EH.net is owned and operated by the Economic History Association with the support of other sponsoring organizations.
Navigation
EH.net Book Reviews Newsletter
Please read our
Copyright Information
page for important copyright information.
Comments? Questions? Use our online feedback form
or send email to admin@eh.net.
Previous Newsletter Issues
De Long, J. Bradford
Economic Development, Growth, and Aggregate Productivity
General or Comparative
General, International, or Comparative
Apr 5, 1998
EH.NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by EH.NET (April 1998)
David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Are Some So Rich and Others So Poor. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. 544 pp. $30.00 (cloth) ISBN: 0393040178.
Reviewed for EH.NET by J. Bradford De Long, Department of Economics, University of California-Berkeley.
David Landes has studied the history of economic development for more than half a century. His look at economic imperialism and informal empire in nineteenth-century Egypt (Bankers and Pashas) tells the story of how small were the benefits (either for Egyptian economic development or for the long-run power and happiness of the ruling dynasty) bought at extremely high cost by borrowing...
Clark, Gregory
Markets and Institutions
Medieval
Europe
Mar 31, 1998
EH.NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by EH.NET (April 1998)
James Masschaele, Peasants, Merchants, and Markets: Inland Trade in Medieval England, 1150-1350. New York: St Martin's Press, 1997. xii + 275 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN: 0-312-16035-6.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Gregory Clark, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis.
Medieval Commerce: Too Much of a Good Thing
You have got to feel sorry for our colleagues in medieval economic history. This bright and energetic group - Richard Britnell, Bruce Campbell, Christopher Dyer, Derek Keene, Maryanne Kowaleski, John Langdon, Mavis Mate, Larry Poos, Ambrose Raftis, to name just a few - are model scholars. To practice their craft they master...
Aaronson, Susan Ariel
International and Domestic Trade and Relations
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
General, International, or Comparative
Mar 30, 1998
EH-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published for H-Business@eh.net (April 1998)
Saskia Sassen. Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization. University Seminars/Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. xvi + 148 pp. Bibliographic references and index. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-231-10608-4.
Reviewed by for H-Business by Susan Ariel Aaronson , George Mason University
Reordering the World?
The spoken word is often easier to understand than the written word. That's why I was eager to tackle a series of lectures on globalization by Columbia University Professor Sasskia Sassen. This collection however, is a tough hike. The language is like a jungle that the reader...
Cosgel, Metin
Historical Demography, including Migration
19th Century
North America
Mar 26, 1998
EH.NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by EH.NET (March 1998)
Anne Kelly Knowles, Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigrants on Ohio's Industrial Frontier. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1997. xxiii + 330 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN: 0226448533.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Metin Cosgel, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut.
Nowhere is the relationship between religious culture and economic performance more complex than in the experiences of immigrants who strive to improve their economic position while trying to preserve deeply held religious values. In Calvinists Incorporated Anne Kelly Knowles tells the fascinating story of a community of Welsh immigrants who settled in Jackson and...
Mullin, Debbie
Labor and Employment History
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Mar 24, 1998
EH.NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by EH.NET (March 1998)
Ron Formisano, The Great Lobster War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. vii + 150 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN: 1558490523. $14.95 (paper), ISBN: 155849071X.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Debbie Mullin, Department of Economics, Oberlin College.
Ron Formisano tells us about a group of men who, dismayed by their economic prospects, band together to fight large commercial interests in the hopes of preserving their standard of living. At first glance, one would think that this is another story of a union's struggle to negotiate for higher wages, but that is far from the case presented in The Great Lobster War. The men who banded together...
Michie, Ranald C.
Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, and Monetary History
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Mar 19, 1998
EH-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Business@cs.muohio.edu (March, 1998) Christopher Armstrong. Blue Skies and Boiler Rooms: Buying and Selling Securities in Canada 1870-1940. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. x + 390 pp. Photographs, appendix, and index. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8020-4184-1.
Reviewed for H-Business by Prof Ranald C. Michie , University of Durham
Usually with an academic book, the main title is designed to attract the attention of potential readers--even purchasers--while the subtitle is a more accurate description of the content. In this case, the reverse is true. Instead of being a history of the Canadian Securities market from 1870 to 1940, which I was expecting, this book...
Taylor, Alan M.
Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, and Monetary History
19th Century
General, International, or Comparative
Mar 19, 1998
Published by EH.NET (March 1998)
Lawrence H. Officer, Between the Dollar-Sterling Gold Points: Exchange Rates, Parity, and Market Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xxi, 342 pp. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN: 0521365384.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Alan M. Taylor, Department of Economics, Northwestern University.
Lawrence Officer has been making influential contributions to international and monetary economics and history for many years. He is perhaps best known to economic historians for his work on exchange market arbitrage under gold (or read, metallic) standards. In a series of tightly-argued journal articles he challenged the widely accepted revisionist scholarship that had sought to depict the...
Boyd, Lawrence W.
Labor and Employment History
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Mar 17, 1998
David F. Selvin, A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. 272 pp. $26.95 (paper), ISBN: 0814326102.
Reviewed for EH Net by Lawrence W. Boyd, Center for Labor Education and Research, University of Hawaii.
A Terrible Anger is a narrative history of one of three massive strikes which occurred in 1934 which led to independent trade unions, organized on an industrial basis, becoming fully legal organizations in the United States. The other strikes, the Minneapolis Teamster's strike and the Toledo Autolite strike shared similar characteristics. In each case militant trade union members, led by radicals, launched strikes for union...
Reagan, Patrick D.
Government, Law and Regulation, Public Finance
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
North America
Mar 17, 1998
J. Richard Piper. Ideologies and Institutions: American Conservative and Liberal Governance Prescriptions Since 1933. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997. ix + 451 pp. Tables, notes, bibliography, and index. $74.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8476-8458-X; $27.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8476-8459-8.
Reviewed for H-Pol by Patrick D. Reagan , Tennessee Technological University
Political History Redivivus
Over the last fifteen years, scholars in political science, historical sociology, and a slowly reviving political history have called for renewed attention to the role of the state, political parties, ideology, and institutions in different societies.[1] Yet an inherent tension between the synchronic snapshot of the social...
Young, Garry
Government, Law and Regulation, Public Finance
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Mar 17, 1998
H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-Pol@h-net.msu.edu (February, 1998)
Kenneth Finegold and Theda Skocpol. State and Party in America's New Deal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. xiv + 342 pp.=20 Tables, figures, notes, and index. $54.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-299-14760-6;=20 $19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-299-14764-9.
Reviewed for H-Pol by Garry Young , University of Missouri-Columbia
State and Party in America's New Deal, an engrossing book by Kenneth Finegold and Theda Skocpol, asks and answers a deceptively difficult question: Why was the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) a relative success while the National Recovery Administration (NRA) failed miserably? In the process of answering this...