The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution

The European Economy in a Global Perspective, 1000-1800
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-90-04-22679-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, 344 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 522 g

Reihe: Brill's Paperback Collection / History

Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Western Europe? Was it a sudden acceleration of the European economy, or should we look at specific institutions arising in Western Europe since the Middle Ages? This book puts these big questions of European economic history in a global perspective, deals with the institutions that developed in Europe, and measures their relative efficiency over time and compared with other parts of Eurasia. It traces the growth of human capital in the centuries between 1000 and 1800, in comparison with China, Japan and India. It also demonstrates how important the European Marriage Pattern was for understanding Europe’s past. The result is a new synthesis of the origins of the Industrial Revolution.

Zielgruppe

Economic historians, historians in general with a certain interest in economic history or global history, global historians, students in history

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zanden, Jan Luiten van

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Industrialisierung
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Introduction: The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution

Part One Medieval Foundations
Introducing the Problem: The Emergence of Efficient Institutions in the Middle Ages
Why the European Economy Expanded Rapidly in a Period of Political Fragmentation
Book Production as a Mirror of Emerging European Knowledge Economy (with Eltjo Buringh)

Part Two The Little Divergence within Europe
Introducing the Problem: the Little Divergence within Europe, 1400-1800
4. Girlpower. The European Marriage Pattern and Labour Markets in the North Sea Tegion in the Late Medieval Period (with Tine de Moor)

Part Three Common Workmen, Philosophers and the Birth of a European Knowledge Economy
Introducing the Problem: The Birth of a European Knowledge Economy
5. The Human Capital of the Common Workmen: European Skill Premium in the a Global Perspective
6. The Philosophers and the Revolution of the Printing Press

Part Four Towards the Dual Revolution: State Formation and Modern Economic Growth
7. State Formation and Citizenship: The Dutch Republic between Medieval Communes and Modern Nation States (with Maarten Prak).
8. The Emergence of Modern Economic Growth in the North Sea Region

Part Five Two Great Divergences
9. The Arab World, China, and Japan

Conclusion: ‘A million mutinies’

Appendix One. Further experiments with the Cobb Douglas production function: Italy and Western Europe
Appendix Two. Estimating Chinese GDP per capita in the eighteenth century

Über Autor(innen)

Jan Luiten van Zanden (1955) is professor of economic history at Utrecht University and senior researcher at the International Institute of Social History. He has published widely on the economic history of the Netherlands, Western Europe, and Indonesia.