Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: scarcity and frontiers
- 2 The Agricultural Transition (from 10,000 BC to 3000 BC)
- 3 The Rise of Cities (from 3000 BC to 1000 AD)
- 4 The Emergence of the World Economy (from 1000 to 1500)
- 5 Global Frontiers and the Rise of Western Europe (from 1500 to 1914)
- 6 The Atlantic Economy Triangular Trade (from 1500 to 1860)
- 7 The Golden Age of Resource-Based Development (from 1870 to 1914)
- 8 The Age of Dislocation (from 1914 to 1950)
- 9 The Contemporary Era (from 1950 to the present)
- 10 Epilogue: the Age of Ecological Scarcity?
- Index
- References
8 - The Age of Dislocation (from 1914 to 1950)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: scarcity and frontiers
- 2 The Agricultural Transition (from 10,000 BC to 3000 BC)
- 3 The Rise of Cities (from 3000 BC to 1000 AD)
- 4 The Emergence of the World Economy (from 1000 to 1500)
- 5 Global Frontiers and the Rise of Western Europe (from 1500 to 1914)
- 6 The Atlantic Economy Triangular Trade (from 1500 to 1860)
- 7 The Golden Age of Resource-Based Development (from 1870 to 1914)
- 8 The Age of Dislocation (from 1914 to 1950)
- 9 The Contemporary Era (from 1950 to the present)
- 10 Epilogue: the Age of Ecological Scarcity?
- Index
- References
Summary
In November 1918 the first world war terminated; in September 1939 the second world war began … It was an age of dislocation and experiment … The dislocation stands out clearly. In all of these twenty-one years there were not more than five, the five which ended the twenties, that men felt to be years of normal prosperity.
(Lewis 1949, pp. 11–12)Introduction
As the above quote indicates, the economist W. A. Lewis dubbed the twenty-one-year period from 1918 to 1939 as the “age of dislocation and experiment.” However, as the Latin American economic historian Rosemary Thorp has suggested, Lewis’s description could easily be extended to 1945 or 1950, and thus also encompasses the three “international shocks” experienced by the world economy: World War I, the Great Depression and World War II.
Certainly, the years 1914 to 1950 witnessed dramatic disruptions to the global economy. As the previous three chapters have suggested, since 1500 the world had embarked on an unprecedented phase of Global Frontier expansion, which reached its apex with the remarkable forty-year “Golden Age” of global resource-based development from 1870 to 1914. But the outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought the latter period of global growth in trade, resource exploitation and new economic opportunities to a close. The ensuing thirty-five-year period, which included the Great Depression and World War II, further added to global economic disruptions during the “Age of Dislocation.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Scarcity and FrontiersHow Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource Exploitation, pp. 463 - 551Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
References
2001 The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical InvestigationAmerican Economic Review 91 1369CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2002 Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income DistributionQuarterly Journal of Economics 117 1231CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1994 Environmental Problems in the Shortage Economy: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental PolicyAldershot, UKEdward ElgarGoogle Scholar
1991 Homesteading and Property Rights; Or ‘How the West Was Really Won.’Journal of Law and Economics 34 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1983 Farm Foreclosures in the United States During the Interwar PeriodJournal of Economic History 43 885CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1975 The Evolution of Property Rights: A Study of the American WestThe Journal of Law and Economics 18 163CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003 Staple Theory and Export-Led Growth: Constructing Differential GrowthAustralian Economic History Review 43 230CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2007 Labour and Land in Ghana, 1874–1939: A Shifting Ratio and an Institutional RevolutionAustralian Economic History Review 47 95CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2008 Resources, Techniques, and Strategies South of the Sahara: Revising the Factor Endowments Perspective on African Economic Development, 1500–2000Economic History Review 61 578CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2007 Night Watchman, Extractive, or Developmental States? Some Evidence from Late Colonial South-east AsiaEconomic History Review 60 241CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2002 A ‘Migration of Despair’: Unemployment, the Search for Work, and Migration to Farms During the Great DepressionSocial Science Quarterly 83 554CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003 A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the PresentNew YorkOxford University PressGoogle Scholar
2007 A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the WorldPrinceton University PressGoogle Scholar
1997 Increasing Returns and the Genesis of American Resource AbundanceIndustrial and Corporate Change 6 203CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1983 Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern HemisphereOxfordClarendon PressGoogle Scholar
1984 Latin America in the 1930s: The Role of the Periphery in World CrisisNew YorkSt. Martin’s PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
1970 The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A HypothesisJournal of Economic History 30 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1997 How Latin America Fell Behind: Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and MexicoStanford University PressGoogle Scholar
1991 The Classical Soviet-Type Economy: Nature of the System and Implications for ReformJournal of Economic Perspectives 5 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003 The Rise and Fall of World Trade, 1870–1939Quarterly Journal of Economics 98 359CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1991 World Energy Production 1800–1995GenevaCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Centre D’Histoire Economique Internationale.Google Scholar
2005 Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800–2000Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
1983 Extensive versus Intensive Agricultural Development: Induced Public Investment in Southeast Asia, 1900–1940Journal of Economic History 43 687CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1988
1999
2007 Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second MillenniumPrinceton University PressGoogle Scholar
2002 American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century: How It Flourished and What It CostCambridge, MAHarvard University PressGoogle Scholar
2003 http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/gardner.agriculture.us
1981 The Impact of War on Russian and Soviet Development 1850–1950World Development 9 793CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2002 Comparing 20th Century Trends in US and Global Agricultural Water and Land UseWater International 27 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1985 Comparative National Balance Sheets: A Study of Twenty Countries, 1688–1978University of Chicago PressGoogle Scholar
1986 The New Geopolitics of Minerals: An Inquiry into the Changing International Significance of Strategic MineralsPolitical Geography Quarterly 5 221CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1979 Colonial Economic Development with Unlimited Supply of Land: A Ricardian CaseEconomic Development and Cultural Change 27 611CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2004 The Allocation of Property Rights to Land: US Land Policy and Farm Failure in the Northern Great PlainsExplorations in Economic History 41 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2004 Small Farms, Externalities, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930sJournal of Political Economy 112 665CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2005 Global Migration and the World Economy: Two Centuries of Policy and PerformanceCambridge, MAMIT PressGoogle Scholar
2007 Globalization, Natural Resources, and Foreign Investment: A View from the Resource-rich TropicsOxford Economic Papers 59 127CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2007 Globalization, Immigration, and Lewisian Elastic Labor in Pre-World War II Southeast AsiaJournal of Economic History 67 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1988 Structural Changes in the Core Regions of the World-Economy, 1830–1945Journal of Historical Geography 14 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1993 World Trade since 1431: Geography, Technology, and CapitalismBaltimore, MDJohns Hopkins University PressGoogle Scholar
2005 The Route to the Techno-Industrial World Economy and the Transfer of German Organic Chemistry to America Before, During, and Immediately After World War IComparative Technology Transfer and Society 3 159CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2003 Explaining America’s Surge in Manufactured Exports, 1880–1913Review of Economics and Statistics 85 364CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1987 The European Miracle: Environments, Economics and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and AsiaCambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
2007 The Engine or the Caboose? Resource Industries and Twentieth-Century Canadian Economic PerformanceJournal of Economic History 67 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1988 The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000New YorkRandom HouseGoogle Scholar
1998 The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are Rich and Some are PoorNew YorkW. W. Norton & CoGoogle Scholar
1954 Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of LabourManchester School of Economic and Social Studies 22 139CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2007 The Assignment of Property Rights on the Western Frontier: Lessons for Contemporary Environmental and Resource PolicyJournal of Economic History 67 257CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1984 Contractual Responses to the Common Pool: Prorationing of Crude Oil ProductionAmerican Economic Review 74 87Google Scholar
1985 The Influence of Private Contractual Failure on Regulation: The Case of Oil Field UnitizationJournal of Political Economy 93 690CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2000 Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckoning in the Old WestNew YorkW. W. Norton & CoGoogle Scholar
1995 The Rule of First Possession and the Design of the LawJournal of Law and Economics 38 393CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1998 Consumption of Materials in the United States, 1900–1995Annual Review of Energy & the Environment 23 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1982 The Great Frontier: Freedom and Hierarchy in Modern TimesPrinceton University PressGoogle Scholar
1998 The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. Vol. III: Transcontinental America 1850–1913New Haven, CTYale University PressGoogle Scholar
2004 The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. Vol. IV: Global America 1915–2000New Haven, CTYale University PressGoogle Scholar
2004 Freight Rates and Productivity Gains in British Tramp Shipping 1869–1950Explorations in Economic History 41 172CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1992 The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership: The Postwar Era in Historical PerspectiveJournal of Economic Literature 30 1931Google Scholar
1997 Intercontinental Trade and the Development of the Third World since the Industrial RevolutionJournal of World History 8 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1999 Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic EconomyCambridge, MAMIT PressGoogle Scholar
1999 Lessons from the Dust Bowl: Dryland Agriculture and Soil Erosion in the United States and South Africa, 1900–1950Environmental History 4 245CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
1950 The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal ProblemsEconomic Bulletin for Latin America 7Google Scholar
1999 Estimating Historical Changes in Global Land Cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992Global Biogeochemical Cycles 13 997CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1996 Rural Electrification and Irrigation in the US High PlainsJournal of Rural Studies 12 311CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1988 World Deforestation in the Twentieth CenturyDurham, NCDuke University Press
1996 ‘Why, Indeed, in America?’ Theory, History, and the Origins of Modern Economic GrowthAmerican Economic Review 86 202Google Scholar
2007 Globalisation, Factor Prices and Poverty in Colonial IndiaAustralian Economic History Review 47 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1962 Land Policy and Its Relation to Agricultural Production and Distribution 1862 to 1933Journal of Economic History 22 445CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1981 Imperial Dictate: The Effect of the Two World Wars on the Indian Coal IndustryWorld Development 9 749CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1950 The Distribution of Gains between Investing and Borrowing CountriesAmerican Economic Review 40 478Google Scholar
2000 Energy in the Twentieth Century: Resources, Conversions, Costs, Uses, and ConsequencesAnnual Review of Energy and the Environment 25 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2006 Transforming the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations and Their ConsequencesOxford University PressGoogle Scholar
1978 The Staples Thesis, Common Property and HomesteadingCanadian Journal of Economics 11 547CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2006 Migration to the Agricultural Frontier and Wealth Accumulation, 1860–1870Explorations in Economic History 43 547CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2006 Book Review Essay: A Boltonian Revival? D. W. Meinig and Upper North American HistoryThe American Review of Canadian Studies329CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1998 On the Costs of Inward-Looking Development: Price Distortions, Growth and Divergence in Latin AmericaJournal of Economic History 58 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1994 Capital Flows to the New World as an Intergenerational TransferJournal of Political Economy 102 348CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1998 Progress, Poverty and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the 20th CenturyBaltimore, MDJohns Hopkins University Press for the InterAmerican Development BankGoogle Scholar
1988
2002 Materials in the Economy – Material Flows, Scarcity, and the EnvironmentDenver, COUS Department of the Interior, US Geological SurveyGoogle Scholar
2003 The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650–1900MontrealMcGill-Queen’s University PressGoogle Scholar
1984 Electricity, Productivity, and Labor Saving: American Manufacturing, 1900–1929Explorations in Economic History 21 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1990 The Origins of American Industrial Success, 1879–1940American Economic Review 80 651Google Scholar