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Williamson, Samuel H.
Markets and Institutions
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Oct 11, 1998
Published by EH.NET (October 1998)
Steven A Sass, The Promise of Private Pensions: The First Hundred Year
s.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. ix + 332 pp. $39.95 (cloth),
ISBN: 0-674-94520-4;
Reviewed for EH.NET by Samuel H. Williamson, Department of Economics, Miami
University.
The rise and fall of private pensions in the United States is very much a
twentieth-century story. Thus, publication of this book by Steve Sass is well
timed. It tells the story of how the institution takes off with the creation of
the Pennsylvania Railroad Pension in 1900, peaks in the postwar period, and
slides into decline in the last...
Touwen, Jeroen
Economic Development, Growth, and Aggregate Productivity
General or Comparative
Asia
Oct 6, 1998
EH-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by EH.NET (October 1998)
Anne Booth, The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries: A History of Missed Opportunities. Basingstoke: Macmillan
and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. xvi + 377 pp. Includes
bibliographical references and index. $19.95 (paperback), ISBN
0-333-55310-1 (Macmillan). $79.95 (hardcover), ISBN 0-333-55309-8
(Macmillan) and 0-312-17749-6 (St. Martin's Press)
Reviewed for EH-NET by Jeroen Touwen, Historical Institute, Leiden
University, The Netherlands.
BAD LUCK IN A VERY RESOURCEFUL ECONOMY
Which Lessons Can Indonesia Learn from its Past?...
Self, James K.
Economic Planning and Policy
General or Comparative
North America
Oct 4, 1998
Published by H-Business and EH.Net (October, 1998)
Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija. Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the
Great Debate Over Tax Reform. Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 1996. ix + 299 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $27.50
(cloth), 0-262-193 75-2; $17.50 (paper), ISBN 0-262-69208-2.
Reviewed for H-Business and EH.Net by James K. Self
, Southern Illinois University (Carbondale)
This book is written as an overview and at times a detailed survey of the
United States income
tax system, and its proposed alternatives. The authors use concepts primarily
from economics and supported by references, and statistics...
Grant, Randy R.
Economywide Country Studies and Comparative History
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Sep 30, 1998
Published by EH.NET (October 1998)
Michael French. U.S. Economic History Since 1945. Manchester and New
York: Manchester University Press, 1997. 256 pp. $24.95 (cloth),
ISBN: 071 9049512.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Randy R. Grant, Department of Economics and Business,
Linfield College.
Michael French, Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the
University of Glasgow, examines the U.S. economy since 1945, dividing the
postwar era topically rather than chronologically. Although each chapter
develops chronologically, the emphasis is on critical events within each theme.
I include the table of contents to provide an initial...
Tympas, Aristotle
History of Technology, including Technological Change
General or Comparative
North America
Sep 27, 1998
Published by H-Business@eh.net and EH.Net (September, 1998)
Alan Stone. How America Got On-Line: Politics, Markets, and the Revolution
in Telecommunications. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E.
Sharpe, 1997. xiii + 241 pp. Bibliographical references and index. $62.95
(cloth), ISBN 1-56324-576
-0; $23.95 (paper), ISBN 1-56324-577-9.
Reviewed for H-Business and EH.Net by Aristotle Tympas, Georgia Institute of
Technology Gt9896a@prism.gatech.edu
Accommodating more than a century of telecommunications history in a little
over two hundred pages represents a formidable challenge. Aware of the fact
that an adequate response to this challenge involves more...
Cain, Louis P.
Economic Planning and Policy
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Sep 22, 1998
Published by EH.NET (September 1998)
Michael D. Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, editors, The Defining
Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth
Century. An NBER Project Report. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1998. xvi + 474 pp. $60.00 (cloth). ISBN: 0-226-06589-8
(cloth), 0-226-06589-8 (paper).
Reviewed
for EH.NET by Louis P. Cain, Departments of Economics, Loyola University of
Chicago and Northwestern University.
The "moment" is the Great Depression; what is being "defined" is public policy.
The editors have assembled twelve papers from a distinguished cast of authors
who...
Whaples, Robert
Labor and Employment History
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Sep 10, 1998
Published by EH.NET (September 1998)
Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, Kellogg's Six-Hour Day. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, November 1996. x + 261 pp. $69.95 (cloth), ISBN: 1-566
39-447-3; $24.95 (paper), ISBN: 1-56639-448-1.
Reviewed for EH.NET by
Robert Whaples, Department of Economics, Wake Forest University.
Between the Civil War and World War II, the length of the American work week
decreased dramatically
. Since the end of World War II, the rate of decline has become positively
glacial. The five-day workweek with an eight-hour workday came to be seen as
the norm over a half a century ago and it is still seen as the norm today....
Rosenbloom, Joshua L.
Historical Demography, including Migration
19th Century
General, International, or Comparative
Sep 7, 1998
Published by EH.NET (September 1998)
Timothy J
. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson, The Age of Mass Migration:
Causes and Economic Impact. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998. ix + 301 pp. $49.95, ISBN: 0-19-511651-8.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Department of Economics,
University of Kansas, and National Bureau of Economic Research.
Between 1850 and 1914 about 55 million Europeans left home for the Americas or
Australasia. This unprecedented voluntary redistribution of population was the
subject of extensive study at the time, and remains of interest to historians
and other social scientists today. In this...
Lufrano, Richard
Economywide Country Studies and Comparative History
Medieval
Asia
Aug 25, 1998
Published by H-Business@eh.net and EH.Net (August, 1998)
Timothy Brook. The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming
China. Berkeley: University of California, 1998. xxv + 320 pp.
Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, glossary, and index. $40.00 (cloth),
ISBN 0-520-21091-3.
Reviewed for H-Business and EH.Net by Richard Lufrano
, College of Staten Island
Timothy Brook's The Confusions of Pleasure began as a chapter for the
Cambridge History of China surveying communication and commerce in Ming
China (1368-1644). As the author writes, this straight-forward task appears
to have expanded to examine the...
Stebenne, David
Economic Planning and Policy
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Aug 23, 1998
Published by H-Business@eh.net and EH.Net (August, 1998)
Allen J. Matusow. Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. xii + 323 pp. Notes and index.
$35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-7006-0888-5.
Reviewed for H-Business and EH.Net by David Stebenne ,
Ohio State University
Nixon's Economic Policy:
Confused, Opportunistic and Unsuccessful
Scholars and journalists often give the Nixon presidency,
Watergate aside, a fairly positive review. The scandals
that drove Nixon and many of his closest advisors from office, the conventional
wisdom now holds, distract...