Great Wave

by Fischer, David Hackett;

  On prices and political movements in other nations, see L. Dal Pane, Lo Stato Pontificio e il movimento riformatore del settecento (Milan, 1959); J. Vicens Vives, “Conjuntura economica y reformismo burgués: Dos factores en la evolucion de España del antiguo regimen,” Estudios de Historia Moderna 4 (1954) 349–91; R. Werner, L’approvisionnement en pain de la population du bas-Rhin et de l’armée du Rhin pendant la Revolution (1789–1797) (Strasbourg, 1951).

  On poverty there is a very large literature with different problematiques for France: Olwen Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750–1789 (Oxford, 1974) and Alan Forrest, The French Revolution and the Poor (New York, 1981), both with full bibliographies. For Britain, old Benthamite and Fabian interpretations of the poor law by Sir George Nichols, the Hammonds, and the Webbs are radically revised in Mark Blaug, “The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New,” Journal of Economic History 23 (1963) 151–84; this line of inquiry continues in James P. Huzel, “Malthus, the Poor Law, and Population in Early Nineteenth-Century England,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 22 (1969) 430–52; idem, “The Demographic Impact of the Old Poor Law: More Reflections on Malthus,” Journal of Economic History 2d ser. 33 (1980) 367–81; Donald McCloskey, “New Perspectives on the Old Poor Law,” Explorations in Economic History 10 (1972–73) 419–36.

  For the Napoleonic crisis, see A. Chabert, Essai sur les mouvements des prix et des revenus en France de 1798 à 1820 (Paris, 1945–49); J. Norris, “British Wartime Inflation, 1793–1815: The Beginning of a Pragmatic Tradition,” in B. M. Gough, ed., In Search of the Visible Past (Waterloo, 1975); Joel Mokyr and N. Eugene Savin, “Stagflation in Historical Perspective: The Napoleonic Wars Revisited,” Research in Economic History 4 (1979) 198–259; Glenn Hueckel, “War and the British Economy, 1793–1815: A General Equilibrium Analysis,” Explorations in Economic History 10 (1973) 365–96; idem, “Relative Prices and Supply Response in English Agriculture during the Napoleonic Wars,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 29 (1976) 401–14; A. K. Cairncross and B. Weber, “Fluctuations in Building in Great Britain, 1785–1849,” Economic History Review 9 (1956) 283–97; J. W. Anderson, “A Measure of the Effect of British Public Finance, 1793–1815,” Economic History Review; Eli Heckscher, The Continental Blockade: An Economic Interpretation (Oxford, 1922); A. C. Clauder, American Commerce as Affected by the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, 1793–1812 (Philadelphia, 1932); W. F. Galpin, The Grain Supply of England during the Napoleonic Period (New York, 1925); R. Ruppenthal, “Denmark and the Continental System,” Journal of Modern History 15 (1943) 7–23; E. Tarlé, Le blocus continental et le royaume d’Italie (Paris, 1931); C. Northcote Parkinson, ed., The Trade Winds: A Study of British Overseas Trade during the French Wars, 1793–1815 (London, 1948).

  On finance, banking, and interest rates, see N. J. Silberling, “British Financial Experience, 1790–1830,” Review of Economic Statistics 1 (1919) 321–23; Emmanuel Coppieters, English Bank Note Circulation, 1694–1954 (Louvain, 1955), 13–34; Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (Princeton, 1957); statistics for the United States appear in J. Van Fenstermaker, The Development of American Commercial Banking, 1782–1837 (Kent, Ohio, 1965).

  On the relationship between prices and disorder in England, see Douglas Hay, “War, Dearth, and Theft in the Eighteenth Century: The Record of the English Courts,” Past & Present 95 (1982) 117–60.

  Thomes Malthus and David Ricardo generalized the experiences of their time in Essays on the Principles of Population (1798) and Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). A discussion appears in Samuel Hollander, “Ricardo’s Analysis of the Profit Rate, 1813–15,” Economica 40 (1973) 260–82; see also Edmond E. Lincoln, ed., Du Pont de Nemours on the Dangers of Inflation (a speech in the National Assembly, 25 Sep. 1790; Boston, 1950). Two classic contemporary accounts are by Arthur Young: An Inquiry into the Progressive Value of Money in England (London, 1812) and An Enquiry into the Rise of Prices in Europe (London, 1815). The relationship between economic and cultural movements appears in D. Mornet, Les origines intellectuelles de la révolution française, 1715–1787 (Paris, 1933).

  The Victorian Equilibrium

  General works on European economic history in the nineteenth century include David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge, 1969); Charles P. Kindleberger, Economic Growth in France and Britain, 1851–1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964); P. K. O’Brien and C. K. Kyder, Economic Growth in Britain and France, 1780–1914: Two Paths to the Twentieth Century (London, 1978); and Simon Kuznets, Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Structure, and Spread (New Haven, 1966).

  On British economic history, general works include François Crouzet, L’économie de la Grande Bretagne victorienne, (Paris, 1978) tr. by Anthony Forster as The Victorian Economy (New York, 1982); Roderick Floud and Donald McCloskey, The Economic History of Britain since 1700 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1981); Eric J. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire: An Economic History of Britain since 1750 (London, 1968); Peter Mathias, The First Industrial Nation: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1914 (London, 1969); Phyllis Deane and W. A. Cole, British Economic Growth, 1688–1959 (2d ed., Cambridge, 1967); J. D. Chambers, The Workshop of the World: British Economic History from 1820 to 1880 (London, 1961). Still instructive is J. H. Clapham, An Economic History of Modern Britain (3 vols., Cambridge, 1926–38). A revisonist interpretation appears in N. F. R. Crafts, British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution (Oxford, 1985). A classic contribution to price history in this period is Stanley Jevons, “On the Variation of Prices and the Value of Currency since 1782,” Journal of the Statistical Society of London (1865).

  The French economy is examined in Rondo Cameron, France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800–1914 (Princeton, 1961); idem, “Profit, croissance et stagnation en France au XIXe siècle,” Economic Appliquée 10 (1957) 409–44; Shepherd B. Clough, “Retardative Factors in French Economic Development in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of Economic History 6 (1946) 91–102; N. Beaurieux, Les prix du blé en France au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1909).

  For German economic history, a major synthesis of economic and political history is Helmut Bohme, Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht . . . (Cologne and Berlin, 1966). Also of high quality are Wolfram Fischer, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im Zeitalter der Industrialisierung . . . (Gottingen, 1972); Fritz Stern, Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York, 1977); Franz Schnabel, Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (4 vols., Freiberg, 1927–37); W. G. Hoffman, Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1965; Tubingen, 1971).

  The economic history of the United States is surveyed in Lance Davis et al., American Economic Growth: An Economist’s History of the United States (New York, 1972), 363–65; and Douglass C. North, Growth and Welfare in the American Past: a New Economic History (3d ed., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1983). Specialized studies that give serious attention to price history include Peter Temin, The Jacksonian Economy (New York, 1969); Eugene M. Lerner, “Inflation in the Confederacy, 1861–65,” in Milton Friedman, ed., Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money (Chicago, 1956); George E. Dickey, “Money, Prices, and Growth: The American Experience, 1860–1896” (thesis, Northwestern University, 1968).

  On Italy, a general survey is Shepard B. Clough, The Economic History of Modern Italy (New York, 1964); on prices in Italy during the nineteenth century, many studies have been published in C. M. Cipolla et al., Archivio economico dell’Unificazione italiana, including P. Bandettini, “I prèzzi sul mercato di Firenze dal 1800 al 1890” (vol. 5, fasc. 1, 28–34); I. Delogu, “I prèzzi sui mercati di Cagliari e di Sassari dal 1818 al 1880” (vol. 9, fasc. 4, 20–24); G. Felloni, “I prèzzi sul mercato di Torino dal 1815 al 1890” (vol. 5, fasc. 2, 36–44); idem, “I prèzzi sul mercato di Genova dal 1815 al 1890” (vol. 7, fasc. 3, 126–34),
A. de Maddalena, “I prèzzi . . . sul mercato di Milano,” (vol. 5, fasc. 3, 36–44); A. Petino, “I prèzzi . . . sui mercati di Palermo a di Catania dal 1801 al 1890” (vol. 8, fasc. 5, 20–24); S. Pinchera, “I prèzzi . . . sui mercati dello Stato Pontifico (dal 1823 al 1860) e Roma (dal 1823 al 1890)” (vol. 5, fasc., 4, 32–34; and P. Spaggiari, “I prèzzi . . . sul mercato di Poarma dal 1821 al 1890” (vol. 8, fasc. 3, 24–34).

  On Spain, there are Juan Sardá, La politica monetaria y las fluctuaciones de la economia espannñola en el siglo XIX (Madrid, 1948); Nicolas Sanchez Albornoz, Las crisis de subsistencias de Espana en el siglo XIX (Rosario, 1963); idem, “La formazione del mercato nazionale: Spagna e Italia,” Rivista Storica Italiana 85 (1973) 907–31; Pierre Conrad and Albert Lovett, “Problèmes de l’évaluation du coût de la vie en Espagne: 1. Le prix du pain depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle: une source nouvelle,” Melanges de la Cas Velázquez 5 (1965) 411—41; Juan J. Novara, Contribución a la historia de los precios en Córdoba, 1887–1907 (Cordoba, 1968).

  On the Middle East, a useful essay is Haim Gerber and Nachum T. Gross, “Inflation or Deflation in Nineteenth-Century Syria and Palestine,” Journal of Economic History 40 (1980) 351–57.

  On southern Asia, see K. N. Chaudhuri, ed., The Economic Development of India under the East India Company, 1814–1858 (Cambridge, 1971); John Adams and Robert C. West, “Money, Prices, and Economic Development in India, 1861–1895,” Journal of Economic History 39 (1979) 55–68.

  On East Asia, pathbreaking works include M. Lee, Economic History of China (New York, 1921); Richard Henry Tawney, Land and Labor in China (New York, 1932); Albert Feuerwerker, China’s Early Industrialisation . . . (Cambridge, 1958).

  On Oceania, Australia, and New Zealand, see Edward O. G. Shann, An Economic History of Australia (London, 1930); N. G. Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1861–1900 (London, 1963); C. G. F. Simkin, The Instability of a Dependent Economy (London, 1951).

  Much work has been done on economic fluctuations in the nineteenth century. A general study is Charles P. Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (New York, 1978). On specific crises, panics, and depressions, a large literature includes John D. Post, The Last Great Subsistence Crisis in the Western World (Baltimore, 1977), on the crisis of 1816; Murray N. Rothbard, The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies (New York, 1962); P. Gonnet, “Esquisse de la crise économique de 1827 à 1832,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale 33 (1955) 249–92; R. C. O. Mathews, A Study in Trade Cycle History: Economic Fluctuations in Great Britain, 1833–42 (Cambridge, 1954); Reginald Charles McGrane, The Panic of 1837 (Chicago, 1924); Peter Temin, The Jacksonian Economy (New York, 1969); D. Morier Evans, The Commercial Crisis, 1847–48 (1849, rpt. New York, 1968, 2d ed. 1969); Henry Grote Lewin, The Railway Mania and its Aftermath, 1845–1852 (1936; rpt. New York, 1968); J. R. T. Hughes, Fluctuations in Trade, Industry and Finance (Oxford, 1960); George W. Van Vleck, The Panic of 1857: An Analytical Study (New York, 1943); D. Morier Evans, History of the Commercial Crisis, 1857–1858, and the Stock Exchange Panic of 1859 (1859; rpt. New York, 1969); Hans Rosenberg, Die Weltwirtschaftskrise von 1857–59 (Stuttgart, 1934); Wladimir d’Ormesson, La grande crise mondiale de 1857 . . . (Paris, 1933); E. Ray McCartney, Crisis of 1873 (Minneapolis, 1935); S. B. Saul, The Myth of the Great Depression, 1873–1896 (London, 1969); W. Jett Lauck, The Causes of the Panic of 1893 (Boston, 1907); H. S. Foxwell, “The American Crisis of 1907,” in Papers in Current Finance (London, 1919); Franco Bonelli, La crisi del 1907 . . . (Turin, 1971).

  On monetary trends, see Wesley C. Mitchell, Gold, Prices, and Wages under the Greenback Standard (Berkeley, 1908); Irwin Unger, The Greenback Era (Princeton, 1964); Robert Sharkey, Money, Class, and Party (Baltimore, 1959); Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton, 1963); idem, Monetary Statistics of the United States (New York, 1970); idem, Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom: Their Relation to Income, Prices, and Interest Rates, 1867–1975 (Chicago, 1982); Larry T. Wimmer, “The Gold Crisis of 1869,” Explorations in Economic History 12 (1975) 105–22.

  Banks and banking are discussed in Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (Princeton, 1957); idem, Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks and Politics in the Civil War (Princeton, 1970); Richard H. Timberlake, The Origins of Central Banking in the United States (Cambridge, 1978); and for quantitative data, J. Van Fenstermaker, “The Development of American Commercial Banking, 1782–1837” (thesis, Kent State University, 1965). Forrest Capie and Alan Webber, A Monetary History of the United Kingdom, 1870–1982 (London, 1985) includes much data on British banking. See also Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England, a History 2 vol. (Cambridge, 1944); Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street (5th ed. London, 1873), a classic, which should be read in conjunction with Frank W. Fetter, “A Historical Confusion in Bagehot’s Lombard Street,” Economica 34 (1967) 80–83; Robert Bigo, Les banques françaises au cours de XIXe siècle (Paris, 1947).

  General price studies include Ethel D. Hoover, “Wholesale and Retail Prices in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Economic History 18 (1958) 298–316; and Walt W. Rostow, “Money and Prices: An Old Debate Revisited,” (ms., Austin, 1978), an argument that price fluctuations were driven by “real” rather than monetary forces (mainly supply shocks). Monetarist rejoinders appear in Michael Bordo and Anna J. Schwartz, “Money and Prices in the Nineteenth Century: An Old Debate Rejoined,” Journal of Economic History 40 (1980) 61–67; idem, “Money and Prices in the Nineteenth Century: Was Thomas Tooke Right?” Explorations in Economic History 18 (1981) 97–127; C. Knick Harley, “Prices and the Money Market in Britain, 1870–1913,” Explorations in Economic History 14 (1977) 69–89; P. R. P. Coelho and J. F. Shepherd, “Differences in Regional Prices: The United States, 1851–1880,” Journal of Economic History 34 (1974) 555–91.

  Specialized price studies include Ruth L. Cohen, History of Milk Prices (Oxford, 1936); W. Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question (1865, London, 2d ed. 1866); C. Knick Harley, “Western Settlement and the Price of Wheat, 1872–1913,” Journal of Economic History 36 (1978) 865–78; Thorstein Veblen, “The Price of Wheat since 1867,” Journal of Political Economy 1 (1892) 365–79; L. B. Zapoleon, Geography of Wheat Prices (USDA Bulletin no. 594, Washington, 1918); Robert C. Allen, “Accounting for Price Changes: American Steel Rails, 1879–1910,” Journal of Political Economy 89 (1981) 512–28; Peter Temin, “The Causes of Cotton-Price Fluctuations in the 1830s,” Review of Economics and Statistics 49 (1967) 463–70.

  The climatic optimum of the nineteenth century is examined in H. H. Lamb, Climate: Present, Past and Future (2 vols., London, 1977).

  Interest rates and returns to capital are the subject of J. M. Fachan, Historique de la rente française (Paris, 1904); Leonidas J. Loutchitch, Des variations du taux de l’intérêt en France de 1800 à nos jours (Paris, 1930); Clifford F. Thies, “Interest Rates and Expected Inflation, 1831–1914: A Rational Expectations Approach,” Southern Economic Journal 51 (1985) 1107–20; Gene Smiley, “Interest Rate Movement in the United States, 1888–1913,” Journal of Economic History 35 (1975) 591–620; C. Knick Harley, “The Interest Rate and Prices in Britain, 1873–1913: A Study of the Gibson Paradox,” Explorations in Economic History 14 (1977) 69–89.

  On rent and real estate prices, see F. M. L. Thompson, “The Land Market in the Nineteenth Century,” Oxford Economic Papers 9 (1957) 285–308; E. M. Carus-Wilson, “A Century of Land Values: England and Wales [1781–1880],” in idem, Essays in Economic History (London, n.p.), 3:128–31; Avner Offer, “Ricardo’s Paradox and the Movement of Rents in England, c. 1870–1910,” Journal of Economic History 33 (1980) 236–52; Country Landowners’ Association, The Rent of Agricultural Land in England and Wales, 1890–1946 (London, 1949).

  Wages are studied in J. Kucynski, Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in Deutschland von 1800 bis in die gegenwart (1947); idem, Die Geschic
hte der Lage der Arbeiter unter dem Kapitalismus (1960–63); P. Mombert, “Aus der Literatur über die soziale Frage und über die Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für die Geschichte der sozialismus über die Arbeiterbewegung 9(1921); A. W. Phillips,” “The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change in Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957,” Economica 25 (1908) 283–99; Richard G. Lipsey, “The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change in Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957: A Further Analysis,” Economica 27 (1960) 1–31; E. H. Phelps-Brown and Sheila Hopkins, “The Course of Wage Rates in Five Countries, 1860–1939,” Oxford Economic Papers (Oxford, 1950); Stanley Lebergott, Manpower in Economic Growth: the American Record since 1800 (New York, 1964); Stephen DeCanio and Joel Mokyr, “Inflation and Wage Lag during the American Civil War,” Explorations in Economic History 14 (1977) 311–36; P. R. P. Coelho and J. F. Shepherd, “Regional Differences in Real Wages: The United States, 1851–1880,” Explorations in Economic History 13 (1976) 203–30; E. H. Hunt, Regional Wage Variations in Britain, 1850–1914 (Oxford, 1973).

  American slave prices, which tended to follow global trends in real wages, are charted in Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery (Baton Rouge, 1966); see also Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (2 vols., Boston, 1974).