The Economy of Expanding Europe in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Numéro d'article 10123769

GENERAL EDITORS: M. M. POSTAN, Professor Emeritus of Economic History in the University of Cambridge, D. C. COLEMAN, Professor of Economic History in the University of Cambridge, and P. M. MATHIAS, Fellow of All Soul's College, Oxford. The fourth and fifth volumes of the Cambridge Economic History cover the period of world economic development between the end of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. It was a period of the most spectacular price-rise hitherto experienced in Europe, and of the so-called "commercial revolution": both closely connected with colonial expansion and something approaching a population "explosion". The two volumes have been planned so that Volume IV deals with the context within which economic growth and development took place—population movement, scientific ideas and achievements, prices, patterns of trade and trade-routes, labour supply, the nature of large-scale company organization, mercantilist theories and policies; and Volume V (still in preparation and planned for publication in 1969) will deal directly with the central mechanisms of production in agriculture and industry, the apparatus of credit, problems of international trade, the functions of the State as producer, consumer and fiscal authority, and with economic activity in relation to changing social structure. CONTENTS Preface KARL F. HELLEINER: The Population of Europe from the Black Death to the Eve of the Vital Revolution CHAPTER I The Population of Europe from the Black Death to the Eve of the Vital Revolution By KARL F. HELLEINER, Professor of Economic History, University of Toronto I Introduction II The Black Death and its Aftermath III Demographic Recovery and Advance IV A Century of Reverses V On the Eve of the Vital Revolution VI Some Causal Factors of Secular Dynamics VII Conclusions CHAPTER II Scientific Method and the Progress of Techniques By A. RUPERT HALL, Professor of the History of Science and Technology, Imperial College, London I From Medieval to Modern II The Sixteenth Century III The Age of Bacon, Galileo and Descartes, 1600-1640 IV The Scientific Societies V Scientific and Craft Discovery in the Age of Newton, 1640-1740 VI Biology, Medicine, and Health VII Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution CHAPTER III Transport and Trade Routes By J. H. PARRY, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University I The Mediterranean Trades II The Northern European Trades III The Trades of the Atlantic Coasts IV The Ocean Trades V The Means of Transport Note on Ships' Tonnage CHAPTER IV European Economic Institutions and the New World; the Chartered Companies By E. L. J. COORNAERT, Professeur au Collège de France, Paris I The Background for Expansion II The State Institutions III Membership and Finances of the Companies IV The Economic Development of the New World V The End of the Companies VI Conclusion CHAPTER V Crops and Livestock By G. B. MASEFIELD, Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford I Introductions into European Agriculture II Introductions of European Crops and Livestock Overseas III Inter-Tropical Movements of Crops and Livestock IV The Economic Effects of Crop Dispersal V The Spice Trade VI The Sugar Trade VII The Tobacco Trade VIII The Beverages Trades IX The Potato in Europe CHAPTER VI Colonial Settlement and Its Labour Problems By E. E. RICH, Formerly Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge, and Master of St Catharine's College I Slaves from West Africa II Slavery and Sugar III Indian and Negro in the Spanish Empire IV The Slave Trade and National Rivalries V West Indian Sugar and Slavery VI English and French Slave Trades VII The North American Colonies VIII Labour and Rule in the Spice Islands CHAPTER VII Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750 By F. P. BRAUDEL, Directeur du Centre de Recherches Historiques, Professeur au Collège de France and F. SPOONER, Professor of Economic History, University of Durham I Currencies, Precious Metals, and Money Markets II The Secular Trend III Short-term Fluctuations: Cycles and Cyclical Movements IV Conclusions and a Summary of Explanations CHAPTER VIII Trade, Society and the State By C. H. WILSON, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge BIBLIOGRAPHIES Editors' Note Chapter I, p. 579; Chapter II, p. 594; Chapter III, p. 595; Chapter IV, p. 597, Chapter V, p. 601; Chapter VI, p. 602; Chapter VII, p. 605; Chapter VIII, p. 615 INDEX