Europe, America, and the Wider World: Volume 1, Europe and the World Economy
Essays on the Economic History of Western Capitalism

Essays on the economic history of Western Europe since the Renaissance.

William Nelson Parker (Author)

9780521274807, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 September 1984

288 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

'William Parker's graceful and speculative essays presuppose that economic progress is rooted in political and intellectual life. To borrow one of his own titles, they are an 'opportunity sequence', inviting the historian to rethink economic development in a cultural context.' Charles S. Mailer, Harvard University

Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a particular, yet comprehensive, view of the economic history of Western Europe since the Renaissance. The focus is wide and the level of treatment deep. Between 1550 and 1940, Professor Parker contends, the development of European capitalism was, in a sense, all of a piece. He separates the development into three periods and processes - 'Malthusian', 'Smithian', and 'Schumpeterian'. Each period was governed by a characteristic dynamic that produced productivity growth, in the presence of other favourable elements, and influenced also the evolution of the forms of industrial and economic life. A certain internal logic is claimed for this progression, which in the nineteenth century extended this system and technology efficiently over much of the globe. In the concluding essay, Professor Parker examines the break-up of the capitalist synthesis and speculates on its transmutation into other forms. Essays and reviews previously available in widely scattered sources are brought together here for the first time and arranged and amplified to develop the central theses.

Editors' preface
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I. The Renaissance and the Twentieth Century: 1. What historians must explain
Part II. Europe's Industrialization: The Pre-History: 2. The pre-history of the nineteenth century
Part III. Heavy Industrialization in the European Regions: 3. The interruption of expansion
4. The organization of rapid expansion
5. Law and enterprise: ore-mining on two sides of the Franco-German border
6. Kartelle und Konzerne: the German coal syndicate under the steel mills' domination
7. M. Schuman and his plan
Part IV. Europe and the Wider World: An Explanation from Technology: 8. Europe-centered development: its natural logic
9. Communication techniques and social organization in the world economy
10. The historians' reviews of the terrain
Part V. European Capitalism: A Synthetic View: 11. Opportunity sequences in European history
12. The response mechanism in the twentieth century
13. A comment on the papers: personal reflections and some diagrams
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]