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Previous Newsletter Issues
Mushin, Jerry
Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, and Monetary History
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
Europe
Nov 16, 2012
Published by EH.Net (November 2012)
Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, A Europe Made of Money: The Emergence of the European Monetary System. Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 2012. viii + 359 pp. $55 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-8014-5083-9.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Jerry Mushin, School of Economics and Finance, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
At a time when the problems in the euro zone are frequently in the news, it is wise to consider the nature and origins of its immediate predecessor. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, of the University of Glasgow and the London School of Economics, has written a thorough description and analysis of the political and economic developments that led to the establishment,...
Finlay, Mark
Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extractive Industries
Business History
History of Technology, including Technological Change
19th Century
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Nov 15, 2012
Published by EH.Net (November 2012)
Gordon M. Winder, The American Reaper: Harvesting Networks and Technology, 1830-1910. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012. xiii + 257 pp. $120 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-4094-2461-1.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Mark Finlay, Department of History, Armstrong Atlantic State University.
Employing methodologies from historical geography, economic sociology, business history, and other subdisciplines, Gordon Winder’s The American Reaper is a solid and significant contribution to the history of American grain harvesting implements. Winder offers several revisionist challenges to standard accounts, both those that have treated Cyrus McCormick as a heroic inventor, as well as those that...
Otsuka, Keijiro
Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extractive Industries
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
Africa
Asia
Latin America, incl. Mexico and the Caribbean
Nov 14, 2012
Published by EH.Net (November 2012)
Michael Lipton, Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs. London: Routledge, 2009. xv + 456 pp. $45 (paperback), ISBN: 978-415-61556-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Keijiro Otsuka, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (Tokyo)
This is a truly comprehensive study on land reform in developing countries including those in South and Southeast Asia, West and Central Asia, North and sub-Sahara Africa, and Latin America. Readers will be overwhelmed by the vast amount of relevant knowledge the author has on land tenure issues in general and on land reform issues in particular. It is also amazing to learn that this voluminous book has been...
Pearson, Robin
Business History
18th Century
19th Century
Asia
Australia/New Zealand, incl. Pacific Islands
Europe
North America
Nov 13, 2012
Published by EH.Net (November 2012)
Robert Lee, editor, Commerce and Culture: Nineteenth-Century Business Elites. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011. xviii + 343 pp. $135 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-7546-6398-0
Reviewed for EH.Net by Robin Pearson, Department of History, University of Hull.
This collection of eleven essays on different aspects of mercantile culture in Europe, Asia and North America between the late eighteenth and the early twentieth century originated in a conference hosted by the University of Liverpool in 2006, so it has experienced a lengthy germination. In an impressive overview of the historical and theoretical literature on urban and business elites around the globe, Robert Lee sets out the...
Stack, Martin
Household, Family and Consumer History
Industry: Manufacturing and Construction
General or Comparative
General, International, or Comparative
Nov 5, 2012
Published by EH.Net (November 2012)
Johan F.M. Swinnen, editor, The Economics of Beer. Oxford: Oxford Press, 2011. xxii + 375 pp. $45 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-19-969380-1.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Martin Stack, Department of Management, Rockhurst University.
In 2007, Blackwell Press published an edited book titled Beer and Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Drinking. So, it shouldn’t really be a surprise that a few years later Oxford University Press, under the excellent oversight of Johan Swinnen, has published an edited volume with entries by economists and an historian or two titled The Economics of Beer. In fact, given the global ubiquity of...
Goodall, Jamie L.H.
Military and War
16th Century
17th Century
Europe
Nov 1, 2012
Published by EH.Net (November 2012)
David Parrott, The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. xvii + 429 pp. $28 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-521-73558-2.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Jamie L.H. Goodall, Department of History, Ohio State University.
It is assumed that the Military Revolution debate has been wrestled into submission. However, David Parrott’s new book, The Business of War: Military Enterprise and Military Revolution in Early Modern Europe, reveals that there is still much to be said on the topic. Produced from a series of lectures Parrott (New College, Oxford University) delivered for the Lees...
Hudson, Michael
History of Economic Thought; Methodology
19th Century
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Oct 23, 2012
Published by EH.Net (October 2012)
David Reisman, The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2012. vii + 338 pp. $150 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-85793-218-1.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Michael Hudson, Department of Economics, University of Missouri – Kansas City.
Those who wish to understand the many and deep contributions of Thorstein Veblen to economics will find that this offering falls short of the mark. The title promises to treat the social policy content of Veblen’s economic thought. Describing the ways in which markets were being distorted by predatory finance and other special interests, Veblen was read by every socialist leader and most progressives in early and mid-...
Tymoigne, Eric
Financial Markets, Financial Institutions, and Monetary History
20th Century: Pre WWII
North America
Oct 11, 2012
Published by EH.Net (October 2012)
David L. Hammes, Harvesting Gold: Thomas Edison’s Experiment to Re-Invent American Money. Silver City, NM: Richard Mahler Publications, 2012. vi +154 pp. $13 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-9850667-03.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Eric Tymoigne, Department of Economics, Lewis and Clark College.
Thomas Edison is celebrated for his entrepreneurial creativity and business skills. He is far less known for his contribution to solve monetary problems and this book presents that aspect of Edison’s endeavors. The book is written for readers who have a very limited knowledge of money and banking matters and the style is informal at times. Readers well versed in money matters can skip the first...
Perren, Richard
Transport and Distribution, Energy, and Other Services
Urban and Regional History
19th Century
Europe
Oct 9, 2012
Published by EH.Net (October 2012)
Robyn S. Metcalfe, Meat, Commerce and the City: The London Food Market, 1800-1855. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012. xi + 248 pp. $99 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84893-291-3.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Richard Perren, Department of History, University of Aberdeen.
This book, which is volume 18 in the publisher’s series “Perspectives in Economic History,” has an introduction (pp. 1-10), seven chapters (pp. 11-152) and an epilogue (pp. 153-160). The first chapter describes in vivid detail London’s meat provisioning system, which was centered on the Smithfield livestock market, and those who managed it during the period from 1800 to 1840. Chapter two switches attention to the...
Lipton, Michael
Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extractive Industries
19th Century
20th Century: Pre WWII
20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
General, International, or Comparative
Oct 8, 2012
Published by EH.Net (October 2012)
Jonathan Harwood, Europe's Green Revolution and Others Since: The Rise and Fall of Peasant-Friendly Plant Breeding. Routledge: London, 2012. pp. xviii + 269 pp. $140 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-415-59868-2.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Michael Lipton, Poverty Research Unit, University of Sussex.
This book has three arguments. First, despite good intentions and responsiveness to criticism, the “green revolution” (GR), particularly public-sector plant breeding, has not been very peasant-friendly. Second, its peasant-friendliness depends substantially on the political organization and action of breeders and research institutes (private as well as public) and farmers (big as well as...