World Economic Primacy: 1500-1990 / Edition 1

by Charles P. Kindleberger

Overview

Charles Kindleberger's World Economic Primacy: 1500-1990 is a work of rare ambition and scope from one of our most respected economic historians. Extending over broad ranges of both history and geography, the work considers what it is that enables countries to achieve, at some period in their history, economic superiority over other countries, and what it is that makes them decline.
Kindleberger begins with the Italian city-states in the fourteenth century, and traces the changing evolution of world economic primacy as it moves to Portugal and Spain, to the Low countries, to Great Britain, and to the United States, addressing the question of alleged U.S. decline. Additional chapters treat France as a perennial challenger, Germany which has twice aggressively sought superiority, and Japan, which may or may not become a candidate for the role of "number one."
Kindleberger suggests that the economic vitality of a given country goes through a trajectory that can usefully (thought not precisely) be compared to a human life cycle. Like human beings, the growth of a state can be cut off by accident or catastrophe short of old age; unlike human beings, however, economies can have a second birth. In World Economic Primacy, Kindleberger takes into account the influence of complex historical, social, and cultural factors that determine economic leadership. A brilliant overview of the position of nations in the world economy, World Economic Primacy conveys profound insights into the causes of the rise and decline of the world's economic powers, past and present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195099027
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/25/1996
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.38(w) x 6.38(h) x 0.94(d)
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)

About the Author

Charles P. Kindleberger is the Ford International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among his many works is A Financial History of Western Europe, Second Edition (Oxford, 1993) and Manias, Panics and Crashes (1989).

Editorial Reviews

"A valuable addition to all libraries."—Choice

"This work, by one of the most learned and erudite economists of our time, deals with a most timely topic, economic leadership. It is based on a long life of learning, analysis and thought about the kind of economic matters that truly matter: which countries became the world's economic and technological leaders, why did they do so, and why did such leadership inevitably prove ephemeral. A dazzling survey of world economic history, it should be made mandatory reading to all economists concerned with economic growth."—Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University

"Mix vast knowledge and experience with important ideas and concepts and you have vintage Kindleberger—this time giving us his penetrating analysis of the rise and fall of dominant economies. As always from him, documentation is meticulous and the writing is clear, pungent and spiced with wit. A wonderfully stimulating read."—George P. Shultz, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

"Vintage Kindleberger—witty, wise, and provocative."—Rondo Cameron, Emory University

"His hallmark is a frank and open personal engagement with his sources and his subjects, unflagging energy in pursuit of his many topics, and a vivacious style. The combination has made for enthralling teaching for his students and colleagues—and for the readers of his intelligent, relevant, entertaining and sometimes opinionated books, of which this study is the latest of a long and notable series."—William N. Parker, Yale University (emeritus)

"...One is not able to do justice to the subtlety and complexity of Kindleberger's arguments, or to the clarity and concision with which they are expressed."—The Historian

"..this volume may serve as a convenient handbook of much recent scholarship on the subject....Kindleberger deserves the gratitude of scholars for an insightful overview of an important question."—American Historical Review

"...this work is a pleasure to read. It is an educated, provocative study that any economist interested in economic growth and decline should consult."—Journal of Economic Literature

From the Publisher