Product Description: The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity...read more

New England's economy has a history as dramatic as any in the world. From an inauspicious beginning--as immigration ground to a halt in the eighteenth century--New England went on to lead the United States in its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy. And when the rest of the country caught up in the mid-twentieth century, New England reinvented itself as a leader in the complex economy of the information society. Engines of Enterprise tells this dramatic story in a sequence of narrative essays written by preeminent historians and economists. These essays chart the changing fortunes of entrepreneurs and venturers, businessmen and inventors, and common folk toiling in fields, in factories, and in air-conditioned offices. The authors describe how, short of staple crops, colonial New Englanders turned to the sea and built an empire; and how the region became the earliest home of the textile industry as commercial fortunes underwrote new industries in the nineteenth century. They show us the region as it grew ahead of the rest of the country and as the rest of the United States caught up. And they trace the transformation of New England's products and exports from cotton textiles and machine tools to such intangible goods as education and software. Concluding short essays also put forward surprising but persuasive arguments--for instance, that slavery, while not prominent in colonial New England, was a critical part of the economy; and that the federal government played a crucial role in the development of the region's industrial skills.

Product Description: This book examines the relationship between elites, minorities, and economic growth. The novelty of the book lies in its focus on the interaction between social and economic changes during economic growth. This is an undeveloped subject because it crosses disciplinary lines...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Essays in History is a collection of papers and articles providing a breathtaking span across the twentieth century and delving into such diverse topics as economic and financial crises in the sixteenth century, retirement reading for bankers, and a first-hand account of the genesis and formation of the Marshall Plan...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Learning by Doing in Markets, Firms, and Countries draws out the underlying economics in business history by focusing on learning processes and the development of competitively valuable asymmetries. The essays show that organizations, like people, learn that this process can be organized more or less effectively, which can have major implications for how competition works.The first three essays in this volume explore techniques firms have used to both manage information to create valuable asymmetries and to otherwise suppress unwelcome competition. The next three focus on the ways in which firms have built special capabilities over time, capabilities that have been both sources of competitive advantage and resistance to new opportunities. The last two extend the notion of learning from the level of firms to that of nations. The collection as a whole builds on the previous two volumes to make the connection between information structure and product market outcomes in business history. (view table of contents)

The European Economy Between the Wars provides an authoritative economic history of Europe in the inter-war period. Placing the Great Depression of 1929-33 and the associated financial crisis at the center of the narrative, the authors comprehensively examine the lead-up to and the consequences of the depression and recovery. The basic approach in this textbook is chronological, and the style is clear and straightforward, accessible to students in a range of disciplines. (view table of contents)

Product Description: From a survey of the growth of income in the United States and its distribution, these analyses of the initial industrialization of North America go on to explore the nature of American slavery, an important institution affecting the US economy in its early years...read more

How do business enterprises control their subunits? In what ways do existing paths of communication within a firm affect its ability to absorb new technology and techniques? How do American banks affect how companies operate? Do theoretical constructs correspond to actual behavior?Because business enterprises are complex institutions, these questions can prove difficult to address. All too often, firms are treated as the atoms of economics, the irreducible unit of analysis. This accessible volume, suitable for course use, looks more closely at the American firm—into its internal workings and its genesis in the Gilded Age. Focusing on the crucial role of imperfect and asymmetric information in the operation of enterprises, Inside the Business Enterprise forges an innovative link between modern economic theory and recent business history.

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Examines the events that led to the breakup of the Bell system and assesses the effect of AT&T divestiture

A history of the federal regulation of the sale and use of medicinal drugs throughout the twentieth century examines the reasons for and impact of Federal Food and Drug Administration

Product Description: "Given the magnitude and importance of this event [the Great Depression], it is surprising how little we know about its causes." ―Peter TeminDid Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? challenges Friedman’s “money hypothesis” and sharply criticizes many features of the Keynesian “spending hypothesis...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

A critical examination of the economic depression of the 1830's, arguing, that forces beyond Jackson's control were responsible for the crises (view table of contents)