The study of economic phenomena over time is a well-established and flourishing area of research and study, and this new four-volume collection in the Routledge Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Economics, meets the need for an authoritative, up-to-date, and comprehensive reference work synthesizing the voluminous literature from twentieth-century economic historians. Indeed, the sheer scale of the research output—and the breadth of the field—makes this collection especially welcome. It answers the need for a comprehensive collection of classic and contemporary contributions to facilitate ready access to the most influential and important scholarship from a wide range of theoretical and practical perspectives.
The collection is organized into ten principal parts. Part 1 explores theory and methodology and the role of economic history as either an alternative to mainstream economics, or as a ‘help discipline’. Part 2 gathers the key research on growth in economic history. The third and fourth parts cover the causes and social consequences of the Industrial Revolution, while Part 5 brings together the best and most influential work on the feudal and early modern economy. Part 6 deals with free trade, mercantilism, and imperialism. Part 7 focuses on the Great Depression, while Part 8 collects research on world economic history and the slave economy. The final part collects a fascinating miscellany of crucial issues, including taxation and gender.
Twentieth-Century Economic History is edited by Lars Magnusson, a leading scholar in the field. The collection is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the material in its intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research resource.