The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750Cambridge University Press, 1976 M10 29 - 284 pages By relating economic changes to the political backdrop, The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750 describes and analyzes the economic civilisation of Europe in the last epoch before the Industrial Revolution. The author makes a special effort to apply economic reasoning to the economic forces of the period and challenges some longstanding opinions about what was and was not important in explaining economic performance. The significance of this study rests in its identification of the ways a 'traditional' society developed its economy despite the absence of the obvious growth factors of the nineteenth century. The approach is consciously comparative: problems of interpretation are identified; research not yet available elsewhere is incorporated into the text; and examples are drawn from minor as well as major countries in western and central Europe. Topics dealt with include the development of agriculture and industry, foreign and regional trade, urbanization, a study of demand in explaining economic growth, the bourgeoisie, and the state. |
Contents
The age of crisis | 1 |
Population | 4 |
Economic trends | 16 |
Explanations | 21 |
Economies in decline | 25 |
The agrarian economies on divergent paths | 30 |
Increasing output | 36 |
Diverging structures | 47 |
Urbanization | 148 |
The grain trade | 159 |
Energy supplies | 164 |
Transportation facilities | 168 |
Capitalism creating its own demand | 176 |
Consumer demand | 182 |
Investment | 192 |
Government demand | 200 |
disappearing or consolidating? | 82 |
Restructuring Industry | 84 |
Industrial location and the diffusion of skills | 86 |
Technological change | 90 |
Organizational change | 94 |
The textile industry | 98 |
The dynamic of protoindustry | 105 |
a new class? | 110 |
The dynamism of trade | 113 |
NonEuropean trade | 128 |
Urbanization and regional trade | 147 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolutist agrarian agricultural Amsterdam arable areas aristocratic Baltic Bank bourgeois bourgeoisie C. R. Boxer capital centers cities cloth colonial commercial commodities companies costs crisis crops decades decline demand demographic Domenico Sella Dutch Republic E. A. Wrigley early seventeenth century East econ Economic History eighteenth century England English entrepôt Europe European economy export farmers farms Fernand Braudel finance France French grain grew growing growth guilders impact important income increase investment labor land landowners livestock London Low Countries Mediterranean ment mercantilism mercantilist merchants million nobility noble nomic northern output Paris peasant peat percent period population ports problem production profit putting-out system Randstad regions revenue rose royal rural industry sector seventeenth century ships silver sixteenth century slave social Southern Netherlands Spain Spanish spread structure sugar supply teenth century textile industry tion trade trends tury urban villages wage wool woolen
Popular passages
Page 259 - Thus, it is only when a cultivator is integrated into a society with a state — that is, when the cultivator becomes subject to the demands and sanctions of power-holders outside his social stratum — that we can appropriately speak of peasantry