Category: Economic History

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February News about History and Historians

Historians debate the return of the Elgin Marbles and other artifacts. In History Today.

What the British learned, and didn’t learn, from the U.S. Civil War. On Military History.

Seventy-five years later, the original movie recording of planting the flag on Iwo Jima is missing. In the Washington Post‘s Retropolis.

Historians have paid little attention to Poland’s resistance to Hitler, says Roger Moorhouse in First to Fight: the Poland War 1939 (reviewed in History Today).

What Is the American History for Freedom project and should Congress pass it?

Who was right about Americans—Dickens or Tocqueville?  On Law & Liberty.

A Marxist discusses Marx’s and Engel’s views of slavery (in connection with the New York Times‘ 1619 Project).

Why did some innovations take so long to occur?

American Historical Association tries to bring teaching to the center of the profession, with slow progress. In Inside Higher Ed.

Continue reading “February News about History and Historians”

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He Didn’t Stick to His Knitting*

You probably have heard of Robert Owen. He was a nineteenth-century British political activist (1771-1858) known for his “utopian socialism.“[1] He started communities that eschewed private property, including a colony in New Harmony, Indiana.

In those communities, he said, “the necessaries and comforts of life [will be] enjoyed by all in abundance,” and they “will ever be the abode of abundance, active intelligence, correct conduct, and happiness.”[2]

“Owenite” communities didn’t last for long.

Owen is rightly admired, however. He had a simple philosophy. He believed that all people are the products of both their inherited characteristics and their environment. If the environment is nurturing, they will develop into worthwhile beings, no matter what their economic surroundings. He held this view so strongly that, as a manager, he never punished anyone (except possibly for drunkenness) and was never visibly angry toward people. He knew their circumstances had made them as they were.

Had he stuck with being a businessman, he might have changed the world.

Continue reading “He Didn’t Stick to His Knitting*”

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In the Belly of the Beast

In the mid-1970s, while browsing in the Chicago Public Library, I came across The Rise of the Western World by Douglass North and Robert Thomas. [1] This short book tells a fascinating story of how property rights, trade, and limited government led to prosperity in the West (prosperity that eventually spread around the world).

Since then I’ve read many books about the success of the West and specifically about the Industrial Revolution, which started in England around 1760 and is generally viewed as continuing till 1830. I personally rate the Industrial Revolution as equal in importance to the discovery of agriculture.

So it will come as no surprise that, as a graduate student in history, I am studying the Industrial Revolution. In fact, I am studying labor conditions in the Industrial Revolution. Yes, the labor conditions that Charles Dickens wrote about in his novels Hard Times and Oliver Twist.

On the one hand, the Industrial Revolution was an exciting time. As a British schoolboy supposedly said, “About 1760 a wave of gadgets swept over England.”[2] New inventions, especially in the textile industry, appeared one after another, enormously improving productivity, reducing costs, and launching an age of material success.

On the other hand, labor conditions were tough. The new factories needed workers and  brawn was not required. Women and children could work and monitor the machines—and they did.

Continue reading “In the Belly of the Beast”

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January News about History and Historians

A short history of recycling. By Jane Shaw Stroup on the Environmental Blog.

The Hoover Institution at 100: George Nash discusses its significance.

Mark T. Mitchell reviews  Walk Away, which tells the stories of ten people who left Marxism.  On Law & Liberty.

Robert Paquette explains the views of Eugene Genovese, a historian with Marxist roots and possibly conservative branches. In Chronicles.

Howard Zinn was no historian. On Law & Liberty.

KC Johnson says the New York Times’ 1619 project fails the truth test.

More on the 1619 project from Sean Wilentz in the Atlantic.

Librarian and bookseller plead guilty to stealing $8 million worth of antique books from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Library. In the Washington Post’s Retropolis.

Take a peek at the oldest still-operating business in each state in the U.S. From workandmoney.com.

We’ve had 30 years of misdirected Alzheimer’s research, says Sharon Begley on STAT.

Continue reading “January News about History and Historians”

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The Netherlands Should Get More Respect

While studying European guilds last year, I came across a debate over the “Golden Age” of the Netherlands (1580 to 1680). The issue was whether Dutch guilds were weak or strong.  I wanted to delve into this subject, but doing so would have been futile. I don’t know the Dutch language. The best writing about Dutch guilds in the seventeenth century would be in Dutch.

I suspect that many historians, including economic historians, have experienced this same problem and not given the Dutch the study they deserve.  Historians tend to praise the early muscularity of the Netherlands economy but then dismiss the country as being unimportant in the long run because it missed out on the Industrial Revolution.

This, despite the facts that the country increased its farmland by one-third (from 1300 to 1800) through reclamation from the sea, it had a prosperous economy before any other country,  and it had a sturdy middle class in the age of Rembrandt. But it didn’t have factories until late in the nineteenth century, so it was “backward.” It fell off the charts of history—its high point being 1688, when its stadtholder, William of Orange, became the king of England.

Oh, and it was barely even a country in its Golden Age. Continue reading “The Netherlands Should Get More Respect”