Author: Regina Grafe
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691144842
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Spain's development from a premodern society into a modern unified nation-state with an integrated economy was painfully slow and varied widely by region. Economic historians have long argued that high internal transportation costs limited domestic market integration, while at the same time the Castilian capital city of Madrid drew resources from surrounding Spanish regions as it pursued its quest for centralization. According to this view, powerful Madrid thwarted trade over large geographic distances by destroying an integrated network of manufacturing towns in the Spanish interior. Challenging this long-held view, Regina Grafe argues that decentralization, not a strong and powerful Madrid, is to blame for Spain's slow march to modernity. Through a groundbreaking analysis of the market for bacalao--dried and salted codfish that was a transatlantic commodity and staple food during this period--Grafe shows how peripheral historic territories and powerful interior towns obstructed Spain's economic development through jurisdictional obstacles to trade, which exacerbated already high transport costs. She reveals how the early phases of globalization made these regions much more externally focused, and how coastal elites that were engaged in trade outside Spain sought to sustain their positions of power in relation to Madrid. Distant Tyranny offers a needed reassessment of the haphazard and regionally diverse process of state formation and market integration in early modern Spain, showing how local and regional agency paradoxically led to legitimate governance but economic backwardness.
Distant Tyranny
Author: Regina Grafe
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691144842
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Spain's development from a premodern society into a modern unified nation-state with an integrated economy was painfully slow and varied widely by region. Economic historians have long argued that high internal transportation costs limited domestic market integration, while at the same time the Castilian capital city of Madrid drew resources from surrounding Spanish regions as it pursued its quest for centralization. According to this view, powerful Madrid thwarted trade over large geographic distances by destroying an integrated network of manufacturing towns in the Spanish interior. Challenging this long-held view, Regina Grafe argues that decentralization, not a strong and powerful Madrid, is to blame for Spain's slow march to modernity. Through a groundbreaking analysis of the market for bacalao--dried and salted codfish that was a transatlantic commodity and staple food during this period--Grafe shows how peripheral historic territories and powerful interior towns obstructed Spain's economic development through jurisdictional obstacles to trade, which exacerbated already high transport costs. She reveals how the early phases of globalization made these regions much more externally focused, and how coastal elites that were engaged in trade outside Spain sought to sustain their positions of power in relation to Madrid. Distant Tyranny offers a needed reassessment of the haphazard and regionally diverse process of state formation and market integration in early modern Spain, showing how local and regional agency paradoxically led to legitimate governance but economic backwardness.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691144842
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Spain's development from a premodern society into a modern unified nation-state with an integrated economy was painfully slow and varied widely by region. Economic historians have long argued that high internal transportation costs limited domestic market integration, while at the same time the Castilian capital city of Madrid drew resources from surrounding Spanish regions as it pursued its quest for centralization. According to this view, powerful Madrid thwarted trade over large geographic distances by destroying an integrated network of manufacturing towns in the Spanish interior. Challenging this long-held view, Regina Grafe argues that decentralization, not a strong and powerful Madrid, is to blame for Spain's slow march to modernity. Through a groundbreaking analysis of the market for bacalao--dried and salted codfish that was a transatlantic commodity and staple food during this period--Grafe shows how peripheral historic territories and powerful interior towns obstructed Spain's economic development through jurisdictional obstacles to trade, which exacerbated already high transport costs. She reveals how the early phases of globalization made these regions much more externally focused, and how coastal elites that were engaged in trade outside Spain sought to sustain their positions of power in relation to Madrid. Distant Tyranny offers a needed reassessment of the haphazard and regionally diverse process of state formation and market integration in early modern Spain, showing how local and regional agency paradoxically led to legitimate governance but economic backwardness.
A Distant Mirror
Author: Barbara W. Tuchman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0345349571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 738
Book Description
A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street Journal The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.” Praise for A Distant Mirror “Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books “A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal “Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.”—Commentary
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0345349571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 738
Book Description
A “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street Journal The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Barbara W. Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight—in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.” Praise for A Distant Mirror “Beautifully written, careful and thorough in its scholarship . . . What Ms. Tuchman does superbly is to tell how it was. . . . No one has ever done this better.”—The New York Review of Books “A beautiful, extraordinary book . . . Tuchman at the top of her powers . . . She has done nothing finer.”—The Wall Street Journal “Wise, witty, and wonderful . . . a great book, in a great historical tradition.”—Commentary
The Tyranny of Metrics
Author: Jerry Z. Muller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191263
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our lives Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691191263
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our lives Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all.
A Unifying Enlightenment
Author: Jesús Astigarraga
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004442898
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
This book contains a systematic study of economic institutions during the Spanish Enlightenment in the areas of print culture (the press, merchants’ handbooks, teaching materials), education (university chairs in political economy and commerce) and the organisation of financial matters at state level (economic societies, trade consulates and the official statistics agency). A Unifying Enlightenment is a fresh interpretation of political economy’s contribution to the development of the European Enlightenment. Jesús Astigarraga shows that, far from being a straightforward intellectual phenomenon, this new science played a crucial role in both the circulating and institutionalisation of Enlightenment culture and the process of political unification and articulation undergone by the Spanish monarchy, which culminated in a constitutional culture.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004442898
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340
Book Description
This book contains a systematic study of economic institutions during the Spanish Enlightenment in the areas of print culture (the press, merchants’ handbooks, teaching materials), education (university chairs in political economy and commerce) and the organisation of financial matters at state level (economic societies, trade consulates and the official statistics agency). A Unifying Enlightenment is a fresh interpretation of political economy’s contribution to the development of the European Enlightenment. Jesús Astigarraga shows that, far from being a straightforward intellectual phenomenon, this new science played a crucial role in both the circulating and institutionalisation of Enlightenment culture and the process of political unification and articulation undergone by the Spanish monarchy, which culminated in a constitutional culture.
Mercantilism Reimagined
Author: Philip J. Stern
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199988544
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Rethinking Mercantilism brings together a group of young early modern British and European historians to investigate what use the concept "mercantilism" might still hold for both scholars and teachers of the period. While scholars often find the term unsatisfactory, mercantilism has stubbornly survived both in our classrooms and in the general scholarly discourse. These essays propose that it is largely impossible to rethink "mercantilism," given its unique status as a non-entity, by looking for "mercantilism" itself. Economics as a discipline had not emerged by the seventeenth century, yet economic considerations were part of most intellectual pursuits, whether scientific, political, cultural, or social. Thus, the search for "mercantilism" is best undertaken through an investigation of how economic considerations were embedded in debates throughout the early modern intellectual landscape. With this in mind, this book seeks to rethink "mercantilism" inductively rather than deductively. Such an approach not only frees the debate from the strictures and assumptions of historiography reaching back to the Scottish Enlightenment, but also avoids viewing the period through the lens of modern economics. Exploring the period in its own terms makes it possible to revisit fruitfully and more holistically some of the traditional component parts of "mercantilism" such as the relationship between wealth and money, the modern state and commerce, economic and political thought, and power and prosperity only now informed and inflected by the questions raised in new approaches and trends to the intellectual, political, social, and cultural histories that populated the early modern world. The goal of this volume is not to abandon mercantilism as a concept but to rethink its intellectual and political content. First, rather than an ideology driven primarily by self-evident and narrow economic self-interest, "mercantilism" was inseparable from the rich transformations emerging out of the rapidly changing early modern intellectual landscape; as such, the study of mercantilism no longer appears solely as a subject of the history of economic thought, but part and parcel of early modern intellectual history more generally. Second, the book argues that the common vision of a "mercantile system" premised upon a coherent, strong, and expansive nation-state is unsustainable. The cornerstone of "mercantilism" has long been the assumption of a strong and coherent state apparatus with the authority to manage and manipulate the sphere of commerce for its own ends. This volume explores the implications on our understanding of early modern economic thought of the recent recognition among historians that the early modern state was rather weak, decentralized, and amorphous. Moreover, the fact that recent research has continually re-emphasized the role of a variety of political communities (not just the state, but also church, corporations, and communities of pirates and smugglers) in shaping public life recommends questioning which polities mercantilism sought to serve, and vice versa, at any given time. These and other questions will primarily be pursued in the English context, with occasional comparisons to the continental experience.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199988544
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Rethinking Mercantilism brings together a group of young early modern British and European historians to investigate what use the concept "mercantilism" might still hold for both scholars and teachers of the period. While scholars often find the term unsatisfactory, mercantilism has stubbornly survived both in our classrooms and in the general scholarly discourse. These essays propose that it is largely impossible to rethink "mercantilism," given its unique status as a non-entity, by looking for "mercantilism" itself. Economics as a discipline had not emerged by the seventeenth century, yet economic considerations were part of most intellectual pursuits, whether scientific, political, cultural, or social. Thus, the search for "mercantilism" is best undertaken through an investigation of how economic considerations were embedded in debates throughout the early modern intellectual landscape. With this in mind, this book seeks to rethink "mercantilism" inductively rather than deductively. Such an approach not only frees the debate from the strictures and assumptions of historiography reaching back to the Scottish Enlightenment, but also avoids viewing the period through the lens of modern economics. Exploring the period in its own terms makes it possible to revisit fruitfully and more holistically some of the traditional component parts of "mercantilism" such as the relationship between wealth and money, the modern state and commerce, economic and political thought, and power and prosperity only now informed and inflected by the questions raised in new approaches and trends to the intellectual, political, social, and cultural histories that populated the early modern world. The goal of this volume is not to abandon mercantilism as a concept but to rethink its intellectual and political content. First, rather than an ideology driven primarily by self-evident and narrow economic self-interest, "mercantilism" was inseparable from the rich transformations emerging out of the rapidly changing early modern intellectual landscape; as such, the study of mercantilism no longer appears solely as a subject of the history of economic thought, but part and parcel of early modern intellectual history more generally. Second, the book argues that the common vision of a "mercantile system" premised upon a coherent, strong, and expansive nation-state is unsustainable. The cornerstone of "mercantilism" has long been the assumption of a strong and coherent state apparatus with the authority to manage and manipulate the sphere of commerce for its own ends. This volume explores the implications on our understanding of early modern economic thought of the recent recognition among historians that the early modern state was rather weak, decentralized, and amorphous. Moreover, the fact that recent research has continually re-emphasized the role of a variety of political communities (not just the state, but also church, corporations, and communities of pirates and smugglers) in shaping public life recommends questioning which polities mercantilism sought to serve, and vice versa, at any given time. These and other questions will primarily be pursued in the English context, with occasional comparisons to the continental experience.
On Tyranny
Author: Timothy Snyder
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0804190119
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0804190119
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.
The Tyranny of Virtue
Author: Robert Boyers
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 198212718X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
From public intellectual and professor Robert Boyers, “a powerfully persuasive, insightful, and provocative prose that mixes erudition and first-hand reportage” (Joyce Carol Oates) addressing recent developments in American culture and arguing for the tolerance of difference that is at the heart of the liberal tradition. Written from the perspective of a liberal intellectual who has spent a lifetime as a writer, editor, and college professor, The Tyranny of Virtue is a “courageous, unsparing, and nuanced to a rare degree” (Mary Gaitskill) insider’s look at shifts in American culture—most especially in the American academy—that so many people find alarming. Part memoir and part polemic, Boyers’s collection of essays laments the erosion of standard liberal values, and covers such subjects as tolerance, identity, privilege, appropriation, diversity, and ableism that have turned academic life into a minefield. Why, Robert Boyers asks, are a great many liberals, people who should know better, invested in the drawing up of enemies lists and driven by the conviction that on critical issues no dispute may be tolerated? In stories, anecdotes, and character profiles, a public intellectual and longtime professor takes on those in his own progressive cohort who labor in the grip of a poisonous and illiberal fundamentalism. The end result is a finely tuned work of cultural intervention from the front lines.
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 198212718X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
From public intellectual and professor Robert Boyers, “a powerfully persuasive, insightful, and provocative prose that mixes erudition and first-hand reportage” (Joyce Carol Oates) addressing recent developments in American culture and arguing for the tolerance of difference that is at the heart of the liberal tradition. Written from the perspective of a liberal intellectual who has spent a lifetime as a writer, editor, and college professor, The Tyranny of Virtue is a “courageous, unsparing, and nuanced to a rare degree” (Mary Gaitskill) insider’s look at shifts in American culture—most especially in the American academy—that so many people find alarming. Part memoir and part polemic, Boyers’s collection of essays laments the erosion of standard liberal values, and covers such subjects as tolerance, identity, privilege, appropriation, diversity, and ableism that have turned academic life into a minefield. Why, Robert Boyers asks, are a great many liberals, people who should know better, invested in the drawing up of enemies lists and driven by the conviction that on critical issues no dispute may be tolerated? In stories, anecdotes, and character profiles, a public intellectual and longtime professor takes on those in his own progressive cohort who labor in the grip of a poisonous and illiberal fundamentalism. The end result is a finely tuned work of cultural intervention from the front lines.
The Long Process of Development
Author: Jerry F. Hough
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107670411
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Book Description
This groundbreaking book examines the history of Spain, England, the United States, and Mexico to explain why development takes centuries.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107670411
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Book Description
This groundbreaking book examines the history of Spain, England, the United States, and Mexico to explain why development takes centuries.
An Account of Corsica, the Journal of a Tour to that Island;
Author: James Boswell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corsica (France)
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corsica (France)
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
British Imperialism
Author: P.J. Cain
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317389255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 794
Book Description
A milestone in the understanding of British history and imperialism, this ground-breaking book radically reinterprets the course of modern economic development and the causes of overseas expansion during the past three centuries. Employing their concept of 'gentlemanly capitalism', the authors draw imperial and domestic British history together to show how the shape of the nation and its economy depended on international and imperial ties, and how these ties were undone to produce the post-colonial world of today. Containing a significantly expanded and updated Foreword and Afterword, this third edition assesses the development of the debate since the book’s original publication, discusses the imperial era in the context of the controversy over globalization, and shows how the study of the age of empires remains relevant to understanding the post-colonial world. Covering the full extent of the British empire from China to South America and taking a broad chronological view from the seventeenth century to post-imperial Britain today, British Imperialism: 1688–2015 is the perfect read for all students of imperial and global history.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317389255
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 794
Book Description
A milestone in the understanding of British history and imperialism, this ground-breaking book radically reinterprets the course of modern economic development and the causes of overseas expansion during the past three centuries. Employing their concept of 'gentlemanly capitalism', the authors draw imperial and domestic British history together to show how the shape of the nation and its economy depended on international and imperial ties, and how these ties were undone to produce the post-colonial world of today. Containing a significantly expanded and updated Foreword and Afterword, this third edition assesses the development of the debate since the book’s original publication, discusses the imperial era in the context of the controversy over globalization, and shows how the study of the age of empires remains relevant to understanding the post-colonial world. Covering the full extent of the British empire from China to South America and taking a broad chronological view from the seventeenth century to post-imperial Britain today, British Imperialism: 1688–2015 is the perfect read for all students of imperial and global history.