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Agenda for Early Modern Economic History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Harry A. Miskimin
Harry A. Miskimin
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

It is graceless, perhaps, to begin by quarrelling with the program committee in my initial remarks, but I must plead that the assignment itself—to propose an agenda for early modern economic history—provides a mandate for such seemingly uncouth behavior. The controversial issue, of course, is the periodization of economic history into the traditional Middle Ages (pre-1500) and the Early Modern Period (post-1500). The division has never been sharp in political or intellectual history, but it is even less meaningful in economic history—there is no single, dramatic, economic event, no ninety-five theses, to establish a break—and the intellectual consequences of the division at 1500 have often been pernicious. When specialists of the early modern period assert nascent capitalism, medievalists point to thirteenth century Italy. When early modernists lay their claims to discovery and colonization, medievalists point first to the early eastern Mediterranean colonies of the Italian city-states and then to the Atlantic explorations of Spain and Portugal, begun in the fourteenth century. If rapid early modern economic growth is the issue, the medievalist will again cry foul and recall that growth was, at least in part, merely the inevitable recovery from the economic collapse of the later middle ages.

Type
Economic History: Retrospect and Prospect. Papers Presented at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 172 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

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References

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For a general discussion of the entire theory see also: Hansen, A., Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949).Google Scholar