This is a fascinating and brilliant collection of studies in economic history. In Part 1, he looks at various periods of history. Chapter 1 studies the Roman Empire, then the richest part of the world, and "peninsular Italy and its ruling oligarchy were the main gainers." Chapter 2 looks at the years 1500-1820, at Western Europe's unparalleled progress and the transformation of the Americas.
Chapter 3 examines the West's impact on Asia since 1500, particularly the effects that Portugal, the Netherlands and Britain had on China, India, Indonesia and Japan. Chapter 4 looks at the impact of Islam and Europe on Africa since 1 AD. He notes that North Africa was, from the 1st century until the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, a wealthy part of the Roman Empire.
In Part 2, Maddison looks at the advances in macro-measurement made by William Petty (1623-87), `one of the finest examples of the English Enlightenment', John Graunt (1620-74), the first demographer, and Gregory King (1648-1712) who produced estimates of the population of England and Wales, and of income and expenditure. Maddison shows how the evidence has refuted Kondratiev's notion of long waves and Malthus's dismal scaremongering.
In Part 3, Maddison critiques the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's `Special Report on Emissions Scenarios'. This assumes growth that in the OECD countries (the world's richest countries), income per head 1990 to 2100 would rise between from $19K to $109K, in the former socialist countries from $2.4K to $101K, in Asia from $536 to $72K, and in Africa from $1.6K to $61K. Thus the total GDP of Africa, Latin America and some Middle Eastern oil-producing countries would become far bigger than the OECD countries' total GDP. Maddison comments mildly that this "seems implausible and differs sharply from historical experience."
Yet, as he points out, "This assumption is a major driving force in projected energy use and carbon emissions." On this basis, the IPCC forecast a temperature rise of between 0.5 to 1.30C by 2030. He judges, "In view of my scepticism about the higher IPCC projections of GDP, energy consumption and emissions, the lower end of their temperature projections seems the more plausible."
He also observes that the earth's temperature fell between 1945 and 1976, when we had record GDP growth of more than 4% a year. As he notes, "It is odd that the cooling happened when the pace of world economic growth was a good deal faster than in 1910-45 and 1976-2000."
