D'Maris Coffman – författare

As the meeting point between Europe, colonial America, and Africa, the history of the Atlantic world is a constantly shifting arena, but one which has been a focus of huge and vibrant debate for many years. In over thirty chapters, all written by experts in the field, The Atlantic World takes up these debates and gathers together key, original scholarship to provide an authoritative survey of this increasingly popular area of world history. The book takes a thematic approach to topics including exploration, migration and cultural encounters. In the first chapters, scholars examine the interactions between groups which converged in the Atlantic world, such as slaves, European migrants and Native Americans. The volume then considers questions such as finance, money and commerce in the Atlantic world, as well as warfare, government and religion. The collection closes with chapters examining how ideas circulated across and around the Atlantic and beyond. It presents the Atlantic as a shared space in which commodities and ideas were exchanged and traded, and examines the impact that these exchanges had on both people and places.

Including an introductory essay from the editors which defines the field, and lavishly illustrated with paintings, drawings and maps this accessible volume is invaluable reading for all students and scholars of this broad sweep of world history.

As the meeting point between Europe, colonial America, and Africa, the history of the Atlantic world is a constantly shifting arena, but one which has been a focus of huge and vibrant debate for many years. In over thirty chapters, all written by experts in the field, The Atlantic World takes up these debates and gathers together key, original scholarship to provide an authoritative survey of this increasingly popular area of world history. The book takes a thematic approach to topics including exploration, migration and cultural encounters. In the first chapters, scholars examine the interactions between groups which converged in the Atlantic world, such as slaves, European migrants and Native Americans. The volume then considers questions such as finance, money and commerce in the Atlantic world, as well as warfare, government and religion. The collection closes with chapters examining how ideas circulated across and around the Atlantic and beyond. It presents the Atlantic as a shared space in which commodities and ideas were exchanged and traded, and examines the impact that these exchanges had on both people and places.

Including an introductory essay from the editors which defines the field, and lavishly illustrated with paintings, drawings and maps this accessible volume is invaluable reading for all students and scholars of this broad sweep of world history.

Jean Lescure’s two-volume General and Periodic Crises of Overproduction is a pioneering study of the causes and consequences of industrial crises in capitalist economies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author, who held doctorates in political economy and law, is most remembered as a founder of the French historical school and a staunch advocate of empiricism in the economic sciences. Lescure called his approach the ’complex historical method’, by which he sought to revise classical and quantitative economic theory through the historical analysis and statistical observation of cyclical phenomena. Ever the controversialist, Lescure wrote in an engaging style, accessible to non-specialists and economists alike, and critiqued the leading monetary theorists of the period, insisting that observation of the movements in production costs, industrial orders and profits be given priority over circulation and credit in understanding the periodic crises of capitalist economies. In Lescure’s view, crises were inevitable in both market and command economies and their onset and consequences were predictable with the help of the more detailed production statistics newly available to economists and entrepreneurs at the time. Observation of corporate profits, the margin between cost price and selling price, provided the means to predict crises and measure their impact, not only on industry and trade but also on the working classes who would endure unemployment and the many social ills that accompany it. Lescure, unlike many of the liberal economists of the time, was always careful to include in his historical account statistical analysis of unemployment figures, as well as those on crime, marriage and birth rates, homelessness and suicide. Although he remained sceptical of government intervention in the form of monetary policies adjusting the money supply, and lauded the success of industrial concentration and trusts in reducing costs and prices, Lescure admitted the state’s role in the recovery of the 1930s, when social insurance schemes and investment in public works mitigated the worst effects of unemployment for industrial labour.This treatise, which grew out of his doctoral work, was a lifetime project for Lescure, who updated it periodically over five editions, to include each new cycle of growth, crisis, depression and recovery. Volume one provides a historical study of economic crises from the post-Napoleonic period through the Great Depression and the recovery of the late 1930s.Volume two offers a critique of the theories of crises, their causes and potential remedies, in which Lescure outlines his preference for ‘organic’ theories that focus on the production process and qualitative statistical observation of the movements in costs, selling prices, industrial orders and profits.The text of the fifth edition appears here in English for the first time, unabridged and complete with editorial materials designed to help the English reader understand the work on its own terms and situate its author’s prominent place in the history of economic thought.

Jean Lescure’s two-volume General and Periodic Crises of Overproduction is a pioneering study of the causes and consequences of industrial crises in capitalist economies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author, who held doctorates in political economy and law, is most remembered as a founder of the French historical school and a staunch advocate of empiricism in the economic sciences. Lescure called his approach the ’complex historical method’, by which he sought to revise classical and quantitative economic theory through the historical analysis and statistical observation of cyclical phenomena. Ever the controversialist, Lescure wrote in an engaging style, accessible to non-specialists and economists alike, and critiqued the leading monetary theorists of the period, insisting that observation of the movements in production costs, industrial orders and profits be given priority over circulation and credit in understanding the periodic crises of capitalist economies. In Lescure’s view, crises were inevitable in both market and command economies and their onset and consequences were predictable with the help of the more detailed production statistics newly available to economists and entrepreneurs at the time. Observation of corporate profits, the margin between cost price and selling price, provided the means to predict crises and measure their impact, not only on industry and trade but also on the working classes who would endure unemployment and the many social ills that accompany it. Lescure, unlike many of the liberal economists of the time, was always careful to include in his historical account statistical analysis of unemployment figures, as well as those on crime, marriage and birth rates, homelessness and suicide. Although he remained sceptical of government intervention in the form of monetary policies adjusting the money supply, and lauded the success of industrial concentration and trusts in reducing costs and prices, Lescure admitted the state’s role in the recovery of the 1930s, when social insurance schemes and investment in public works mitigated the worst effects of unemployment for industrial labour.This treatise, which grew out of his doctoral work, was a lifetime project for Lescure, who updated it periodically over five editions, to include each new cycle of growth, crisis, depression and recovery. Volume one provides a historical study of economic crises from the post-Napoleonic period through the Great Depression and the recovery of the late 1930s.Volume two offers a critique of the theories of crises, their causes and potential remedies, in which Lescure outlines his preference for ‘organic’ theories that focus on the production process and qualitative statistical observation of the movements in costs, selling prices, industrial orders and profits.The text of the fifth edition appears here in English for the first time, unabridged and complete with editorial materials designed to help the English reader understand the work on its own terms and situate its author’s prominent place in the history of economic thought.

This book reassesses the actual effects of the Bubble Act, still popularly associated with the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. The book builds on the foundational work of Ron Harris to discuss the act’s effect on corporate governance, literary culture, colonial law, and the Industrial Revolution. The Bubble Act was deemed an empty letter within England itself as it was rarely used in legal proceedings. Several chapters consider whether this was the case outside England, from Scotland to the Americas, India, and Africa. Others assess the impact of the act, both on literary culture and in the history of economic thought. The act has been conceptualized as a brake on economic development or of little consequence. This edited collection offers a timely reassessment of the Bubble Act and its legacy.