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A Study in Meteorological and Trade Cycle History: The Economic Crisis Following the Napoleonic Wars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

John D. Post
John D. Post
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
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Extract

The factors regulating the production and distribution of material wealth cannot be reduced exclusively to market relationships. This being the case, the economic historian cannot limit his borrowings to economics alone. The present article uses meteorology both in its theoretical and historical dimensions to show the interaction between economic and meteorological fluctuations. The attempt of W. S. Jevons to find a theoretical connection between solar cycles and trade cycles is well known. Economic historians of preindustrial Europe have identified weather patterns as a primary independent variable determining prosperity or depression. The impact of meteorological fluctuation on economic activity has also been noticed for the nineteenth century, acknowledged by theorist and historian alike as one of the major variables inducing trade cycles. But in these accounts weather patterns are introduced as a run of good or bad luck, affecting essentially regional or national economies.

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Articles
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 315 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1974

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References

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5 This explanation has been reduced to essentials. A long scientific literature on the subject exists. The following citations represent a chronological listing of significant works valuable for historians: Abbot, C. G. and Fowle, F. E., “Volcanoes and Climate,” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, LX, No. 2176 (March 28, 1913), 3–22Google Scholar; Humphreys, William J., “Volcanic Dust and Other Factors in the Production of Climatic Changes and Their Possible Relation to Ice Ages,” Bulletin of the Mount Weather Observatory, VI (1913), 1–34Google Scholar; idem, Physics of the Air (3d. ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1940), pp. 587–618Google Scholar; Wexler, Harry, “Volcanoes and World Climate,” Scientific American, CLXXXVI (April 1952), 74–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lamb, H. H., “Volcanic Dust in the Atmosphere: with a Chronology and an Assessment of its Meteorological Significance,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Ser. A, CCLXVI (1970), 425–533CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Climate, pp. 47–49, 410–35.

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38 For references to support this conclusion see Post, John D., “The Economic Crisis of 1816–1817 and Its Social and Political Consequences” (Unpublished dissertation, Boston University (1969), pp. 44–67Google Scholar, 310–56, 365–418, 434–95. The evidence is found in government documents, the press, scientific journals, formal historical works, contemporary informed observations, agricultural publications, and articles in local scholarly journals.

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