Excerpt from The Economic Interpretation of History, Vol. 2: Lectures Delivered in Worcester College Hall, Oxford, 1887-8 Gregory King's law - The foundation of the laws regulating prices Causes which depress and raise prices - The scarcity or plenty of gold and silver - Lessened cost of production - Lessened cost of freight - The produce of silver in England - Foreign silver and gold procured by trade - The efiect of plagues on prices - The younger son and the civil wa/r - The literature of the seventeenth centu/ry - Shakspere and Dryden - The inventions of the eighteenth centu/ry - The authors of the new agriculture, and Arthur Young The services of Sir John Sinclair to Scottish agriculture - High prices cannot of themselves recover high rents. When I was drawing up the list of lectures which I purposed to give in the present term, I very much hesitated before I concluded to put down that which forms my subject to-day. The range of the subject is very great, the facts are very copious and very intricate, the subject from the historical point of view is as yet so utterly unknown, and the evidence is so remote and so near, that I might well despair of giving you a clear and connected outline of the elements from which to make economical inductions and historical interpretations. But, on the other hand, the topic is of such great and general importance, the issues which it raises are of such pro found Significance, the interests of which it treats are so varied and so vital, and the future which it seeks to penetrate by the evidence of the past is so immediate, so full of menace and withal so obscure, that if I am able to throw any light on the situation, I Should be lacking in that courage which one who has special knowledge ought to show, if he thinks he can elucidate a grave250 historical effects OF high and low prices. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

American economic history describes the transition of a handful of struggling settlements on the Atlantic seaboard into the nation with the most successful economy in the world today. As the economy has developed, so have the methods used by economic historians to analyze the process. Interest in economic history has sharply increased in recent years among the public, policy-makers, and in the academy. The current economic turmoil, calling forth comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s, is in part responsible for the surge in interest among the public and in policy circles. It has also stimulated greater scholarly research into past financial crises, the multiplier effects of fiscal and monetary policy, the dynamics of the housing market, and international economic cooperation and conflict. Other pressing policy issues--including the impending retirement of the Baby-Boom generation, the ongoing expansion of the healthcare sector, and the environmental challenges imposed by global climate change--have further increased demand for the long-run perspective given by economic history. Confronting this need, The Oxford Handbook of American Economic History affords access to the latest research on the crucial events, themes, and legacies of America's economic history--from colonial America, to the Civil War,up to present day. More than fifty contributors address topics as wide-ranging as immigration, agriculture, and urbanization. Over its two volumes, this handbook gives readers not only a comprhensive look at where the field of American economic history currently stands but where it is headed in the years to come.

The economic analysis of Roman law has enormous potential to illuminate the origins of Roman legal institutions in response to changes in the economic activities that they regulated. These two volumes combine approaches from legal history and economic history with methods borrowed from economics to offer a new interdisciplinary approach.

The second volume of The Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World explores the development of modern economic growth from 1870 to the present. Leading experts in economic history offer a series of regional studies from around the world, as well as thematic analyses of key factors governing the differential outcomes in different parts of the global economy. Topics covered include human capital, capital and technology, geography and institutions, living standards and inequality, trade and immigration, international finance, and warfare and empire.