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Agenda for European Economic History in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Richard Tilly  and
Charles Tilly
Richard Tilly
Affiliation:
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
Charles Tilly
Affiliation:
University of Michigan and Institute for Advanced Study
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Extract

Economists and historians have raked over the economic experience of Europe like a family ransacking the town dump for a diamond ring inadvertently dropped into the trash. Now and then they run hurriedly over the whole field. Most of the time they are digging deep in one corner or rushing anxiously from one spot to another, picking up the objects they find there, examining them closely and then discarding them. The results are a junk collector's delight. But they do not necessarily include any diamonds.

Type
Economic History: Retrospect and Prospect. Papers Presented at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 184 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

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References

1 These authors, to be sure, advance different reasons for assigning the Industrial Revolution that importance. Cf. Landes, David, The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 1, 3Google Scholar; Dobb, Maurice, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, Rev. Ed. (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1963), pp. 260–1Google Scholar; Rostow, W. W., editor, The Economics of the Take-Off into Self-Sustained Growth (London: Macmillan, 1963), p. xvii.Google Scholar

2 We have lifted the term (and some if its supporting arguments) from the work of Mendels, Franklin: “Industrialization and Population Pressure in 18th-Century Flanders” (Unpublished Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1969)Google Scholar; “Recent Research in European Historical Demography,” American Historical Review, LXXV (1970), p. 1071Google Scholar; “Population Pressure and Rural Industrialization in a Pre-Industrial Society,” International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (London, 1969)Google Scholar. But Mendels is not responsible for our interpretation of protoindustrialization. Of course, the literature on rural industry is a good deal broader. In fact, it is the work already done which suggests the promise of further returns. Cf. Braun, Rudolf, Industrialisierung und Volksleben: die Veränderungen der Lebensformen in einem ländlichen Industriegebeit vor 1800 (Zürich: E. Rentsch, 1960)Google Scholar; Braun, Rudolph, Sozialer und kultureller Wandel in einem ländlichen Industriegebiet (Zürcher Oberland) unter Einwirkung des Maschinen- und Fabrikwesens im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Erlenbach-Zürich: E. Rentsch, 1965)Google Scholar; Thirsk, Joan, “Industries in the Countryside,” Fisher, F. J., editor, Essays in the Economic and Social History of Tudor and Stuart England (In Honor of R. H. Tawney), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Jones, Eric, “The Agricultural Origins of Industry,” Past & Present, XL (1968), pp. 58–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kisch, Herbert, “The Textile Industries in Silesia and the Rhineland: A Comparative Study in Industrialization,” The Journal of Economic History, XIX (1959)Google Scholar; also Prussian Mercantilism and the Rise of the Krefeld Silk Industry. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. (Philadelphia, 1968)Google Scholar; and “Growth Deterrents of a Medieval Heritage: The Aachen-Area Woolen Trades before 1970,” The Journal of Economic History XXIV (1964); also the contributions by J. D. Chambers (“The Rural Domestic Industries …”), Hermann Kellenbenz (“Ländliches Gewerbe …”), Josephy Petran (A propos de la formation …”) and for some interesting hints on English interregional specialization possibly related to rural industry's growth, also Ôtsuka, Hisao (“The Market Structure of Rural Industry …”) in Second International Conference of Economic History, Aix-en-Provence, 1962 (Paris: Mouton, 1965)Google Scholar. On that last theme in addition Everitt, Alan, “The Food Market of the English Towns 1660–1760,” Contributions. Third International Conference of Economic History. Munich (Paris: Mouton, 1968)Google Scholar.

3 For the Malthusian problem see Mendels, as cited in previous note.

4 For summaries, see Mendels, op. cit.; Hollingsworth, T. H., Historical Demography (London: The Sources of History Limited, 1969)Google Scholar; Wrigley, E. A., Population and History (New York: McGraw Hill, 1969)Google Scholar; Guillaume, Pierre and Poussou, Jean-Pierre, Démographie historique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1970Google Scholar; Collection “U”); Reinhard, Marcel, Armengaud, André and Dupâquier, Jacques, Histoire générale de la population mondiale (Paris: Montchrestien, 1968)Google Scholar; Henry, Louis, “Historical Demography,” Daedalus (Spring 1968), pp. 385–396Google Scholar, and other articles in the same issue; Drake, Michael, Population and Society in Norway, 1735–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969)Google Scholar. Examples of the work of Krause and Desprez are Krause, John T., “Some Aspects of Population Change, 1690–1790,” in Jones, E. L. and Mingay, G. E., editors, Land, Labour and Population in the Industrial Revolution: Essays Presented to J. D. Chambers (London: Edward Arnold, 1967), pp. 187–205Google Scholar, and Desprez, Paul, “The Demographic Development of Flanders in the Eighteenth Century,” in Eversley, D. E. C. and Glass, D. V., editors, Population in History (London: Edward Arnold, 1965), pp. 608–631.Google Scholar

5 Only a few of the relevant studies can be cited here: Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (London: Victor Gollancz, 1965)Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, E., Laboring Men (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964)Google Scholar; Pollard, S., The Genesis of Modern Management (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Pollard, S., “Factory Discipline in the Industrial Revolution,” Economic History Review, 2d Series, XVI (1963)Google Scholar; Smelser, N., Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959)Google Scholar; Briggs, A., editor, Chartist Studies (1959)Google Scholar.

6 Pollard, Genesis of Modem Management, pp. 207–8.

7 For the economic significance of time-use see Georgescu-Roegen, N., “The Economics of Production,” American Economic Review. Papers & Proceedings, 1–9 (May, 1970)Google Scholar; for the social implications, especially Thompson, E.P., “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” Past & Present, XXXVIII (1967), especially p. 78Google Scholar; also Thomas, K. “Work and Leisure in Pre-industrial Society,” Past & Present, XXXV (1964).Google Scholar

8 In addition to sources mentioned in note 5, see: Rudé, George, Paris and London in the 18th Century (London: Collins, 1970)Google Scholar; Rudé, G. and Hobsbawm, E., Captain Swing (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1969)Google Scholar; Peacock, A. J., Bread or Blood (1965)Google Scholar; C. Tilly, “Collective Violence in European Perspective,” and Roberts, B. C., “On the Origins and Resolution of English Working-Class Protest,” in Graham, H. and Gurr, T., editors, The History of Violence in America (New York-Toronto-London: Bantam Books, 1969)Google Scholar. Cobb, Richard, The Police and the People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Ward, J. T., editor, Popular Movements, c. 1830–1850 (London: Macmillan, 1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For recent reviews of the literature, see Cornelius, Wayne A. Jr., “The Political Sociology of Cityward Migration in Latin America: Toward Empirical Theory,” forthcoming in Rabinowitz, Francine F. and Trueblood, Felicity M., editors, Latin American Urban Annual (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications)Google Scholar; Nelson, Joan, “The Urban Poor: Disruption or Political Integration in Third World Cities?” World Politics, 22 (April, 1970), pp. 393–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson, Joan, Migrants, Urban Poverty and Instability in New Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Center for International Affairs, 1969Google Scholar; Occasional Paper No. 22), and Bienen, Henry, Violence and Social Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968)Google Scholar. Some of our own work on the subject appears in Tilly, Charles and Brown, C. Harold, “On Uprooting, Kinship and the Auspices of Migration,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 8 (1967), pp. 139–164CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tilly, Charles, “The Changing Place of Collective Violence,” in Richter, Melvin, editor, Essays in Theory and History: An Approach to the Social Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 139–164Google Scholar; Richard Tilly, “Popular Disorders in Nineteenth Century Germany: A Preliminary Survey,” forthcoming in the Journal of Social History.

10 Stephen Hymer's discussion of imperialism as a problem for economists makes the point trenchantly: “The comfortable assumption that one can concentrate on economic relations and leave the analysis of power to other disciplines is not tenable when one admits, as who could deny, the crucial role of the state in shaping the economy through its policies on infrastructure, education, production, etc. The cost of ignoring political factors in these circumstances is an inability to make policy recommendations.” American Economic Review. Papers and Proceedings, Dec. 1969 (May 1970), p. 245.

11 In the history of German economic development, for example, one can contrast the negative association between state intervention and economic progress of the 18th century with the positive and widening impact of state intervention in the second half of the 19th century. On the former, see Kisch, “Prussian Mercantilism,” cited in note 2, and Tilly, R., “Soil und Haben: Recent German Economic History and the Problem of Economic Development,” The Journal of Economic History, XXIX (1969), pp. 304–7Google Scholar; on the latter, Kocka, J., Unternehmensverwatiung und Angestelltenshaft am Beispiel Siemens. 1847–1914 (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag, 1969)Google Scholar.

12 Lévy-Leboyer, M., Les banques europiéennes et l'industrialisation Internationale dans la premiére moitié du XIXe siécle (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1964), p. 178 ff.Google Scholar

13 Lévy-Leboyer's book, cited in the previous note, does consider all three possibilities, but seems to conclude that British expansion outside of Europe assumed already by the 1830's the importance for Continental countries which Berrick Saul demonstrated to be the case, 1870–1913. François Crouzet observes that English control of light export markets forced European producers to depend on domestic markets. Saul, S. B., Studies in British Overseas Trade (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Crouzet, F., “Wars, Blockade, and Economic Change in Europe, 1792–1815,” The Journal of Economic History, XXIV (1964)Google Scholar, but see also R. Tilly, “Comment,” in same issue. And in another context, Crouzet, “Essai de construction d'un indice annuel de la production française au XIXe siècle.” Annales (Jan.-Feb. 1970), especially p. 85; M. Kutz gives evidence of English demand for German exports, 1790–1834: “Die Deutsch-britischen Handelsbeziehungen von 1790 bis zur Grundung des Zollvereins,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (September 1969).

14 Economic historians have contributed relatively little to the imperialism discussion in recent years. Landes', Unbound Prometheus, e.g., devotes about two of its more than 550 pages to this theme. On the whole, the question has been left to political historians. For an excellent summary of the problem (with valuable bibliography) see Wehler, H.-U., Bismarck und der Imperialisms (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1969).Google Scholar