Bücher der Reihe Palgrave Studies in Economic History

This edited collection examines the evolution of regional inequality in Latin America in the long run. The authors support the hypothesis that the current regional disparities are principally the result of a long and complex process in which historical, geographical, economic, institutional, and political factors have all worked together. Lessons from the past can aid current debates on regional inequalities, territorial cohesion, and public policies in developing and also developed countries.In contrast with European countries, Latin American economies largely specialized in commodity exports, showed high levels of urbanization and high transports costs (both domestic and international). This new research provides a new perspective on the economic history of Latin American regions and offers new insights on how such forces interact in peripheral countries. In that sense, natural resources, differences in climatic conditions, industrial backwardness and low population density areas leads us to a new set of questions and tentative answers.This book brings together a group of leading American and European economic historians in order to build a new set of data on historical regional GDPs for nine Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. This transnational perspective on Latin American economic development process is of interest to researchers, students and policy makers.

This book comprehensively investigates the position of Chinäs working class between the 1980s and 2010s and considers the consequences of economic reforms in historical perspective. It argues the case that, far from the illusion during the Maoist period that a new society had been established where the working classes held greater political and economic autonomy, economic reforms in the post-Mao era have led to the return of traditional Marxist proletariats in China. The book demonstrates how the reforms of Deng Xiaoping have led to increased economic efficiency at the expense of economic equality through an extensive case study of an SOE (state-owned enterprise) in Sichuan Province as well as wider discussions of the emergence of state capitalism on both a micro and macroeconomic level. The book also discusses workers¿ protests during these periods of economic reform to reflect the reformation of class consciousness in post-Mao China, drawing on Marx¿s concept of a transition from äclass-in-itself' to a ¿class-for-itself¿. It will be valuable reading for students and scholars of Chinese economic and social history, as well as political economy, sociology, and politics.

Aston challenges and reshapes the on-going debate concerning social status, economic opportunity, and gender roles in nineteenth-century society.

This volume documents recent efforts to track the transformation and trajectory of silver during the early modern period, from its origins in ores located on either side of the Atlantic to its use as currency in the financial centres of continental Europe.

In 2021 Coventry celebrates being the national City of Culture. Modern Coventry is a product of successive rounds of industrial, economic and social developments driven by regional, national and global forces. This book presents a timely opportunity to reflect on this rich, and often misunderstood, history.The book examines the development of industry, services, infrastructure and social transformation, and the role which globalising forces have played in influencing these, particularly since the 1950s. It looks at the experiences of the city of Coventry in responding to the challenges of socioeconomic change, technological advances, reconstruction and renewal.Issues of investment, economic decline, reconstruction, employment change and local and national governance are all considered in assessing the story of modern Coventry, a city influenced by new industries and development opportunities while still being shaped by its historical economic challenges.By focusing on the case of Coventry this book contributes to debates surrounding urban structural change, economic diversification and resilience from the perspective of a medium-sized city.

The first part addresses the progress of post-communist transition in comparative terms, including regional focus on Eastern and South Eastern Europe, CIS and Central Asia.

This book analyses the economic history of the nuclear program in Spain, from its inception in the 1950s to the nuclear moratorium in the early 1980s, and investigates the economic, financial and business origins of atomic energy in Spain.

Together with Mauritius, Botswana is often categorized as one of two growth miracles in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to its spectacular long-run economic performance and impressive social development, it has been termed both an economic success story and a developmental state. While there is uniqueness in the Botswana experience, several aspects of the country's opportunities and challenges are of a more general nature. Throughout its history, Botswana has been both blessed and hindered by its natural resource abundance and dependency, which have influenced growth periods, opportunities for economic diversification, strategies for sustainable economic and social development, and the distribution of incomes and opportunities.Through a political economy framework, Hillbom and Bolt provide an updated understanding of an African success story, covering the period from the mid-19th century, when the Tswana groups settled, to the present day. Understanding the interaction over time between geography and factor endowments on the one hand, and the development of economic and political institutions on the other, offers principle lessons from Botswana's experience to other natural resource rich developing countries.

Looking at the years 1870-2016, this book analyses the reasons behind Colombiäs chronically slow economic growth. As a comparative economic history, it examines why Colombia has seen lower growth rates than countries with similar institutions, culture and colonial origins, such as Argentina in 1870-1914, Mexico in 1930-1980, and Chile from 1982 onwards.While Colombia's history has shown relative macroeconomic stability, it has also shown a limited capacity for integrating into the world economy and embracing technological breakthroughs compared to the rest of the world, including steam, mass production and Information Technology. This volume thus moves away from the long-held view that institutional path dependence is the main determinant of differences in long-run economic growth across countries.

'This book makes an important contribution to the history of household labour relations in two contrasting societies. It deserves a wide readership.'-Anne Booth, SOAS University of London, UK 'By exploring how colonialism affected women's work in the Dutch Empire this carefully researched book urges us to rethink the momentous implications of colonial exploitation on gender roles both in periphery and metropolis.' -Ulbe Bosma, the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands 'In this exciting and original book, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk exposes how colonial connections helped determine the status and position of women in both the Netherlands and Java. The effects of these connections continue to shape women's lives in both colony and metropole today.'-Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, UKRecent postcolonial studies have stressed the importance of the mutual influences of colonialism on both colony and metropole. This book studies such colonial entanglements and their effects by focusing on developments in household labour in the Dutch Empire in the period 1830-1940. The changing role of households', and particularly women's, economic activities in the Netherlands and Java, one of the most important Dutch colonies, forms an excellent case study to help understand the connections and disparities between colony and metropole.The author contends that colonial entanglements certainly existed, and influenced developments in women's economic role to an extent, both in Java and the Netherlands. However, during the nineteenth century, more and more distinctions in the visions and policies towards Dutch working class and Javanese peasant households emerged. Accordingly, a more sophisticated framework is needed to explain how and why such connections were - both intentionally and unintentionally - severed over time.

This book traces regional income inequality in Spain during the transition from a pre-industrial society to a modern economy, using the Spanish case to shed further light on the challenges that emerging economies are facing today.

This book analyses the main historical turning points in the Spanish economy and the related challenges it faced.

Chapter 1. IntroductionChapter 2. Battlefield Tourism, from One (Post)War to the Other, France-Spain. Touring from the Great War to the Spanish Civil WarChapter 3. War Tourism in Italy (1919-1939)Chapter 4. Spanish Civil War and Francoism for Tourists: The History Told in Travel BooksChapter 5.Tourism Policy in Post-war Spain: The Direcci├│n General de Turismo, 1939-1951: the Direcci├│n General de Turismo, 1939-1951Chapter 6. Tourism Advertising and Propaganda During the Postwar. The Case of BarcelonaChapter 7. Tourism as a Tool for Territorial Cohesion: The Cassa per il Mezzogiorno in Italy During the 1950sChapter 8.Emigration and Cruises: The Transatlantic Shipping Companies After the Second World War (1945-1960)ΓêùChapter 9. Conclusions

With the life story of Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931), one of the most important financiers and industrialists in modern Japanese history, as its narrative focal point, this book explores the challenges of importing modern business enterprises to Japan, where the pursuit of profit was considered beneath the dignity of the samurai elite.

This book examines the role of experts and expertise in the dynamics of globalisation since the mid-nineteenth century.

This book explores the historical roots of rapid economic growth in South Asia, with reference to politics, markets, resources, and the world economy.

This two-volume collection analyses the evolution of wine production in European regions across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This first volume looks closely at the development of winegrowing, with cases ranging from Italian and French regions to smaller producers such as Portugal and Slovenia.

This edited collection examines the formation of urban networks and role of gateways in Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern world. Using different historical case studies, the authors consider how logistics shaped urban networks and were shaped by them.

This edited collection explores the historical determinants of the rise of mass schooling and human capital accumulation based on a global, long-run perspective, focusing on a variety of countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The authors analyze the increasing importance attached to globalization as a factor in how social, institutional and economic change shapes national and regional educational trends. Although recent research in economic history has increasingly devoted more attention to global forces in shaping the institutions and fortunes of different world regions, the link and contrast between national education policies and the forces of globalization remains largely under-researched within the field.The globalization of the world economy, starting in the nineteenth century, brought about important changes that affected school policy itself, as well as the process of long-term human capital accumulation. Large migrations prompted brain drain and gain across countries, alongside rapid transformations in the sectoral composition of the economy and demand for skills. Ideas on education and schooling circulated more easily, bringing about relevant changes in public policy, while the changing political voice of winners and losers from globalization determined the path followed by public choice. Similarly, religion and the spread of missions came to play a crucial role for the rise of schooling globally.

It not only surveys the field of African economic history at the level of undergraduate students, but provides several fresh perspectives, drawing on insights from the latest research on the evolution of African societies and their economic prosperity.

Looking at the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - the onset of modern economic growth - the book studies the relationship between agriculture and other economic sectors, exploring the use of resources (land, labour, capital) and the influence of institutional and technological factors in the long-run performance of agricultural activities.

Discovering a Global Perspective''Se mantiene de lavar'': The Laundry Business in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Mexico CityInvesting in Enterprise: Women Entrepreneurs in Colonial ''South Africa''A Mosaic of Entrepreneurship: Female Traders in Moscow, 1810s-1850sA Constant Presence: The Businesswomen of Paris, 1810-1880The Gendered Nature of the Atlantic World Marketplace: Female Entrepreneurs in the Nineteenth-Century American LowcountryOn Their Own in a ''Man''s World'': Widows in Business in Colonial New Zealand and AustraliaIn the Business of Piracy: Entrepreneurial Women among Chinese Pirates in the Mid-Nineteenth CenturyThe Business of Self-Endowment: Women Merchants, Wealth and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century LuandaMore Than Just Penny Capitalists: The Range of Female Entrepreneurship in Mid-Nineteenth-Century United States CitiesJapanese Female Entrepreneurs: Women in Kyoto Businesses in Tokugawa JapanFemale Entrepreneurship in England and Wales, 1851-1911 Skirting the Boundaries: Businesswomen in Colonial British Columbia, 1858-1914Mirror, Bridge or Stone? Female Owners of Firms in Spain During the Second Half of the Long Nineteenth CenturyGendered Innovation: Female Patent Activity and Market Development in Brazil, 1876-1906Not Such a ''Bad Speculation'': Women, Cookbooks and Entrepreneurship in Late-Nineteenth-Century AustraliaNineteenth-Century Female Entrepreneurship in TurkeyAfrican Women Farmers in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, 1875-1930: State Policies and Spiritual Vulnerabilities

The quality of life experienced by people in the past is one of the most important areas of historical enquiry, and the standard of living of populations is one of the leading measures of the economic performance of nations. Yet how accurate is the information on which these judgments are based? This collection of essays, written by renowned scholars in the fields of labour, wage and welfare history, cogently undermine the validity of the data that have for decades dominated the measurement of these phenomena in Britain, Europe and Asia, and provided the statistical backbone for countless descriptions and analyses of economic development, welfare and many other prime subjects in economic and social history.The contributors to this volume rigorously expose misapprehensions of long-run macroeconomic estimates of the real wage and provide a host of improved methods and data for revising and rejecting them. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in economic and social history, economics and the application of statistical methods to historical evidence.

Without economic history, economics runs the risk of being too abstract or parochial, of failing to notice precedents, trends and cycles, of overlooking the long-run and thus misunderstanding 'how we got here'. Recent financial and economic crises illustrate spectacularly how the economics profession has not learnt from its past.This important and unique book addresses this problem by demonstrating the power of historical thinking in economic research. Concise chapters guide economics lecturers and their students through the field of economic history, demonstrating the use of historical thinking in economic research, and advising them on how they can actively engage with economic history in their teaching and learning.Blum and Colvin bring together important voices in the field to show readers how they can use their existing economics training to explore different facets of economic history. Each chapter introduces a question or topic, historical context or research method and explores how they can be used in economics scholarship and pedagogy. In a century characterised to date by economic uncertainty, bubbles and crashes, An Economist's Guide to Economic History is essential reading.For further information visit http://www.blumandcolvin.org

This book rejects the idea that natural resource industries are doomed to slow growth.

This book examines the role of experts and expertise in the dynamics of globalisation since the mid-nineteenth century.

Together with Mauritius, Botswana is often categorized as one of two growth miracles in sub-Saharan Africa. Due to its spectacular long-run economic performance and impressive social development, it has been termed both an economic success story and a developmental state. While there is uniqueness in the Botswana experience, several aspects of the country¿s opportunities and challenges are of a more general nature. Throughout its history, Botswana has been both blessed and hindered by its natural resource abundance and dependency, which have influenced growth periods, opportunities for economic diversification, strategies for sustainable economic and social development, and the distribution of incomes and opportunities.Through a political economy framework, Hillbom and Bolt provide an updated understanding of an African success story, covering the period from the mid-19th century, when the Tswana groups settled, to the present day. Understanding the interaction over time between geography and factor endowments on the one hand, and the development of economic and political institutions on the other, offers principle lessons from Botswanäs experience to other natural resource rich developing countries.

Looking at the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - the onset of modern economic growth - the book studies the relationship between agriculture and other economic sectors, exploring the use of resources (land, labour, capital) and the influence of institutional and technological factors in the long-run performance of agricultural activities.

and fourth that China's 'resilient authoritarianism' has been effective in ensuring the country's economic and political transformation. Yue argues that the China model is one of 'crony comprador capitalism' that has hindered the country's attempts at economic and political modernity.