Barriers to Growth: English Economic Development from the Norman Conquest to Industrialisation

by Eric L. Jones

Overview

This book deals sequentially with major impediments to economic growth and their slow dissolution. It is original and quite different from standard economic history, which has always sought for one prime mover of the industrial revolution after another. These supposed positive forces are usually depicted as novel and little reference is made to inertia. Instead the barriers dealt with here run, in the first section, from early misallocations of resources to nineteenth-century reforms which of their nature indicate the problems to be overcome. The second section deals with more physical impediments and shocks, such as floods and settlement fires. These too are ignored in ordinary treatments, which this book will supplement or even replace. It will be of interest to academic economic historians and practitioners of neighbouring subjects such as economists, historians, historical geographers, and of course their students.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030442743
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	04/04/2020
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Economic History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	516 KB

About the Author

Eric L. Jones is Senior Fellow at the University of Buckingham, UK.

Table of Contents

Part One. The Erosion of Obstacles.- 1.Barriers and Push Forces.- 2. Military and Ecclesiastical Buildings.- 3. Dissolution of the Monasteries.- 4. Civil War.- 5. Communal Farming and Under-used Land.- 6. Tithes.- 7. Archaic Institutions.- 8. Obstructive Infrastructure.- 9. Maladministration.- Part Two. Coping with Shocks.- 10. Disease.- 11. Insults to agriculture.- 12. Storms and adverse seasons.- 13. Floods.- 14. Fires.- Conclusions.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Jones’s thesis is that the cumulative growth of national wealth over six centuries after the Norman conquest cannot alone be explained by innovations in production. Overcoming obstacles and dealing with shocks was as important in shaping economic development. Barriers to Growth asks us to look again at the historical record, to focus on themes which have received little attention or only specialised interest. A revised framework for interpretation emerges when the themes are woven into standard historical explanations.”

—Patrick Dillon, Emeritus Professor, College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter

“This book sees modern economic growth as a removal of institutional and environment barriers that held it back before the Industrial Revolution and which were gradually and unevenly relaxed at some point in the Age of Enlightenment and after. The barriers to growth before the Industrial Revolution were inertia and resistance; above all these had to be overcome. This is a work not just of erudition but of wisdom.”

—Joel Mokyr, Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University

‘… a highly original and thought-provoking perspective on a major topic of debate for economic history. It challenges the existing debate by broadening its focus, drawing into the heart of the argument a welter of subtle changes that slowly transformed how markets and the flow of capital altered during the two or three centuries before the so-called take-off of the English economy”

—Robert Dodgshon, Emeritus Professor, Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University

Editorial Reviews

This is a stimulating, enlightening, engaging, wise and learned book, packed with common sense and sharp analysis, and characterised by a lucid writing style gloriously free from jargon. Jones is a leading scholar at the top of his game, and provides a new perspective and a framework for analysing economic growth that will advance one of the great debates in economic history.” (Mark Bailey, EH Net, eh.net, August, 2022)

From the Publisher