Gary B. Magee – författare

Focusing on the great population movement of British emigrants before 1914, this book provides a perspective on the relationship between empire and globalisation. It shows how distinct structures of economic opportunity developed around the people who settled across a wider British World through the co-ethnic networks they created. Yet these networks could also limit and distort economic growth. The powerful appeal of ethnic identification often made trade and investment with racial 'outsiders' less appealing, thereby skewing economic activities toward communities perceived to be 'British'. By highlighting the importance of these networks to migration, finance and trade, this book contributes to debates about globalisation in the past and present. It reveals how the networks upon which the era of modern globalisation was built quickly turned in on themselves after 1918, converting racial, ethnic and class tensions into protectionism, nationalism and xenophobia. Avoiding such an outcome is a challenge faced today.

Focusing on the great population movement of British emigrants before 1914, this book provides a perspective on the relationship between empire and globalisation. It shows how distinct structures of economic opportunity developed around the people who settled across a wider British World through the co-ethnic networks they created. Yet these networks could also limit and distort economic growth. The powerful appeal of ethnic identification often made trade and investment with racial 'outsiders' less appealing, thereby skewing economic activities toward communities perceived to be 'British'. By highlighting the importance of these networks to migration, finance and trade, this book contributes to debates about globalisation in the past and present. It reveals how the networks upon which the era of modern globalisation was built quickly turned in on themselves after 1918, converting racial, ethnic and class tensions into protectionism, nationalism and xenophobia. Avoiding such an outcome is a challenge faced today.

This edited volume presents a set of essays honouring the agricultural, environmental and world economic historian, Eric L. Jones. Drawing insights from contributors spanning the social sciences, it highlights how Jones' approach was ahead of its time, illuminating the benefits of studying economic history from a long-run, comparative perspective.In the spirit of Jones’ path-breaking book The European Miracle, this volume is divided into two parts. The first part takes the intellectual contributions of Eric Jones as its focus, closely considering Jones’ contributions to the development of a non-Eurocentric perspective of world history, our understanding of long-term social processes and Eliasian sociology, and the study of the urban built environment. The second part of the book changes tack, offering a series of detailed studies on historical and contemporary themes. Each essays in this part explicitly draws its influence and inspiration from Jones’ work. These ‘applied’ chapters, written by leading experts, make important and novel contributions to an array of important questions:  the Great Divergence, economic performance in Song China, the rise of Nazi Germany, the evolution of modern China’s economic links with Australia, and the likely effect on international politics of China and Russia’s current growing alliance.This book provides a wide-ranging introduction to the works of Eric Jones, one of the most influential economic historians of the twentieth century, and illustrates not only the ongoing relevance of Jones’ work, but, crucially, how contemporary researchers can learn from his approach to studying long-run change.

This book explains how ideology can be better integrated into economic history analysis, arguing that if economists and economic historians are to fully understand economic behaviour a much deeper appreciation of ideological processes is required. The book has two parts. The first part presents a comprehensive theory of ideology and ideological change that can be easily incorporated into economic analysis; the second provides an empirical case study of ideological change from East Germany of the 1960s.The book demonstrates how current restrictive views of ideology found within mainstream economics can be enhanced by adopting a more expansive, multidisciplinary understanding of ideology and its role in the processes of economic change. Merging a view of ideology as a fluid and politically practical concept with the framework of change offered by institutional economics, the authors use this theory to provide an in-depth analysis of how the ideological case for the New Economic System in East Germany and for de-Stalinisation more generally in the 1960s was built. Rich in archival material, the book both deepens our understanding of economic change in the communist world in the post-Stalin era and demonstrates the multifaceted role of ideology in economic decision making. With a cutting-edge approach, this book will be a valuable resource for students of economics, economic history, political economy, as well as of communist and German history.

East Germany’s economic history is typically told as a story of the unravelling of an inherently flawed system. Unencumbered by political preconceptions, it offers a more realistic understanding of East German economic history than that derived from stagnant debates about the clash of systems.

East Germany’s economic history is typically told as a story of the unravelling of an inherently flawed system. Unencumbered by political preconceptions, it offers a more realistic understanding of East German economic history than that derived from stagnant debates about the clash of systems.