A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present

Citation

Neal, L., & Cameron, R. (2016). A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present (5th ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The fifth edition has sixteen chapters, preceded by lists of figures and tables and a preface and followed by an annotated bibliography and an index, and runs to roughly 480 to 500 pages depending on the listing. Oxford University Press describes it as a broad sweep of economic history from prehistoric times to the present, "even more global in scope" in this edition, examining the continuing effects of globalization on both past civilizations and today's global economy, and illustrated with maps, charts and a fully updated annotated bibliography.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Economic History and the Global Economy

The opening chapter introduces economic history and the global economy as the frame for the book.

Chapters 2–4: Economic Development in Ancient Times; Economic Development in Medieval Eurasia; Economic Response to the Medieval Crisis

Three chapters cover the long period before the early modern world: development in the ancient world, development across medieval Eurasia, and the economic response to a medieval crisis.

Chapters 5–6: Europe's Recovery and Discovery of the Rest of the World; Economic Nationalism and Imperialism

The next two chapters follow Europe's recovery and its encounter with other regions, and then the rise of economic nationalism and imperialism.

Chapters 7–10: The Dawn of Modern Industry; The Global Economy Confronts British Capitalism; Institutions Adjust (or not) to Modern Economic Growth; European Economies Adjust (or not) to Modern Economic Growth

These four chapters concern the onset of modern industry, the reaction of the wider world economy to British capitalism, and how institutions and European economies adjusted, or failed to adjust, to modern economic growth. The "(or not)" in two titles signals that adjustment was uneven.

Chapters 11–13: The Growth of the World Economy, 1848–1914; The Spread of Development in Europe, 1848–1914; The Spread of Development Beyond Europe, 1848–1914

Three chapters cover the same period, 1848 to 1914, from three angles: the world economy as a whole, the spread of development within Europe, and its spread beyond Europe.

Chapters 14–16: International Economic Disintegration, 1914–1945; Rebuilding the World Economy, 1945–1989; Overview of the World Economy, 1914–2014

The last three chapters take up the breakdown of the international economy between 1914 and 1945, its rebuilding after the Second World War, and a closing overview of the world economy over the period to 2014 as the listing gives it.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Premodern Economies (Chapters 1–4)

• Economic history and the global economy: the frame within which long-run change is examined.
• Economic development in ancient and medieval societies: patterns of growth and setback before industrial times.

Early Modern Expansion (Chapters 5–6)

• Europe's recovery and discovery of the rest of the world: the expansion of European economic contact with other regions.
• Economic nationalism and imperialism: state policies and empire as forces shaping the world economy.

Industrialisation and Adjustment (Chapters 7–13)

• Modern industry: the emergence of industrial production and its confrontation with the wider world economy.
• Institutional adjustment: how institutions and economies change, or fail to change, to meet modern economic growth.
• Spread of development: the diffusion of growth within Europe and beyond it from 1848 to 1914.

The Twentieth Century (Chapters 14–16)

• International economic disintegration: the breakdown of the world economy between the wars.
• Rebuilding the world economy: reconstruction and growth after 1945.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Very wide span in one volume. The contents list takes the reader from ancient economies to the world economy of the early twenty-first century in sixteen chapters, which makes the book a single route through the whole subject.
• A global frame. The publisher emphasises that this edition is more global in scope, and chapter titles such as those on Eurasia, the global economy confronting British capitalism and the spread of development beyond Europe bear this out.
• Reader aids. The publisher lists illustrations, maps, charts and a fully updated annotated bibliography, which gives students a starting point for further reading.
• Accessible to undergraduates. A testimonial in the publisher's marketing copy from Giulio Gallarotti of Wesleyan University describes the book as very well written and accessible to advanced students from the sophomore year upward.

Limitations

• A concise survey. Covering the span from the Paleolithic to the present in sixteen chapters leaves each period with limited depth, and readers who want detailed argument on any one period or region will need specialised literature.
• Europe and Britain feature heavily in the titles. Several chapter titles centre on Europe or British capitalism, so the contents list suggests that the history of other regions is concentrated in fewer chapters than that of Europe.
• Overlapping periods in the later chapters. The final overview is listed as covering 1914 to 2014, overlapping the two chapters before it, so the last three chapters are better read as period accounts followed by a synthesis than as a strict chronology.

Where It Fits in the Course

Neal and Cameron is the chronological single-volume survey in the economic history list, and a sensible first book. Joerg Baten's edited A History of the Global Economy: 1500 to the Present is organised by world region rather than by period and draws on current quantitative research on growth, living standards, human capital and inequality; it is the natural second book for the period after 1500.

Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin's How the World Became Rich is an accessible survey that weighs the main explanations for the onset of sustained growth, including geography, institutions, culture, demography and colonialism, and fits alongside Neal and Cameron's chapters on Europe's rise and the spread of development. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson's Why Nations Fail argues that political and economic institutions explain differences in prosperity, and Douglass North's Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance is a book-length statement of the institutional approach; both connect with the chapters on institutional adjustment. Acemoglu and Robinson's Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy is a research monograph, the least suitable of these for a first pass.

How to Use This Book

The book is addressed to undergraduate and graduate students of general economic history, the history of globalization and world development. The publisher lists no prerequisites; a principles-level economics course is a sensible base, and familiarity with basic concepts such as productivity helps in the chapters on industrialisation and growth.

A practical plan:

• Whole survey: Read the chapters in order, starting with Chapter 1 for the framing.
• Shorter route: Chapters 1 to 4 for the premodern background; Chapters 5 to 10 for Europe's rise and industrialisation; Chapters 11 to 13 for the nineteenth-century world economy.
• Twentieth century: Chapters 14 and 15, then the closing overview of Chapter 16.
• Going deeper: Use the annotated bibliography to pick readings on a period or region, and pair Chapters 9 and 10 with a book on institutions, or Chapters 5 to 10 with a thematic account of why growth began.

Use the maps, charts and tables to compare regions and periods, and note how Chapters 11 to 13, which cover the same dates from three angles, fit together.