A Farewell to Alms : A Brief Economic History of the World / Gregory Clark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clark, Gregory, 1957- author.

Series:

Princeton economic history of the Western world.

The Princeton Economic History of the Western World ; 25

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (433 p.)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2008]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, A Farewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: The Sixteen-Page Economic History of the World

PART I The Malthusian Trap: Economic Life to 1800

2. The Logic of the Malthusian Economy

3. Living Standards

4. Fertility

5. Life Expectancy

6. Malthus and Darwin: Survival of the Richest

7. Technological Advance

8. Institutions and Growth

9. The Emergence of Modern Man

PART II The Industrial Revolution

10. Modern Growth: The Wealth of Nations

11. The Puzzle of the Industrial Revolution

12. The Industrial Revolution in England

13. Why England? Why Not China, India, or Japan?

14. Social Consequences

PART III The Great Divergence

15. World Growth since 1800

16. The Proximate Sources of Divergence

17. Why Isn't the Whole World Developed?

18. Conclusion: Strange New World

Technical Appendix

References

Index

Figure Credits

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 383-407) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9786612458309

9781282458307

1282458302

9781400827817

1400827817

OCLC:

608624659