The Early Modern Economy
| Discussion Topics | Documents | Reading |
Discussion Topics and Essay Questions
a) The early modern economy
- How should we describe the economic system at the end of the Middle Ages?
- What were the most significant changes in the European economy between 1500 and 1750?
- Did the early modern period witness the beginning of a ‘global economy’?
- What was the role of the state in the development of the early modern economy?
b) Material culture
- To what extent was early modern Europe a 'consumer society'?
- How did the material culture of social groups differ?
Documents
**NOTE: Some eresources are accessible only on-campus or via off-campus proxies or the athens service**
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The Economy
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Secondary Literature
Selected Key Texts: Early Modern Economy
- T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philipin (eds), The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (1985) (ebook)
- M. Berg (ed.), Markets and Manufacture in Early Industrial Europe (1991), ch. 1 available as scanned extract here
- C. Cipolla, Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy 1000-1700 (1993 edn)
- J. De Vries, The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750 (1976), ch. 4 'The dynamism of trade' available as scanned extract here
- F. Mendels, 'Proto-industrialisation: the First Phase of the Industrialisation Process', Journal of Economic History, 32, no. 1 (1972)
- Jan Luiten van Zanden, 'Early modern economic growth: a survey of the European economy, 1500-1800' in M. Prak (ed.) Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe 1400-1800 (London, 2000), pp. 69-87 (ebook).
- P. Musgrave, The Early Modern European Economy (1999) (ebook)
- S. Ogilvie and M. Cerman (eds), European Proto-Industrialization (1999)
- M. Prak (ed.), Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe 1400-1800 (2000) (ebook)
Selected Key Texts: Material Culture
- M. Ajmar-Wollheim & F. Dennis (eds), At Home in Renaissance Italy (2006)
- J. Brewer and R. Porter, Consumption and the World of Goods (1993), chs. 4, 7, 8
- J. De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (2008) (ebook)
- McKendrick, N., Brewer, J., Plumb, J., (eds.), The Birth of a Consumer Society (1982), scan of the introduction available here.
- J. Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects: The Development of a Consumer Society in Early Modern England (1978)
- D. Roche, A History of Everyday Things: The Birth of Consumption in France, 1600-1800 (2000)
- L. Weatherill, Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660-1760 (2nd ed. 1996) (ebook)
Further reading
a) The early modern European economy
- R. Bonney (ed.), Economic Systems and State Finance (1995)
- “ (ed.), The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe (1999)
- Robert Brenner, 'Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe', Past & Present, 70 (1976) (see also, Aston and Philpin in 'Key texts').
- J. De Vries, European Urbanization 1500-1800 (1984)
- Di Vittorio, Antonio , ed., An Economic History of Europe: From Expansion to Development (London and New York, 2006), Parts 1-4.
- R.S. Duplessis, Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (1997)
- S.R. Epstein, Freedom and Growth: The Rise of States and Markets in Europe, 1300-1750 (2000) (ebook)
- Epstein, S. R., and M. Prak, eds, Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400-1800 (Cambridge, 2008) (ebook)
- K. Honeyman and J. Goodman, 'Women's Work, Gender Conflict, and Labour Markets in Europe, 1500-1900', Economic History Review, 44 (1991), 608-28
- M. Howell, Commerce Before Capitalism in Europe 1300-1600 (2010)
- H. Kamen, The Iron Century: Social Change in Europe (1971)
- P. Kriedte et al, Industrialization before Industrialization: Rural Industry in the Genesis of Capitalism (1981)
- P. Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists, 1500-1800 (1983)
- H.A. Miskimin, The Economy of Later Renaissance Europe (1977) (ebook), chs. 4-5
- Persson, K. G., An Economic History of Europe: Knowledge, Institutions and Growth, 600 to the Present (Cambridge; New York, 2010).
- M. M. Postan,Cambridge Economic History of Europe (multiple vols., 1966-1989), esp. Vol. 4: The Economy of Expanding Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1967) and Vol. 5 The Economic Organization of Early Modern Europe (1977).
- Van Cauwenberghe, H. G., ed., Money, Coins and Commerce: Essays in the Monetary History of Asia and Europe (from Antiquity to Modern Times) (Leuven, 1991).
b) European economies
- C. Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change: England 1500-1700 (1984) (ebook)
- D.C. Coleman, The Economy of England, 1450-1750 (1977)
- N.Z. Davis, 'Strikes and Salvation at Lyon', in her Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975) (ebook)
- R. C. Davis, 'English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700', Economic History Review, vol. 7, no. 2 (1954), 150-66
- C. Friedrichs, ‘Urban politics and urban social structure in Seventeenth-Century Germany’, European History Quarterly (1992)
- De Vries, J., and A. Van Der Woude, The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815 (1997) (ebook)
- R. Hoyle, 'Tenure and the Land Market in Early Modern England: Or, a Late Contribution to the Brenner Debate', Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 43 (1990), 1-20 (see also Brenner and Aston & Philpin texts above)
- I. Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc (1966, English translation 1974), part 1.
- D. Levine and K. Wrightson, The Making of an Industrial Society: Whickham, 1560-1765 (Oxford, 1991).
- R. Mackenney, Tradesmen & Traders: The World of the Guilds in Venice & Europe, c. 1250-c. 1650 (1987)
- M. Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 1500-1850 (Cambridge, 1996) (ebook)
- M. Wiesner, Working Women in Renaissance Germany (1986)
- K. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (2000)
c) The extra-European world and global economy
- Atwell, W. S., ‘Ming China and the Emerging World Economy’, in D. Twitchett and F.W. Mote, eds, The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 8: The Ming Dynasty 1368-1644 (Cambridge 1998), pp. 376-416 (ebook)
- D. Birmingham, Trade and Empire in the Atlantic 1400-1600 (2000) (ebook)
- F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Philip II, vol. I (1973)
- Broadberry, S., and B. Gupta, ‘The Early Modern Great Divergence: Wages, Prices and Economic Development in Europe and Asia, 1550-1800’, Economic History Review 59 (2006), 2-31.
- Chauduri, K. N., Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1990)
- Findlay, R., and K. H. O'Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, 2007) (ebook)
- Gunder Frank, Andre, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley, 1998) (ebook)
- R. Houston, Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History (2001), ch. 4 'Colonies, Enterprises and Wealth' available as scanned extract here
- J. McCusker and K. Morgan (eds), The Early Modern Atlantic Economy (2000) (ebook)
- K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World (Oxford, 2000) (ebook)
- Pomeranz, K., and S. Topik (eds.), The World the Trade Created: Society, Culture and the World Economy, 1400 to Present (Armonk, N.Y., 2006) (ebook).
-
P. Romaniello, 'Trade and the Global Economy' in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750 (2015, ebook)
- Topik, S., C. Marichal and Z. Frank (eds.), From Silver to Cocaine: Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 1500-2000 (Durham, N.C., 2006) (ebook), chs. 1-4.
- I. Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, vol. 1: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth century (1974) (ebook)
- J.L. van Zanden, The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution. The European Economy in a Global Perspective, 1000-1800 (Leiden, 2009) (ebook)
d) Material culture
- S.A.M. Adshead, Material Culture in Europe and China, 1400-1800 (1997)
- M. Berg & H. Clifford (eds), Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe, 1650-1850 (1999)
- Burke, P., ‘Conspicuous consumption in 17th-century Italy’, in Burke, The Historical Anthropology of
early modern Italy (Cambridge, 2005) (digital scan) - Burke, P., Venice and Amsterdam: A Study of Seventeenth-Century Elites (section comparing consumption in both environments).
- F. Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 (1974)
- N. Cooper, ‘Rank, Manners and Display: The Gentlemanly House, 1500-1750’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 12 (2002), 291-310
- J. E. Crowley, ‘The Sensibility of Comfort’, American Historical Review, 104 (1999), 749-82
- N. Harte, ‘The Economics of Clothing in the Late Seventeenth Century’, Textile History, 12 (1991), 277-96
- O. Impey and A. MacGregor (eds), The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe (2001)
- B. Lemire & G. Riello, ‘East and West: Textiles and Fashion in Eurasia in the Early Modern Period’, Journal of Social History, 41 (2008), 887-916
- L. Levy Peck, Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (2005)
- S. Pennell, ‘Consumption and consumerism in early modern England’, Historical Journal, 42:2 (1999), 549-64.
- K. MacHardy, 'Noble identity in early modern Habsburg Austria', Past and Present 163 (1999), 36-75
- N. McKendrick, J. Brewer & J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: the Commercialisation of Eighteenth-Century England (1982)
- K. B. Neuschel, ‘Noble Households in the Sixteenth Century: Material Settings and Human Communities’, French Historical Studies, 15 (1988)
- R. Sarti, Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture, 1500-1800 (2002), chs. 2-4
- S. Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987)
- J. Stobart, ‘Gentlemen and shopkeepers: supplying the country house in eighteenth-century England’, Economic History Review 64 (2011), 885-904
- E. Welch, Shopping in the Renaissance: Consumer cultures in Italy, 1400-1600 (2005), esp. Intro., chs. 1,2,6,8-10.
Module Forum
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E-Resources
Chronology
External Links
- British Museum Collection Online - searchable database of objects and materials held in the British Museum collections
- Diary of a plantation owner - transcriptions from diary and other papers of Robert 'King' Carter of Virginia
- V&A Medieval and Renaissaince Objects - series of articles relating to collections at the Museum
- Historic Prices and Wages - data on historical prices and wages
- Currency database - links to currency information from various different countries
- Early modern world system - collection of documents relating to different aspects of the early modern global economy
- Trade Products in early modern history
- Baltic Connections - collection of documents relating to maritime culture of the countries around the Baltic sea
- Drug Trade - exhibition of early drug jars at Museum of the History of Science
- History of Economics - collection of documents