Great Wave

by Fischer, David Hackett;

  On problems of poverty, see Cissie Fairchilds, Poverty and Charity in Aix-la-Provence, 1640–1789 (Baltimore, 1976).

  For land prices, see Christopher Clay, “The Price of Freehold Land in the Later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 27 (1974) 173–89; Arthur Young, An Enquiry into the Progressive Value of Money in England (London, 1812); Vicomte G. d’Avenel, Histoire économique de la proprieté des salaires, des denrées et de tous les prix . . ., vol. 2; Daniel Zolla, “Les variations du revenu et du prix des terres en France au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle, Annales de l’École Libre des Sciences Politiques 8 (1893), 9 (1894).

  For returns to capital, see Homer, History of Interest Rates, cited above; Earl J. Hamilton, “Profit Inflation and the Industrial Revolution, 1751–1800,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 56 (1941–42) 256–73.

  Commercial conditions and finance are discussed in T. S. Ashton, Economic Fluctuations in England, 1700–1800 (Oxford, 1950); W. T. Baxter, The House of Hancock (Cambridge, Mass., 1945); A. H. John, “Insurance Investment and the London Money Market of the Eighteenth Century,” Economica 20 (1953) 137–58, Eli Heckscher, “The Bank of Sweden . . . ,” in J. G. Dillen, ed., History of the Principal Public Banks (The Hague, 1934), 1760; P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756 (London, 1967).

  On monetary movements, see Richard A. Lester, Monetary Experiments: Early American and Recent Scandinavian (Princeton, 1939); Joseph Ernst, Money and Politics in America, 1755–1775 (Chapel Hill, 1973).

  On speculative manias, see L. Stuart Sutherland, “Sir George Colebrooke’s World Corner in Alum, 1771–73,” Economic History 3 (1936) 237–58; Stephan Skalweit, Die Berliner Wirtschaftskrise von 1763 und ihre Hintergrunde (Stuttgart, 1937); Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (New York, 1978); Julian Hoppit, “Financial Crises in Eighteenth-Century England,” Economic History Review 39 (1946) 39–58.

  On industrialization, see Franklin Mendels, “Proto-Industrialization, the First Stage of the Industrialization Process,” Journal of Economic History 32 (1972) 241–61; Paul Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1928); Rudolf Braun, Industrialisierung und Volksleben: Die Veränderungen der Lebensformen in einem ländlichen Industriegebiet vor 1800 (Zurich, 1960); Walther G. Hoffmann, Wachstum und Wachstumformen der Englischen Industriewirtschaft von 1700 bis zur Gegenwart (Jena, 1940), tr. as British Industry, 1700–1950 (Oxford, 1955; New York, 1965); P. Lebrun, L’industrie de la laine à Verviers pendant le XVIIIe et le début du XIXe siècle (Liege, 1948).

  Another change-indicator that shows a fundamental break in secular trends circa 1730–45 is internal migration. See Jan de Vries, Barges and Capitalism: Passenger Transportation in the Dutch Economy (1632–1789) (Utrecht, 1981), 221–232.

  On the economic effect of war and military spending, see James C. Riley, The Seven Years War and the Old Regime in France: The Economic and Financial Toll (Princeton, 1986); also good on the “crisis of confidence” in the mid-eighteenth century.

  For a contemporary discussions of the price revolution, see the anonymous English pamphlet Reflections on the Present High Price of Provisions, and the Complaints and Disturbances Arising Therefrom (London, 1766) in the Kress Collection, Baker Library, Harvard Business School. Other works include T. de Anzano, Reflexiones económico-politicas sobre las causas de la alteración de Precios (Saragossa, 1768); Nicholas F. Dupré de Saint Maur, Essai su les monnaies, ou réflexions sur le rapport entre l’argent et les denrées (Paris, 1746); idem, Recherches sur la valeur des monnaies et sur les prix des grains, avant et après le Concile de Francfort (Paris, 1762); Claude J. Herbert, Essai sur la police générale des grains, sur leur prix et sur les effects de l’agriculture (Paris, 1755); F. Messance, Recherches sur le population (Paris, 1766), which includes an appendix on the price of wheat in England and France from 1674 to 1764; Gian Rinaldo Carli, Delie monete e dell’istituzione delle zecche d’Italia (4 vols., Pisa and Lucca, 1754–60); idem, Del valore e della proporzione de’metalli monetati con i generi in Italia . . . (Lucca, 1760); A. Zanon, Dell’agricultura, dell’ arti, e del commercio . . . in Lettere scelte sollàgricultura, vol. 5 (Venice, 1765; Milan, 1804).

  On the physiocrats, the leading work is G. Weulersee, Le mouvement physiocratique en France de 1756 à 1770 (Paris, 1910); La physiocratie à la fin de règne de Louis XV, 1770–1774 (Paris, 1959); La physiocratie sous les ministères de Turgot et Necker, 1774–1781 (Paris, 1950); see also Ronald L. Meek, The Economics of Physiocracy (Cambridge, 1963); John W. Rogers Jr., “Opposition to the Physiocrats: A Study of Economic Thought and Policy in the Ancien Régime, 1750–1780,” (thesis, Johns Hopkins, 1971).

  On mercantilism the leading work is still Eli Heckscher, Mercantilism (2 vols., 1935, New York, 1983) and idem, Revisions in Mercantilism, ed. D. C. Coleman (London, 1969).

  On the relationship between economic and cultural history, see John W. Van Cleve, The Merchant in German Literature of the Enlightenment (Chapel Hill, 1986).

  For the problem of cultural discontinuity in the mid-eighteenth century, see Roger Mercier, La réhabilitation de la nature humaine (1700–1750) (Paris, 1980); T. D. Kendrick, The Lisbon Earthquake (London, 1956).

  The Revolutionary Crisis of 1789–1815

  A good introduction is Jacques Godechot, Les révolutions, 1770–1799 (1963, 4th ed. Paris, 1988), with extensive discussions of historiography and a copious bibliography. More detailed accounts are Jacques Godechot, La grande nation 2 vols. (1956, 2d ed. Paris, 1983); R. R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution (2 vols., Princeton, 1959–64); Martin Gohring, Weg und Sieg der modernen Staatsidee in Frankreich (Tubingen, 1947).

  Histories of national economics in this period include, for Britain, A. D. Gayer, W. W. Rostow, and A. J. Schwartz, The Growth and Fluctuations of the British Economy, 1790–1850 (1953; new ed., London, 1975); Phyllis Deane and W. A. Cole, British Economic Growth, 1688–1959 (1962; 2d ed. Cambridge, 1969); R. C. Floud and D. N. McCloskey, eds., The Economic History of Britain since 1700 (Cambridge, 1981); and N. F. R. Crafts, British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution (Oxford, 1985), a revisionist essay; and for Scotland, H. Hamilton, Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1963).

  On France, Ernest Labrousse et al., Histoire économique et sociale de la France (Paris, 1970), vols. 2 and 3; M. Marion, Histoire financière de la France depuis 1715 (Paris, 1914–25), vols. 2–4 cover the period from 1789 to 1818; Henri Sée, Histoire économique de la France (Paris, 1939).

  For Germany, Hermann Aubin and Wolfgang Zorn, Handbuch der deutschen Wirtschaftsundsozialgeschichte (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1971).

  For the United States in this period see Samuel Blodget, Economica: A Statistical Manual for the United States of America (Washington, 1806); Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775–1815 (New York, 1962); Stuart Bruchey, The Roots of American Economic Growth, 1607–1861 (New York, 1965); Douglas North, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860 (1961; New York, 1966); Claudia Goldin and Frank Lewis, “The Role of Exports in American Economic Growth during the Napoleonic Wars, 1793 to 1807,” Explorations in Economic History 17 (1980) 6–25; Paul David, “The Growth of Real Product in the United States before 1840: New Evidence, Controlled Conjectures,” Journal of Economic History 27 (1967) 151–97; Stanley L. Engerman and Robert E. Gallman, eds., Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth (Chicago, 1986).

  On the history of prices, see Winifred Rothenberg, “The Market and Massachusetts Farmers, 1750–1855,” Journal of Economic History 41 (1981) 283–314; idem, “A Price Index for Rural Massachusetts, 1750–1855,” ibid. 39 (1979) 975–1001; idem, “The Emergence of Capital Markets in Rural Massachusetts, 1730–1838,” ibid. 45 (1985) 781–808; idem, “The Emergence of Farm Labor Markets and the Transformation of the Rural Economy: Massachusetts, 1750–1855,” ibid, 48 (1988) 537–66;
idem, From Market-Places to a Market Economy: The Transformation of Rural Massachusetts, 1750–1850 (Chicago, 1992); Anne Bezanson, Prices and Inflation during the American Revolution: Pennsylvania, 1770–1790 (Philadelphia, 1951); idem et al., Wholesale Prices in Philadelphia, 1784–1861 (Philadelphia, 1936); idem, “Inflation and Controls in Pennsylvania, 1774–1779,” Tasks of Economic History 8 (1948) 1–20; Arthur Harrison Cole, Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700–1861 (Cambridge, Mass., 1938); Walter B. Smith and Arthur Harrison Cole, Fluctuations in American Business, 1790–1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1935); George Rogers Taylor, “Wholesale Commodity Prices at Charleston, South Carolina, 1732–1791,” Journal of Economic History 4 (1921–22) 356–77; “Wholesale Commodity Prices at Charleston, South Carolina, 1796–1801,” ibid., 848–67; Thomas Senior Berry, Western Prices before 1861: A Study of the Cincinnati Market (Cambridge, 1943); Harold V. Roelse, “Wholesale Prices in the United States, 1791–1801,” Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association 15 (1917) 840–46.

  On prices in France, C.-E. Labrousse, Esquisse du mouvement des prix et des revenus en France au XVIIIe siècle (2 vols., Paris, 1933) is still the indispensable work on the price revolution of the eighteenth century; see also C.-E. Labrousse, “Recherches sur l’histoire des prix en France de 1500 à 1800,” Revue d’Économie Politique (1939); idem, “Un siècle et demi de hausse des prix agricoles (1726–1873): presentation d’un nouvel indice général des prix,” Revue Historique 65 (1940); idem, “Prix et structure régionale: le froment dans les régions françaises (1782–1790),” Annales d’Histoire Sociale 1 (1939); L. Dutil, L’état économique du Languedoc à la fin de l’Ancien Régime, 1750–1789 (Paris, 1911); A. Achard, “Le prix du pain à Ambert, de 1774 à 1790,” Bulletin Historique et Scientifique de l’Auvergne 57 (1937) 136–39; Georges Sangnier, La crise du blé à Arras à la fin du XVIIIe siècle 1788–1796 (Fontenay-Le-Comte, 1943).

  On English prices, in addition to the works of Tooke and Newmarch, Beveridge cited above, see N. J. Silberling, “British Prices and Business Cycles, 1779–1850,” Review of Economic Statistics 5 (1923) 223–61; E. L. Jones, Seasons and Prices: The Role of Weather in English Agricultural History (London, 1964); W. W. Rostow, “Business Cycles, Harvests, and Politics, 1790–1850,” Journal of Economic History 1 (1941) 206–21.

  On prices in other nations, see Jean Meuvret, “La géographic des prix des céréales et les anciennes économies européennes: prix méditerranéens, prix continentaux, prix atlantiques à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Revista da Economia (1951); Anselmo Bernardino, “Contributo all storia dei prèzzi in Sardegna tra la fine del secolo XVIII e il principio del secolo XIX,” Giornale degli Economisti 71 (1931) 423–43.

  On wages, see M. W. Flinn, “Trends in Real Wages, 1750–1850,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 27 (1974) 395–413; T. R. Gourvish, “Flinn and Real Wage Trends in Britain, 1750–1850: A Comment,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 29 (1976) 136–42; G. N. Von Tunzelmann, “Trends in Real Wages, 1750–1850, Revisited,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 32 (1979) 33–49; Valerie Morgan, “Agricultural Wage Rates in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland,” Economic History Review 24 (1971) 181–201; Donald R. Adams Jr., “Wage Rates in the Early National Period: Philadelphia, 1785–1830,” Journal of Economic History 28 (1968) 404–26; idem, “Some Evidence on English and American Wage Rates, 1790–1830,” Journal of Economic History 30 (1970) 499–520.

  On the tangled “standard of living” debate, in which the effect of the Industrial Revolution has not been clearly distinguished from the secular trend, see Eric Hobsbawm, “The British Standard of Living, 1790–1850,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 10 (1957) 46–68; idem, “The Rising Standard of Living in England, 1800–1850,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 13 (1961) 397–416; and many subsequent contributions in A. J. Taylor, ed., The Standard of Living in Britain during the Industrial Revolution (London, 1975); F. Collier, The Family Economy of the Working Class in the Cotton Industry, 1784–1833 (Manchester, 1965).

  On social and economic conditions and the coming of the American Revolution, see Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1979); Marc Egnal and Joseph Ernst, “An Economic Interpretation of the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 29 (1972) 3–32; Alfred Young, The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism (De Kalb, 1976); McCusker and Menard, The Economy of British America, 351–77; Richard B. Sheridan, “The British Credit Crisis of 1772 and the American Colonies,” Journal of Economic History 20 (1960) 161–86.

  For France, the relationship between prices, wages, and revolutionary events is discussed in Georges Lefebvre, “Le mouvement des prix et les origines de la Révolution française, ” Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française 9 (1937) 288–329; idem, “La crise économique en France à la fin de l’ancien régime,” Annales E.S.C. 1 (1946) 51–55; C.-E Labrousse, La crise de l’économic française à la fin de l’ancien régime et au début de la révolution (Paris, 1943); Philipe Sagnac, “La crise de l’économie en France à la fin de l’Ancien Régime,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale (1950); P. de St-Jacob, “La question des prix en France à la fin de l’Ancien Régime, après les contemporains,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale (1952) 133–46 George E. Rudé, “Prices, Wages, and Popular Movements in Paris during the French Revolution,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 6 (1954) 246–267; George Lefebvre, “Les mouvement des prix et les origines de la Revolution Française,” Annales Historiques de la Revolution Francaise 14 (1937) 289–329; Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, “Révoltes et contestations rurales en France de 1675 à 1788,” Annales E.S.C. 29 (1974) 6–22; F. G. Dreyfus, “Prix et population à Mayence et à Tréves au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale (1956); Hubert C. Johnson, The Midi in Revolution: A Study of Regional Political Diversity, 1789–1793 (Princeton, 1986); Roger Chartier, “Cultures, lumières, doléances: Les Cahiers de 1789,” Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 28 (1981) 68–93; David Ringrose, Transportation and Economic Stagnation in Spain, 1750–1850 (Durham, 1970).

  On subsistence crises of the late eighteenth century, see J. Meuvret, “Les crises de subsistances et la démographic de la France d’Ancien Régime,” Population 1 (1946) 643–50; idem, “Demographic Crisis in France from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,” Population in History, 507–22; Walter M. Stern, “The Bread Crisis in Britain, 1795–96,” Economica 31 (1964) 168–87; P. Vilar, “Réflexions sur le ‘crise de l’ancien type,’ ‘inégalité des reécoltes,’ et ‘sous-développement,’” Conjuncture économique, structures sociales: Hommage à Ernest Labrousse (Paris, 1974); Jacques Godechot and S. Moncassin, “Démographie et subsistances en Languedoc du XVIIIe siècle du XVIIIe siècle au début au XIXe,” Bulletin d’Histoire Économique et Sociale de la Révolution Française (1965); D. Klingaman, “Food Surpluses and Deficits in the American Colonies, 1768–1772,” Journal of Economic History 31 (1971) 553–69; Olwen Hufton, “Social Conflict and the Grain Supply in Eighteenth-Century France,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14 (1983) 305–09; G. Sangnier, La crise du blé à Arras, à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (1788–1796) (Fontenay-le-Comte, 1943).

  On the French financial crisis, see J. Bouchary, Les manieurs d’argent à Paris à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (2 vols., Paris, 1939–43) and Les compagnies financières à Paris à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (3 vols., Paris, 1940–42); L. Dermigny, “La France à la fin de l’ Ancien Régime: une carte monétaire,” Annales E.S.C. (1955) 480–93; J. F. Bosher, French Finances, 1770–1795 (Cambridge, 1970).

  The role of prices, wages, and subsistence in the outbreak of the French Revolution is also discussed in Jean Egret, The French Prerevolution, 1787–1788 (1962; Chicago, 1977); Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789 (New York, 1973); Jacques Godechot, The Taking of the Bastille, July 14th, 1789 (1965; New York, 1970); G. Durieux, The Vainqueurs de la B
astille (Paris, 1911); W. Sewell, Work and Revolution in France (Cambridge, 1980); E. Barber, The Bourgeoisie in Eighteenth Century France (Princeton, 1955).

  Monetary movements in the revolutionary era are the subject of Seymour E. Harris, The Assignats (Cambridge, 1930); J. Morini-Combi, Les assignats, révolution et inflation (Paris, 1926); G. Hubrecht, Les assignats dans le HautRhin (Strasbourg, 1931); idem, “Les assignats à Bordeaux du début de la Révolution,” Annales Historique de la Révolution Française 16 (1939) 289–301; Jean Bouchary, Les faux monayers sous la Révolution française (Paris, 1946).

  Continuing price problems after the Revolution are discussed in R. Schnerb, “La dépression économique sous le Directoire après la disparition du papier-monnaie,” Annales Historique de la Révolution Française 11 (1934) 27–49; J. Bertrand, La taxation des prix sous la Révolution française (Paris, 1949); W. F. Shepard, Price Control and the Reign of Terror: France, 1793–1795 (Berkeley, 1953); George Rude and Albert Soboul, “Le maximum des salaires parisiens et la Révolution française,” Annales Historique de la Révolution Française (1954) 1–22; Richard Cobb, “Politique et subsistance en l’an III, l’exemple du Havre,” Annales de Normandie (1955) 135–59; idem, Terreur et subsistances, 1793–1795 (Paris, 1965); O. Festy, L’aggriculture pendant la Révolution française: les conditions de production et de récolte des céréales (1789–1795) (Paris, 1947).