Structure and Change in Economic History
Douban
Douglass C. North
Übersicht
In this bold, sweeping study of the development of Western economies, Douglass C. North sets forth a new view of societal change.
At the core of Professor North's investigation is the question of property rights, the arrangements individuals and groups have made through history to deal with the fundamental economic problem of scarce resources.
In six theoretical chapters, Professor North examines the structure of economic systems, outlines an economic theory of the state and the ideologies that undergird various modes of economic organization, and then explores the dynamic forces such as new technologies that cause institutions to adapt in order to survive. With this analytical framework in place, major phases in Western history come under careful reappraisal, from the origins of agriculture and the neolithic revolution through the political economy of the ancient and medieval worlds to the industrial revolution and the economic transformations of the twentieth century.
Structure and Change in Economic History is a work that will reshape many established explanations of the growth of the west.
contents
Contents Preface
ix
Part I • Theory
1
Chapter 1 • The Issues
3
Chapter 2 • An Introduction to the Structure of Economies
13
Chapter 3 • A Neoclassical Theory of the State
20
Chapter 4 • A Framework for Analyzing Economic
Organization in History
33
Chapter 5 • Ideology and the Free Rider Problem
45
Chapter 6 • Structure and Change in Economic History
59
Part II • History
69
Introduction
71
Chapter 7 • The First Economic Revolution
72
Chapter 8 • The Organizational Consequences of the
First Economic Revolution
90
Chapter 9 • Economic Change and Decline in the
Ancient World
113
Chapter 10 • The Rise and Decline of Feudalism
124
-vii-
Chapter 11 • Structure and Change in Early Modern
Europe
143
Chapter 12 • The Industrial Revolution Reconsidered
158
Chapter 13 • The Second Economic Revolution and Its
Consequences
171
Chapter 14 • Structure and Change in the American
Economy, 1789-1914
187
Part III • Theory and History
199
Chapter 15 • A Theory of Institutional Change and the
Economic History of the Western World
201
Bibliography
211
Index
221
