Enterprise and Trade in Victorian Britain

The essays in this book focus on the controversies concerning Britain's economic performance between the mid-nineteenth century and the First World War. The overriding theme is that Britain's own resources were consistently more productive, more resilient and more successful than is normally assumed. And if the economy's achievement was considerable, the influence on it of external factors (trade, international competition, policy) were much less significant than is normally supposed. The book is structured as follows: Part One: The Method of Historical Economics Part Two: Enterprise in Late Victorian Britain Part Three: Britain in the World Economy, 1846-1913.

Autorentext

McCloskey, D. N.

Inhalt

PART ONE 1. The Achievements of the Cliometric School 2. Does the Past Have Useful Economics? PART TWO 3. From Damnation to Redemption: Judgments on the Late Victorian Entrepreneur (with Lars G. Sandberg) 4. International Differences in Productivity? Coal and Steel in America and Britain before World War I (with an exchange with David Landes) 5. Did Victorian Britain Fail? 6. Controversies · McCloskey on Victorian Growth: A Comment (by Derek H. Aldcroft) · Victorian Growth: A Rejoinder to Derek Aldcroft · A Counterfactual Dialogue with William Kennedy on Late Victorian Failure or the Lack of It · Victorian Britain Did Fail (by N.F.R. Crafts) · No It Did Not: A Reply to Crafts PART THREE 7. From Dependence to Autonym: Judgments on Trade as an Engine of British Growth 8. Magnanimous Albion: Free Trade and British National Income, 1841-1881 9. Britain's Loss From Foreign Industrialization: A Provisional Estimate 10. How the Gold Standard Worked, 1880-1913 (with J. Richard Zecher)