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Previous Newsletter Issues
Kennedy, Gavin
History of Economic Thought; Methodology
18th Century
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
General, International, or Comparative
Feb 21, 2012
Published by EH.Net (February 2012)
Warren J. Samuels (assisted by Marianne F. Johnston and William H. Perry), Erasing the Invisible Hand: Essays on an Elusive and Misused Concept in Economics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xxviii + 329 pp. $95 (hardcover) ISBN: 978-0-521-51725-6.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Gavin Kennedy, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (Professor Emeritus).
Warren Samuels was an American historian of economic thought located at the top of its first division. He started work for this book in 1983 and took 28 years to complete. This was no rushed job and it shows in his meticulous and, therefore, authoritative scholarly account of the...
Smith, Fred H.
Urban and Regional History
General or Comparative
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
General, International, or Comparative
Feb 9, 2012
Published by EH.Net (February 2012)
Edward L. Glaeser, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York: Penguin Press, 2011. ix + 338 pp. $30 (cloth), ISBN: 978-1-59420-277-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Fred H. Smith, Department of Economics, Davidson College.
In 1998 Edward Glaeser published an article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives entitled “Are Cities Dying?” The article makes a strong case for why technology had not, and would not, make cities obsolete. In the subsequent fourteen years, Glaeser has written dozens of articles on urban economics. Many of the articles have touched on topics that...
Ma, Debin
Economic Development, Growth, and Aggregate Productivity
Economywide Country Studies and Comparative History
Medieval
16th Century
17th Century
18th Century
19th Century
Asia
Europe
Feb 8, 2012
Published by EH.Net (February 2012)
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal and R. Bin Wong, Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. xi + 276 pp. $45 (hardback), ISBN: 978-0-674-05791-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Debin Ma, Department of Economic History, London School of Economics.
This book is the latest installment in the Great Divergence debate, which could also be simplified as the question of why the Industrial Revolution (IR) happened in England or Europe, but not in China or Asia. Written by two leading scholars on French and Chinese economic history, respectively, this book makes a new contribution to this debate with a focused,...
Koyama, Mark
Government, Law and Regulation, Public Finance
Military and War
Markets and Institutions
18th Century
19th Century
Europe
Feb 7, 2012
Published by EH.Net (February 2012)
Douglas W. Allen, The Institutional Revolution: Measurement and the Economic Emergence of the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. xiv + 267 pp. $30 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-226-01474-6.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Mark Koyama, Department of Economics, George Mason University.
In this astute and elegantly written book, Douglas Allen argues that the industrial revolution was accompanied by an institutional revolution. This institutional revolution replaced many seemingly archaic institutions such as the practice of restricting some offices in government to aristocrats while selling others (including army commissions and the right to collect taxes). The...
Frey, Donald E.
Education and Human Resource Development
Social and Cultural History, including Race, Ethnicity and Gender
19th Century
20th Century: Pre WWII
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Jan 31, 2012
Published by EH.Net (January 2012)
Olivier Zunz, Philanthropy in America: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011. x + 381 pp. $30 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0 691-12836-8.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Donald E. Frey, Department of Economics, Wake Forest University (retired).
Olivier Zunz starts his history in the late 1800s, focusing on big foundations along with the “mass philanthropy” of the middle class. A recurring theme is the enduring difficulty in defining the boundaries between government and philanthropy.
The story that Zunz chooses to tell, though not comprehensive, is fascinating; and he tells it well. Chapter 1 recounts emerging...
Coates, David
Economic Planning and Policy
Economywide Country Studies and Comparative History
Markets and Institutions
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
Europe
Jan 17, 2012
Published by EH.Net (January 2012)
Orfeo Fioretos, Creative Reconstructions: Multilateralism and European Varieties of Capitalism after 1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. xix + 245 pp. $50 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-8014-4969-7.
Reviewed for EH.Net by David Coates, Department of Political Science, Wake Forest University.
There is now a long established interest in the character and economic fortunes of different models of capitalism. Important debates continue about their internal dynamics of change. Do modern economies flourish to the degree to which we find “institutional complementaries” within them, as in the original “varieties of capitalism” (VOC) formulation by Hall and Soskice; or do...
Moehling, Carolyn M.
Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extractive Industries
Education and Human Resource Development
Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, and Monetary History
Government, Law and Regulation, Public Finance
Servitude and Slavery
Industry: Manufacturing and Construction
Labor and Employment History
Markets and Institutions
18th Century
19th Century
20th Century: Pre WWII
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
Africa
Australia/New Zealand, incl. Pacific Islands
North America
Jan 16, 2012
Published by EH.Net (January 2012)
Paul W. Rhode, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, and David F. Weiman, editors, Economic Evolution and Revolution in Historical Time. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. xx + 461 pp. $60 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-8047-7185-6.
Carolyn M. Moehling, Department of Economics, Rutgers University.
A recent review in this series described festschrifts as “an honored tradition” but “also a somewhat antiquated and awkward form of scholarly communication.” That awkwardness has been increasing in recent years. More and more young scholars are being told that book chapters will receive little, if any, weight in tenure reviews, and many citation indices – which are fast-...
Ruccio, David F.
History of Economic Thought; Methodology
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Jan 13, 2012
Published by EH.Net (January 2012)
Donald W. Katzner, At the Edge of Camelot: Debating Economics in Turbulent Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. xiv + 199 pp. $50 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-19-976535-5.
Reviewed by David F. Ruccio, Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame
Donald W. Katzner, in invoking the Arthurian legend, may have run the risk of overselling the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. However, both the department he and his colleagues built and his book documenting the history of that department are, in fact, quite honorable.*
The department was remarkable because, with very few exceptions (then or now) among the 125 or so Ph.D.-granting...
Boianovsky, Mauro
History of Economic Thought; Methodology
20th Century: Pre WWII
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
Latin America, incl. Mexico and the Caribbean
Jan 11, 2012
Published by EH.Net (January 2012)
Verónica Montecinos and John Markoff, editors, Economists in the Americas. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2009. xx + 341 pp. $155 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84542-043-7.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Mauro Boianovsky, Department of Economics, Universidade de Brasília.
Largely thanks to Bob Coats’s (1924-2007) pioneering studies about the sociology and professionalization of economics, research about the emergence of economics as a discipline and the development of the contexts and institutions in which economists act have become an important area in the history of economic thought. One should expect that the subject would attract also the attention of social scientists such as...
Stewart, Gordon
Economic Planning and Policy
Industry: Manufacturing and Construction
20th Century: Pre WWII
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
Europe
Jan 10, 2012
Published by EH.Net (January 2012)
Jim Tomlinson, Carlo Morelli and Valerie Wright, The Decline of Jute: Managing Industrial Decline. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2011. xiii + 219 pp. $99 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84893-124-4.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Gordon Stewart, Department of History, Michigan State University.
This superb book deserves to be considered for a prize. It is a close-grained account of the jute industry in Dundee from the 1940s to the 1980s but it is much more than that. In the course of their study of the decline of one industry the authors lay bare some of the fundamental economic, social, and political forces that shaped post-war Britain, and illuminate the complex impact of...