Economic history Books

This is a book on how and why workers come together. Almost coincident with its inception, worker organisation is a central and enduring element of capitalism. In the 19th and 20th centuries' mobilisation by workers played a substantial role in reshaping...

This thoroughly researched and clearly written compendium of available statistical information on China provides reliable information, careful explanations, useful guides to further research, and a full bibliography. An exhaustive compilation of national...

The impressive young scholar Bert Mosselmans, analyzing the theory and policy of Jevons, a major figure in the field of the history of economics, has put together a volume with broad international appeal, particularly in Europe, North America and Japan,...

According to Nehru, the transition from a backward agricultural society to a modern industrialized society was the only road for India to progress. So, for the past few decades, India has focused its transitional development around movement away from a...

The literature on 'world cities' has had an enormous influence on urban theory and planning alike. From Manila to London, academics and policy makers have attempted to understand, and to some extent strive for, world city status. This book is a study of...

Since the days of Adam Smith, Mercantilism has been a hotly debated issue. Condemned at the end of the 18th century as a "false" system of economic thinking and political practice, it has returned paradoxically to the forefront in regard to issues such...

This book is a coherent and unique collection of chapters exploring the reception and diffusion of David Ricardo's writings in different languages. The book highlights the similarities and differences between them. This book seeks to delineate the...

Since the end of the Cold War, the human face of economics has gained renewed visibility and generated new conversations among economists and other social theorists. The monistic, mechanical "economic systems" that characterized the capitalism vs...

The premiership of Margaret Thatcher has been portrayed as uniquely ideological in its pursuit of a more market-based economy. A body of literature has been built on how a sharp turn to the right by the Conservative Party during the 1980s - inspired by...

In the 1980s Latin America experienced its second worst economic crisis of the century; today the average per capita income is about 10 percent less than a decade ago. Because the crisis affected all Latin American countries regardless of their economic...

This reissue of the authoritative Royal Economic Society edition of Essays in Persuasion features a new introduction by Donald Moggridge, which discusses the significance of this definitive work. The essays in this volume show Keynes' attempts to...

In The Economics of Welfare, originally published in 1920, Pigou reconceptualized economics as a science of economic welfare, in the course of which he developed the first systematic theory of market failures. Employing Alfred Marshall's theoretical...

Once again, unfettered capitalism has failed. Promises for global prosperity and peace have given way to a world of deep recession, social upheaval and political instability. Once again, mainstream economics has proved its inadequacy. Despite its...

This book presents a social qua community history of heterodox economics.  The author provides the best and most thorough account of the rise of orthodoxy and the response of heterodoxy within economics.

The main emphasis of this new book from Luigino Bruni is a praise of heterogeneity, arguing that society works when different people are able to cooperate in many different ways. The author engages in a novel approach to reciprocity looking at its...

Neoclassical economics has been criticized from various angles by orthodox schools. The same can be said about its particular branch: the theory of the firm.This book demonstrates how a successful theory of the firm can be presented without flawed...

Over the past few decades, the world economy has undergone radical transformations, in part connected to the expansion of the 'digital economy', in part to the growing interconnection via the internet of the world of objects and physical processes. This...

Luxury, Fashion and the Early Modern Idea of Credit addresses how social and cultural ideas about credit and trust, in the context of fashion and trade, were affected by the growth and development of the bankruptcy institution.　Luxury, fashion and social...

Drawing together multidisciplinary research exploring everyday life in Europe during times of economic crisis, this book explores the ways in which austerity policies are lived and experienced - often alongside other significant social, political and...

Shipbuilding in the United Kingdom provides a systematic historical account of the British Shipbuilders Corporation, first looking at this major industry under private enterprise, then under state control, and finally back in private hands.The chapters...

Public credit was controversial in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. It entailed new ways of thinking about the individual in relation to the State and was for many reasons a site of cultural negotiation and debate. At the same time, it...

 The Economics and Politics of European Integration offers a comprehensive history of European integration, from the conceptualization of a United States of Europe, to the present day. The special role of the United States in this process of...

The Political Economy of International Commodity Cartels examines how international commodity cartels in the 1930s were impacted not only by commercial rivalry, but also by international trade political and diplomatic concerns. This work presents the...

Paper and the British Empire examines the evolution of the paper industry within British organisational frameworks and highlights the role of the Empire as a market and business-making area in a world of shrinking commerce and rising trade barriers...

Providing a thorough examination of distributive justice, Distributive Justice and Taxation presents and discusses different theories of what constitutes a just society, and how goods should be distributed in such a society.The distribution of goods in...

From the start, women were central to a century of westward migration in the U.S. Community Building and Early Public Relations: Pioneer Women's Role on and after the Oregon Trail offers a path forward in broadening PR's Caucasian/White male-gendered...

The neo-Schumpeterian interpretation dominating the field of evolutionary economics puts focus on technological innovation, Darwinian evolution and economic growth, and has proven to be fertile ground for the past forty years. However, as the...

This book examines the writings of seven English women economists from the period 1735-1811. It reveals that contrary to what standard accounts of the history of economic thought suggest, eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century women intellectuals were...

Jonathan Z. Smith (1938-2017) was unquestionably one of the most important and influential voices of critical reflection within the academic study of religion in the last century. His work explored the nature and history of religious phenomena across...

This shortform book presents key peer-reviewed research on industrial history. In selecting and contextualising this volume, the editors address how the field of textile history has evolved.Themes covered include entrepreneurial, technological and labour...

Management History is not simply a book about the history of business or even the history of management. The goal of this book is to demonstrate that despite the relative newness of management science as an academic subject, management has been...

The gradual reduction in weekly working hours in the first half of the last century, which culminated in the widespread adoption of the 'standard' working week by the 1960s, was grounded in a concern for health and safety and for the preservation of time...

This book provides an introduction and overview to seven applied financial studies on the theme of labour. The studies cover a wide range of topics, from the individual effects of becoming disabled on key aspects of labour market outcomes in Germany, to...

The West and the East approach economic development differently. The Europeans and Americans stress free and fair business climate, promoting private activities generally without picking winners, and improving governance. East Asia is interested in...

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe provide unique examples of large-scale relatively highly developed centrally planned economies. In the 1980s economists in both the East and West began to focus with increasingly critical attention...

The process of globalization has brought about countless changes in societies, communities, regions and economies across the globe. It has been analyzed from many perspectives as a result and much has been written to muddy the waters of our understanding...

First published in 1977, David Levine's Economic Studies offers a critique and reconstruction of the theoretical conception of economic life. The premise of the study is that only an investigation of the system of elementary economic relations - value,...

Utilising cutting-edge theory and unique data, this book examines the role of power, culture, and practice in Russia's story of post-socialist economic change, and provides a framework for addressing general economic change. No other book places power...

First published in 1989, Alon Kadish's study re-examines the standard view held by historians of economic thought whereby economic history emerged from the historicist criticism of neoclassical economic theory. He also demonstrates how the discipline...

Human actions result from a compound of animal desires, constraints and the words we use to talk about desires and constraints. Modern economics has developed complex theories to explain the operation of both desires and constraints but has neglected the...

The China Development Research Foundation is one of the leading economic and social think tanks in China, where many of the theoretical underpinnings and policy details of economic reform were formulated. This book is the first of a series which makes...

During the period from 1945 to 2005, Britain underwent two deep-seated institutional transformations when political elites successfully challenged the prevailing wisdom on how to govern the economy. Attlee and Thatcher were able to effectively implement...

This book is the first systematic study of how the interdependence of fiscal and monetary policies and the interaction of party governments and central banks affect the fiscal-policy mix in eighteen industrial democracies in North America, Western...

This collection brings together significant new contributions to the Sraffa--based theories of production and distribution, from post-Keynesian arguments concerning monetary and macro economics to the history of thought and methodology. All of the...

Ian Steedman is recognised internationally as one of the leading economic theorists of his time and has made major contributions to the development of economic theory and economic thought, as substantiated by his work on Marx, Sraffa, Marshall, Jevons...

This book analyzes the important contributions of Rosa Luxemburg to economic theory as well as devoting some space to her background as a left social-democratic politician and her personality. The book's main focus of attention is the theory of...