Economic Historiography Research Articles

The Aembu access to land and labour systems on food crop production and food security up to 1906

This study sought to analyse how the pre-colonial Aembu organised their land and labour systems in food crop production for guaranteed household food security up to 1906. The pre-colonial African societies had either matrilineal or patrilineal systems of land ownership, while labour was gender specific. The study employed a descriptive research design. The study was conducted in Embu East, Embu West and Embu North sub-counties of the larger Embu County. Purposive sampling with a snowballing technique was applied to get 50 respondents who were interviewed from a target population of 16,144. The study corroborated data from oral, archival records and secondary sources. The findings were that the pre-colonial Aembu food crop producers had elaborate systems of land rights and land use under clan heads. The land access system accommodated practices like shifting cultivation and intercropping; the pre-colonial division of labour in food crop production combined all household members and those other forms of labour like communal, paid and corporate were sourced from outside the household. The study concluded that the pre-colonial Aembu were food secure in spite of occasional rainfall failure, locust invasion and warfare, while the articulation of pre-colonial and capitalist land and labour systems exposed the society members to food insecurity. The study contributed to the pre-colonial social, political and economic historiography of the Aembu people. The study recommends that the post-colonial government should employ strategies that can be effectively used to mitigate food crop production insecurity by focusing on the adoption of various traditional methods of land and labour access.

Nowa synteza dziejów gospodarczych średniowiecza (Thomas Ertl, Bauer und Banker. Wirtschaft im Mittelalter, wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2021, ss. 288)

A new synthesis of the economic history of the Middle Ages (Thomas Ertl, Bauer und Banker. Wirtschaft im Mittelalter, wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2021, 288pp) The article is an analysis of a book by the Austrian historian Thomas Ertl. It is a new and original history of the economic life in the Middle Ages. The author not only discusses the main economic phenomena, but also devotes much space to the social and cultural dimension of the history of the medieval economy. The book abounds in a variety of details including those concerning demography or the semiotics of manufacturing and commercial activities. The author skilfully presents the realities of the medieval economy by comparing them with analogous phenomena and figures from the twentieth century. An important part of this comprehensive book is made up of information on economic historiography and its most outstanding representatives in the twentieth century. In this the author demonstrates the differences in the views of scholars from different generations. The geographical scope of the book encompasses mainly the most developed countries of Latin Europe, and, comparatively and complementarily, Byzantium, the Arab world and Rus’. The main shortcoming of this original and valuable work is the almost complete omission of the countries of Central Europe.

La Carrera de Campeche (1717-1818): demografia móvel, devoções vernáculas e estradas provincias

This article studies how the Carrera de Campeche, a series of fluvial and land traffic and mobility routes, connected the city port of Campeche and the gulf of Mexico with the Carrera de Guatemala, the commercial circuit that linked the audiencias/kingdoms of New Spain and Guatemala. For this, a review of the regional, economic historiography and anthropological studies was made; also archival documents and cartography collected in Mexico, Guatemala, the United States and Spain to support the hypothesis of the existence of the routes. As a result, it was possible to corroborate the existence of a dynamic demography and in continuous movement, fortified by regional devotions that strengthened the religious-cultural integration and that allowed to sustain the road projects of magistrates and elites in the Carrera de Campeche, at the end of the Spanish colonial period.

Consumption and Dignified Life: A Socio‐Historic Restatement

AbstractThis article provides an examination of the concept of consumption within the fields of sociology and economic historiography. Two theoretical approaches towards this phenomenon exist in the literature: the consumer society as a characteristic element of late capitalism in the 20th century and the society of consumption as a fundamental aspect in the historical origins of modern society between the 17th and 19th centuries. The article challenges one of the central premises of the first approach, which suggests that mass consumption contaminates a previously given society. Instead, I argue that the expansion of a consumer society during the early phase of capitalism created the conditions for the emergence of an emancipatory ideal of dignified life associated with a basic standard of consumption. This concept served as a historical precursor to the contemporary notion of absolute poverty.

‘Facts in search of a theory’. Gianni Toniolo’s economic history (1942–2022)

ABSTRACT On Sunday, November 13, 2022, the cultural section of the ‘Il Corriere della Sera’ devoted its main article to the first volume of Gianni Toniolo’s latest opus, Storia della Banca d’Italia. Formazione ed evoluzione di una banca centrale, 1893–1943. The article characterized the book as an ‘extraordinary economic autobiography of the country’, and Toniolo as ‘undoubtedly the greatest of Italian economic historians’. That very day Gianni Toniolo died in Rome at the age of eighty. To review Toniolo’s work and life, even in the limited space these pages allow, is to go back over a period of Italian and international economic historiography, from the 1970s to the present day, to which Toniolo made vital and original contributions in a number of different ways.

On Polish economic historiography in exile, 1945–1989

ABSTRACT This paper studies the main directions of development of Polish economic historiography in the country and in exile (in Great Britain and the United States) between 1945 and 1989. The analysis focuses on Polish economic history under various conditions (especially political ones) and the characteristics of selected research in exile (by Stanisław Swianiewicz, Władysław Wielhorski, Paweł Zaremba, Piotr Wojtowicz, Alfred Zauberman, Stanisław Kościałkowski, and Feliks Gross). The current literature focuses on the achievements of researchers in the country, while exile economic historiography is still marginalized. I analyse representative works of Polish researchers, comparing their issues and the methods used. It turns out that home economic historiography flourished, even under ideological constraints.

British Involvement in the Korean War: The Special Relationship as a Framework for Involvement

This paper considers Britain’s involvement in the Korean War. It argues that Britain’s developing relationship with the United States predicated their involvement. To substantiate the argument that Britain entered the war because of their relationship with the United States, I briefly outline the economic context of Britain’s decline situated in the economic historiography surrounding this period. I also explore the trend of imperial and international decline through the words of several principle historic actors of the time. With this context established, I will outline the elements of Britain’s special relationship with the United States. These elements will show why Britain’s engagement in the Korean War was essential to the solidification and longevity of the special relationship, and more broadly the survival of Britain itself. Together, these sources will bolster my argument that British involvement in the Korean War was based on American interests and highlight how the centering of the interests of Americans—not Koreans—fostered a lack of collective British mythology surrounding the war and contributed to its forgotten nature.

Confrontacion de ideas para una nueva sociedad: debates politicos y economicos en la izquierda argentina frente a la transicion democratica (1986-1988)

Economic historiography and, especially, the history of left-wing magazines in their economic dimension, have been partially concerned with the stage of the government of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989). In this paper we propose to analyze the socioeconomic vision of the magazine Confrontation of ideas for a new society (hereinafter, Confrontation) and its main insignia as an editorial project. Composed of intellectuals with extensive academic and political experience in Argentina, the profile of the publication and its main concerns regarding the political and economic reality of that time are analyzed. Following the theoretical proposal of the latest studies on political and economic periodicals, we find that the proposal affiliated with an intellectual left that Confrontación exhibited produced a complex and articulated look around alfonsinism, as well as on the main political and economic problems that at that time then they whipped Argentina. The latter was mainly characterized by producing a comprehensive analysis of the economic dimension, which included an intertwining between the future of world capitalism and national problems derived from local politics characterized by a pro-democratic plan formulated by the Alfonsín government.

The Nature of the Future: Agriculture, Science, and Capitalism in the Antebellum North

The Nature of the Future: Agriculture, Science, and Capitalism in the Antebellum North

Whiggism, creativity and the historiography of technoscience

To what extent should historians allow the circumstances of their time influence judgement and understanding of the past? This question was first famously raised in 1931 by Herbert Butterfield and, following his lead, the viewing of the past through the lens of the present came to be called whiggism. And ever since Butterfield, conventional historiographical wisdom has dictated that whiggism should be avoided at all cost. However, in the realm of certain ‘special histories’ such as those of science and technology, a critical factor intrudes not normally thought of in political, social or economic historiography: creativity. Such histories are ‘special’ not only because their respective domains demand specialized knowledge on the historians’ part but also because they are histories of creative work. In this paper we argue, drawing upon episodes in the history of computing that the historiography of such creative domains as technological invention and scientific discovery fully justifies adopting a whiggish interpretation.

En torno a los orígenes de la Gran Divergencia: debates recientes en historia económica (2000-2018)

El objetivo principal de este artículo es analizar el debate reciente en torno a los orígenes históricos de la denominada Gran Divergencia. Se examinan cuatro posturas. Primero, la idea de trampa maltusiana desarrollada por Gregory Clark. Segundo, el punto de vista de la Escuela de California de Historia Económica, liderada por Kenneth Pomeranz. Tercero, la hipótesis de la economía de altos salarios de Robert C. Allen. Cuarto, el concepto de revolución industriosa propuesto por Jan de Vries. El artículo concluye describiendo las tendencias recientes de la historiografía económica: la renovación de las ideas maltusianas, las críticas a la historia social de fines del siglo XX y el énfasis en la historia de Asia

The Role of Parepare Port in Trading and Shipping of Rice Commodities in South Sulawesi, 1930−1942

The economic historiography in trading and shipping activity during the 20th century often linked up to the role of Makassar as the main port in Sulawesi supported the exchange of beneficial commodities, such as copra which was -deemed as the “green gold” of the archipelago. In terms of becoming the most prominent entrepot for international trading and shipping, there were also several ports in South Sulawesi that played a vital role in establishing a connection to the outside world with much more variety of commodities. It could find other commodities, such as rice, which was transported all across the archipelago. Thus, this article argues that the Port of Parepare had a significant role in the trading and shipping of rice commodities in South Sulawesi, during the age of colonial administration (1930-1942). Through the historical method, the findings show that the Port of Parepare, throughout the 1930s, the Port of Parepare was not just a collecting port for Makassar, but also became the supplier of rice from the coastal area to the hinterland. Such synergistic collaboration, between the economic potential of the hinterland, agricultural intensification program, and colonial government regulation, encouraged the Port of Parepare to become the most imminent rice exporter in South Sulawesi during the 1930s. Moreover, within the same period, Parepare was also establishing interisland networks

Features and problems in the construction of the postunitary Italian banking system

The study of the evolution of Italian economy experienced, in recent years, new interpretive hypotheses, themselves based on the use of more updated series of historical data, The latter have brought scholars to reconsider, especially taking long-term viewpoints into account, the path Italy followed in joining the global economic system. Therefore, both Italian and international historiography have striven to highlight the most favorable elements, as well as the limits and the contradictions accompanying the nevertheless robust growth Italy experienced during the last 150 years. All this began for Italy as it joined, during the later 1800s, the productive mechanisms of the Second Industrial Revolution, fully maturing during the Golden Age. To fully understand such a path it is necessary to integrate, following a comparative, systemic and interdisciplinary approach, the behavioral analysis of some specific industrial sectors with the so-called system prerequisites to development including, and in an important position at that, the construction of the financial market and the shaping of the banking system. Within such a context, studying the period between the Unification of Italy and the “end of the century crisis” appears particularly important, as it is during this phase that some of the lines through which the model Italy used to join the process of the Second Industrial Revolution were shaped. Such a situation will challenge the future reforms, themselves a prelude to the takeoff Italy experienced during the Giolitti era.This contribution intends to highlight some features of the buildup of the Italian banking system within the framework of Italian nation building, between 1861 and 1893. In order to do that, besides offering an analysis of the political, economic and financial situation of the time, it examines the path, the uses and the crossings of capital which, starting with the financial movements recorded between the end of the 1860s and the beginning of the 1870s between the Centre-North of Italy, Germany and Austria and then pouring into the activities of the Banca Tiberina, based in Rome and one of the main protagonists of the growing phenomenon joining banks and companies during that time. Therefore, this work of mine does not only focus on the descending parable the Banca Tiberina experienced (something well known in economic historiography, especially when examining the end of the century crisis) but rather more on the whole three previous decades, from the beginning to the expansion phase.Therefore, a composite framework emerges, striving to keep the features of the political, social and economic features of Italy with those events being only apparently local and between these and the evolution of the banking system after the Italian Unification.

Coping with crisis: labour markets, institutional changes and household economies. An introduction

Today as in the past, most often crises take people by surprise. This fact has recently provoked strong criticism of the ability of an economic theory to predict crises, to understand their course and to establish solutions to mitigate their effects. History can thus serve as a reservoir of facts and experiences, and the use of a broad chronological perspective has been recently highlighted as essential to providing a wider, comparative knowledge of past crises. Recent economic historiography has highlighted the importance of studying financial and commercial crises alongside agrarian and demographic crises, as well as questioning specific aspects of these shocks. Another important dimension stressed by recent historical studies is the importance of recognising that crises in the past occurred against a background in which uncertainty was the norm. In societies that experienced various forms of ordinary uncertainty (linked for example to the ‘dead’ season in food or textile production), crises constitute peaks of exceptional uncertainty.

Introduction: The room for manoeuvre for firms in the Third Reich

Since the mid-1990s, questions about the role of private enterprises played during the ‘Third Reich’, including why – and the extent to which – they supported armament, exploitation, and crimes by the Nazis through 1945, have formed a central focus of German economic and business historiography. Numerous case studies of the most important German enterprises (including Krupp, BASF, Flick, and Degussa) have demonstrated that, despite the increasing impact of political and ideological factors, private firms never stopped pursuing their economic self-interest. Even under the extreme ideological circumstances of the ‘Third Reich’, their strategic decisions remained underpinned by economic criteria. In the meantime, a broad consensus has emerged that the state control of firms took place more by virtue of changes in framework conditions affecting the business environment than through direct coercion. Actually, the regime was especially able to control the economy successfully in those cases where it operated with economic incentives and left companies room for manoeuvre, even if the latter became increasingly smaller towards the end of the war due to increasing state intervention and government control. This scope may explain the considerable differences in the behaviour of firms, especially with respect to their involvement in the Nazi crimes, although it was often economic self-interest more than moral shortcomings on the part of managers and entrepreneurs that led the firms to cooperate with the regime. Despite this consensus, however, the question of how much room for manoeuvre firms actually had remains highly contested. A good example of this is the controversy between Peter Hayes and Christoph Buchheim. Buchheim argued that firms enjoyed a high degree of autonomy during the National Socialist period, while Hayes stressed the significance of state intervention in the economy, which firms could not afford to ignore without suffering considerable economic disadvantages. This special issue takes this controversy as a starting point, addressing the still open question of how much freedom of action firms actually had. The basic assumption is that this question can only be reasonably answered on the basis of numerous empirical case studies. For this reason, a general overview on the current state of discussion is presented in the following introduction of the special issue.

From history to strategy: Jacob Viner’s “Power versus Plenty” (1948) in international context

ABSTRACT The standard interpretation of Jacob Viner’s seminal essay on mercantilism, ‘Power versus Plenty’ (1948), locates it within a prolonged discussion over economic theory, historiography, and policy that originated from the late nineteenth century. Challenging this temporal context conventionally assumed, this article argues that Viner’s historical study is best understood in close relation with his preoccupations in the 1940s: U.S. grand strategy. Specifically, it examines the interplay of historiographical and foreign policy discourses in the 1940s by tracing the trajectory of Viner’s intellectual enterprise from history to strategy of economic statecraft. By surveying the forgotten origins of ‘Power versus Plenty’ in the years between 1944 and 1946, it shows that Viner’s rationale in writing the essay went beyond his scholarly interest in the past. His ultimate aim was to support the new interventionist argument that power politics was indispensable to realise the liberal internationalist vision of world order. In fact, Viner made active use of history not only to shape the strategic vision of U.S. foreign policy, but also police the boundaries of realistic foreign policy. This allowed him to discredit the socialist internationalist critique against the Truman Doctrine and to put financial power at the crux of U.S. grand strategy.

The Demographic Consequences of the End of Chile's Nitrate Boom, c.1907–1940

AbstractThis article deals with the demographic consequences of the end of Chile's nitrate boom following the 1929 crisis. The traditional economic historiography has maintained that this crisis impacted heavily on nitrate production, and that in turn the crisis triggered a permanent exodus from the nitrate districts to other geographical zones. Contrary to this widely held belief, we have shown in this article that: there was no substantial fall in production; there was indeed a fall in nitrate population, but this was limited; this took place in some nitrate areas only; overall, the decline in nitrate population was a short term phenomenon only. The population making a living from nitrate production (or activities directly related to it) did not emigrate in as large numbers as previously thought, since production remained high up to the 1960s.

Las empresas frigoríficas en Argentina: estrategias empresariales y cambios en el sector industrial (1882-1930)

Argentina dominó el mercado mundial de carnes desde inicios del siglo XX, y los frigoríficos representaron una de las principales industrias radicadas en Argentina. Este artículo se propone revisitar un tema clásico dentro de la historiografía económica argentina desde una nueva perspectiva, al enfocarse en los actores empresariales e insertar este análisis en un proceso de cambio de la industria de la carne a escala global. La investigación propone una periodización distinta e ilustra las importantes transformaciones (en términos de actores, estrategias y perfiles productivos) que vivió la industria de la carne desde fines del siglo XIX hasta finales de los años veinte. Se analiza también cómo el sector se destacó por una temprana y fuerte concentración y por la competencia oligopólica entre las principales empresas, caracterizada por largos periodos de cooperación y breves enfrentamientos por las cuotas de exportación.

Why Structure? Contextualizing Jewish Economic Historiography

Why Structure? Contextualizing Jewish Economic Historiography

Response

I felt both tremendously honored and slightly alarmed when I learned that this roundtable was being organized. I was delighted that such a stellar group of novel critics was willing to readTelling It Like It Wasn'tbut worried about their reactions to what Deidre Lynch has called the book's “deeply weird materials.” Much of the historical substance, especially the military and economic historiography, are far from our usual interests, and many of the literary texts are obscure and ephemeral. Furthermore, I passed over the opportunity to write about the best-known novels (like Philip Roth'sPlot Against America) by limiting my twentieth-century case studies to American Civil War and British World War II counterfactuals. So I worried that a panel on this eccentric book might seem merely an irrelevant interruption, especially in the context of a meeting of the Society for Novel Studies.