An Economic History of Europe: Knowledge, Institutions and Growth, 600 to the Present

by Karl Gunnar Persson

This concise and accessible introduction to European economic history focusses on the interplay between the development of institutions and the generation and diffusion of knowledge-based technologies. The author challenges the view that European economic history before the Industrial Revolution was constrained by population growth outstripping available resources. He argues instead that the limiting factor was the knowledge needed for technological progress but also that Europe was unique in developing a scientific culture and institutions which were the basis for the unprecedented technological progress and economic growth of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Simple explanatory concepts are used to explain growth and stagnation as well as the convergence of income over time whilst text boxes, figures, an extensive glossary and online exercises enable students to develop a comprehensive understanding of the subject. This is the only textbook students will need to understand Europe's unique economic development and its global context.

Genres: History, Economics, Nonfiction

271 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2010

Reviews

[Teo_52 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impegnativo, complicato senza dubbio, ma comunque tutti i concetti sono spiegati con la necessaria chiarezza. Molto utile il glossario finale. Un po' troppi refusi nell'edizione. Interessante.

[patrizia · Rating 3 out of 5]

l'economia è inventata

[Senja]

Vihdoin tämä on takana

[Timothy Chklovski · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has two strengths, those of perspective and style:
- it inculcates the emphasis on the long term, putting many modern concerns in historical perspective. For instance, recent developments in financial instruments, even including cryptocurrency, fit the long-term trajectory of convenient and trustworthy instruments of exchange and store of value (as discussed in Chapter 7).

- it is written in a lively, pedagogically effective style -- it poses questions (for instance, why did farming initially take the form of small, mixed land plots), and then provides some insights and data which can be helpful in gaining insight.

I got the most out of chapters 1-6 of this book, roughly the first half. The second half still provided occasional insights but had fewer broadly applicable lessons, and more to do with both more recent politics of Europe and general trends such as income inequality and globalization.

Overall, of particular interest were two aspects:
1. observations about networks for spreading innovation and trust in financial transactions (and their power to explain how trade dominance unfolded and "moats" were formed around networks of merchants who could enforce trust and transmit information well)

2. slow and uneven nature of industrial revolution, and the role of positive feedback in it -- eg emergence of the steam engine as a broadly useful tool took many decades, with its initial market being to pump out water from coal mines, where even its most inefficient early versions could compete with other energy sources due to abundance and proximity of coal/fuel for the engines.

I feel this book can be of value to someone aiming to be better at business analysis, since it's lessons and two strengths transfer well to that are from the books area of focus -- economic history.
I also recommend it since it brings the subject of economic history to life, shedding light on why things are the way they are, and how they might have been.

[Stephen Lockett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it interesting to view the history of Europe from a different paradigm. Rather than the usual battles, wars and political and military heroes we get land ownership, population growths, gold and silver coinage and the evolution of paper money, an interesting chapter on how and why banking developed, and how the performance of communist economies compared with free market and mixed economies. Although I studied A level economics I didn’t feel the reader need an economic background to appreciate this book.

[Thiago Lima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. It may be a little bit of work to digest for absolute beginners in Economics, but it is very concise, straight to the important points.
Could have been a little less technical about the technical improvements in the industrial revolution and I wish it would have expanded a bit more into the socialist experiences and the importance of monetary policy, exchange and interest rates and inflation, but I firmly recommend it to everyone who wishes to understand why Europe is developed, especially people with just a basic understanding of economics

[Zachary Rudolph · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The maximum inequality possible for a sustainable society from a purely nutritional point of view must permit the population to have at least a subsistence income, which implies that the maximum Gini coefficient in the Roman Empire was around 0.55 and that of a modern rich economy in Europe or North America will be around 0.97 to 0.98.”

[Mark Isaak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting a history in terms of economics, but the book is really an economics book which uses history to illustrate important points. And it does so effectively, for the most part. It is not an easy read, but it is not an easy topic, either. But it has the advantage of being concise. Some of the graphs are hard to read simply because one set of dashes looks a lot like another.

[Gabriel Abu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best

[Nat]

Cries in university required reading😣

[Henri Tournyol du Clos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gem of a book, rationally focusing on some of the most important factors of Europe's economic history, exposing them clearly and ignoring the noisy and meaningless details that plague most of the literature on the subject. It is especially great on demographics and on growth, good on trade, but lightweight on banking and quite deficient on finance, on risk, and on government. It also unfortunately suffers from some sloppy editing, with several graphs mislabelled.

Warning: without a prior knowledge of basic economic theory, you will probably be disoriented by the book's non chronological structure. This may be an introduction to Europe's economic history, but it is not per se an introduction to economic reasoning, although the late author did try hard to provide and develop some elements here and there.

[Dieu-Hoa Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not too tough to read it even for a newbie like me. Not thoughtful analysis, it is right for a course 101 in international economics history