Synopses & Reviews
A galaxy of distinguished international economists and historians pit economic history against the shaky assumptions of the classical economic theory of natural growth. Their explanations consider the factors of technology, entrepreneurialism, and paths to economic growth, but each reflects an ideological wave of explanation that has marked the last two hundred years.
Review
A stimulating and fascinating volume that should be in the library of anyone interested in economic history or technology. John Vincent Nye
Review
A most important book...[It] contains a conspectus of the variety of work that goes into our studies nowadays: biometrics and cliometrics; theory and a review of theory; broad sweeps of generalizations, detailed research on a micro scale, and international comparison; some sociology; and some institutional politics...A rich offering. Journal of Evolutionary Economics
About the Author
Patrice Higonnet is Robert Walton Goelet Professor of French History, Harvard University.David S. Landes is Coolidge Professor of History and Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Harvard University, and the author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.Henry Rosovsky is Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University.
Table of Contents
David S. Landes Introduction: On Technology and Growth
I. Technology
Robert W. Fogel The Conquest of High Mortality and Hunger in Europe and America: Timing and Mechanisms
Paul A. David The Hero and the Herd in Technological History: Reflections on Thomas Edison and the Battle of the Systems
Rudolf Braun The "Docile" Body as an Economic-Industrial Growth Factor
Wolfram Fischer The Choice of Technique: Entrepreneurial Decisions in the Nineteenth-Century European Cotton and Steel Industries
Paul Bairoch The City and Technological Innovation
Joel Mokyr Dear Labor, Cheap Labor, and the Industrial Revolution
II. Entrepreneurialism
Robert C. Allen Entrepreneurship, Total Factor Productivity, and Economic Efficiency: Landes, Solow, and Farrell Thirty Years Later
François Crouzet The Huguenots and the English Financial Revolution
William Lazonick What Happened to the Theory of Economic Development?
Jonathan Hughes Public Sector Entrepreneurship
François Jequier Employment Strategies and Production Structures in the Swiss Watchmaking Industry
Peter Temin Entrepreneurs and Managers
III. Paths of Economic Growth
Jeffrey G. Williamson Did England's Cities Grow Too Fast during the Industrial Revolution?
W. W. Rostow Technology and the Economic Theorist: Past, Present, and Future
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Creating Competitive Capability: Innovation and Investment in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany from the 1870s to World War I
Anne O. Krueger Benefits and Costs of Late Development
Irma Adelman Prometheus Unbound and Developing Countries
Claudia Goldin Marriage Bars: Discrimination against Married Women Workers from the 1920s to the 1950s
Contributors
Index