown methodology. Hence, changes in real output cannot be established without new calculations according to the contemporary System of National Accounts (SNA 2008) framework.

Book Reviews

Nuno Palma of University of Manchester and Instituto de Ciencias Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa reviews “The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World. Volume 1. 1700 to 1870” edited by Stephen Broadberry and Kyoji Fukao. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Volume 1 of a two-volume set contains nineteen papers that provide an overview of the modern world economy from 1700 to 1870, examining the beginnings of modern economic growth and the main factors governing differential outcomes in different parts of the global economy.”

Sailing and Sailing Rigs in the Ancient Mediterranean: implications of continuity, variation and change in propulsion technology

Ships and boats form the foundations of the maritime connectivity that is a central part of our understanding of the ancient Mediterranean. While the general chronological sequence of sail and sailing-rig development is well established, the implications are less-well discussed. This article sets out how sails and sailing rigs developed in antiquity, with emphasis on the Greco-Roman world. Subsequently, instances of innovation are defined. Why specific pieces of maritime technology were, or were not, widely adopted is considered. Long-term technological continuity can be comprehended, and a shared maritime culture of sailing in the ancient Mediterranean is suggested.

Franco de Angelis. Archaic and Classical Greek Sicily. A Social and Economic History.

An increase in studies and chapters devoted to the economic history of the Ancient World has become apparent a decade since the landmark publication of The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (ed. Walter Scheidel; Ian Morris; Richard P. Saller, Cambridge University Press 2007). Falling within this trend are two recent books on regional Classical economies. What separates these books from other ancient economic narratives is their focus on areas that have long been considered marginal, and therefore uninteresting, in their respective cultural spheres: Sicily as periphery of the Greek world and the Sarmatian region of the Eurasian steppe as frontier of the Classical World. Indeed, as both authors stress independently from each other, they are the first to study the economy of these regions in a comprehensive way. Past scholarship has focused exclusively on the core lands of the Classical World or on subdivisions of the economy (e.g. coinage) of the peripheries.

A systematic method for estimating the populations of Greek and Roman settlements

The last few years have seen a growing interest in the urbanism of the Greek and Roman world. This has led to a consensus of sorts about some of its vital statistics, such as the sizes of the populations of the most important settlements and the size of the overall urban population, the urbanization rate (i.e., the share of individuals that lived in urban, rather than rural, contexts), and the total population. A good example comes from W. Scheidel in the Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world. According to him, it is likely that c.1.5 million people lived in the 5 largest cities of the Greco-Roman world by the 2nd c. A.D. These included Rome, which is usually agreed to have had a population of about 1 million; Alexandria, which might have had c.500,000; Antioch, which could have had at least 150,000; and Carthage and Ephesus (Scheidel does not give explicit figures for those).

Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries and Paul Johnson (editors), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, 2nd edition, volume 1: 1700–1870; and volume 2: 1870 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Pages 505 and 599. £29.99 and £29.99 paperback.

Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries and Paul Johnson (editors), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, 2nd edition, volume 1: <i>1700–1870</i>; and volume 2: <i>1870 to the Present</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Pages 505 and 599. £29.99 and £29.99 paperback.

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe. Volume 2: 1870 to the Present, ed. Stephen Broadberry and Kevin H. O’Rourke

<i>The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe</i>. Volume 2: <i>1870 to the Present</i>, ed. Stephen Broadberry and Kevin H. O’Rourke

The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe – Edited by Stephen Broadberry and Kevin H. O'Rourke

The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe – Edited by Stephen Broadberry and Kevin H. O'Rourke

Экономический рост в Европе в 1700–1870 гг.: теория и фактические свидетельства (перевод Ю. Каптуревского)

Unlike most existing textbooks on the economic history of modern Europe, which offer a country-by-country approach, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe rethinks Europe's economic history since 1700 as unified and pan-European, with the material organised by topic rather than by country. This first volume is centred on the transition to modern economic growth, which first occurred in Britain before spreading to other parts of western Europe by 1870. Each chapter is written by an international team of authors who cover the three major regions of northern Europe, southern Europe, and central and eastern Europe. The volume covers the major themes of modern economic history, including trade; urbanization; aggregate economic growth; the major sectors of agriculture, industry and services; and the development of living standards, including the distribution of income. The quantitative approach makes use of modern economic analysis in a way that is easy for students to understand.The journal publishes the chapter 1 «Understanding Growth in Europe, 1700-1870: Theory and Evidence» by Joel Mokyr and Hans-Joachim Voth of The Gifts of Athena, in which authors summarize recent research by growth economists and contrasts their interpretations with the existing historical evidence and recent findings of economic historians.

The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe: v.2: 1870 to the present

The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe: v.2: 1870 to the present

The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America (Volume I The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century, Volume II The Long Twentieth Century) ‐ Edited by Bulmer‐Thomas, V., Coatsworth, J. H. and Cortés Conde, R.

The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America (Volume I The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century, Volume II The Long Twentieth Century) ‐ Edited by Bulmer‐Thomas, V., Coatsworth, J. H. and Cortés Conde, R.

The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world - Edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller

The Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world - Edited by Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller

The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, vol. 1. “The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century.” Edited by V. Bulmer Thomas, J. H. Coatsworth, and R. Cortes Conde. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, vol. 1. “The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century.” Edited by V. Bulmer Thomas, J. H. Coatsworth, and R. Cortes Conde. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. - Volume 67 Issue 4

"Esse Est Percipi": The Strange Case of Early American Economic History

TO START A REVIEW ESSAY IN EARLY MODERN ECONOMIC HISTORY WITH A phrase associated with Bishop George Berkeley, one of that era's foremost immaterialists, is both ironic and depressing. But this phrase, esse est percipi--to be is to be perceived--captures well the present predicament economic historians of that period face. (1) Although some excellent work is still being done in the field of economic history, it is little appreciated, indeed, little read. (2) With a nod to the bishop, we might even ask: If an economic historian writes an article in the Journal of Economic History or in Explorations in Economic History, and no one reads it, did he or she really write it? Esse est percipi. To be sure, there have been some positive developments in recent years, slivers of optimism, causes for hope. The ever-increasing availability of primary sources online and the development of new and/or improved data sets such as the wonderful Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database and the enlarged section titled Colonial in the recently released millennial edition of the Historical Statistics of the United States make it easier to study the early American economy. (3) The publication of impressive scholarly syntheses such as the colonial volume in The Cambridge Economic History of the United States and the relevant volumes in The Oxford History of the British Empire, among others, is well worth noting, too. (4) The rise of Atlantic history has generated more interest among scholars in flows of one type or another, including at times flows of labor, capital, and commodities. Cathy Matson's energetic leadership of the Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) at the Library Company of Philadelphia has raised the profile of economic history a bit and thereby paid some dividends, so to speak. The interests of social, environmental, cultural, and even intellectual historians sometimes bleed, and occasionally even hemorrhage, into the economic realm, which raises the possibility of new alliances. Still, economic historians, particularly those of a quantitative ilk, are for the most part off in the corner counting by themselves. Why is this the case? There are a number of reasons for the isolation, if not out-and-out quarantine, of economic history and economic historians from the scholarly mainstream in recent decades. The so-called cultural turn in historical circles in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in large-scale flight from what some call QUASSH--quantitative social science history--if not from the material world altogether. (5) For their part, economic historians, increasingly trained in departments of economics, looked to more rigorous scholarly audiences and venues, both because of their conversance and comfort with theory and formal methods and because traditional historical approaches and explanations--and perhaps historians as well--seemed to them (the Few, the Proud, the Numerate) so squishy, soft, and gelatinous. Moreover, some economic historians have eschewed clear, jargon-free prose accessible to those not mathematically inclined. If economists doing economic history--or historical economics, as the most ardent regrettably tried to rename the field--were a bit bumptious and presumptuous about their more humanistic peers, traditional historians often set themselves up for such treatment. Since the 1980s, traditional historians have beat a fast retreat from what seventeenth-century political arithmetician Sir William Petty referred to as number, weight, or measure, and most graduate admissions committees have looked at quants in the applicant pool as quaint, their 780 quantitative scores on the Graduate Record Examinations akin to artifacts in Little Nell Trent's grandfather's curiosity shop, or at best as atavisms associated with the deviant behaviorism plaguing the profession in the 1970s. (6) Numbers just don't do it for a graduate student once told me, explaining why he skipped over any and all tables, figures, and graphs that appeared in any historical text he was assigned. …

Living With the Neighbours? The New Cambridge Economic History of Britain and the Renovation of Economic History

Living With the Neighbours? The New Cambridge Economic History of Britain and the Renovation of Economic History

Reform and Social Change

The books reviewed variously convey notions of reform and momentous social change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Law and lawyers, gender/family, and demographic change are recurring topics in several works. Three—Finn's, Bailey's, and Ottaway's—complement each other in their treatment of family, consumption, welfare, household, and money matters. Ottoway's analysis fills an important gap in both poor law literature and the social history of aging in the eighteenth century. Bailey's contribution in marriage history is her focus on the 'middling sort' rather than the well-documented aristocracy. Bums' and Innes' fresh look at the 'age of reform' includes art, theater, opera, medicine, and empire as well as parliamentary reform. Clearly, the most varied content is to be found in Floud's and Johnson's The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, an update of an earlier work while the most original piece is Peter Lindert's. Described by Jeffrey Sachs as dazzling (which it is), Growing Public is essentially about the welfare state and its various metamorphoses.

The Cambridge economic history of modern Britain

The Economic History ReviewVolume 57, Issue 4 p. 778-779 The Cambridge economic history of modern Britain ALAN BOOTH, ALAN BOOTH University of ExeterSearch for more papers by this author ALAN BOOTH, ALAN BOOTH University of ExeterSearch for more papers by this author First published: 22 November 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2004.00295_7.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume57, Issue4November 2004Pages 778-779 RelatedInformation

The Wonderful Usefulness of History

Books reviewed in this article: Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of the United States. Volume I: The Colonial Era Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of the United States. Volume II: The Long Nineteenth Century Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman (eds.), Cambridge Economic History of the United States. Volume III: The Twentieth Century Copyright Royal Economic Society 2003