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Product Details
Series: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (January 18, 2009)
Did you know that the average person's life in the Stone Age was no worse then that of the average 17th century Briton? That given their more varied nutrition and lesser workload, the lives of hunter gatherers were superior to both? That the Black Death caused a major improvement in European standards of livings during the 14th to 16th centuries? That the institutional conditions for economic growth, as normally understood, were better in the Middle Ages then they are today?
These are only few of the mind blowing and well documented claims put forward in Gregory Clark's breathtaking - there is no other word - "A Farewell to Alms". Clark confronts the greatest mystery of human history - why did the West leap forward, breaking away from millennia of stasis, to create the modern, industrial world? Clark not only refutes most of the common wisdom about the rise of the West, but also brings forth an astonishing array of data in support of a radically new interpretation. No doubt some specialists would disagree with Clark's conclusions; I have my doubts, too - but Clark's methodology, his thoroughness, and the rigorous manner in which he addresses a huge quantity of data makes "A Farewell to Alms" an instant classic and a model for all economic history.
Clark describes world economic history as essentially a two-phase story. The first phase, from the dawn of time to the Industrial Revolution, featured a barely changing world governed by the cold and remorseless laws of Malthus and Darwin. But those same laws brought on a slow revolution, and a new phenomenon was emerging - first in Europe, and slower in India, China and Japan - Economic Man.Read more ›
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192 of 209 people found the following review helpful
The perennial question asked by economic historians is why some countries grow excedingly rich and others remain miserably poor. It is a question that writers of "big history" have asked: notably Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (Bantam Classics), David S Landes in The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, and Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. These works rely heavily on theory beyond the mere retelling of certain facts and events. It is in this tradition that Gregory Clark, economic historian at the University of California at Davis, presents the economic history of the the world. The underlying theory that informs his version is that social and possibly biological evolution explains economic growth. The specter of social darwinism haunts his imagination.
For Clark the critical stage of social evolution is when a society is able to emerge from the Malthusian trap of poverty. It is at this point where they diverge from the pack and actually experience social progress and economic growth.
Regarding the Malthusian trap, Clark argues that the well-being of the average person around 1800 was no better than the average hunter-gatherer 10,000 years earlier.Read more ›
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Clark says he spent 20 years writing this. I believe it. Despite frequent amusing anecdotes, this is not a fun read. Clark is an academic who has hammered together what may be decades of project notes, charts, tables and yes, you know it is an academic writing when there are 24 pages of references and a bonus technical appendix.
His five main conclusions are: 1)mankind in 1800 was no better off than the caveman 100,000 years earlier, 2)since 1800, the unskilled worker has been the major beneficiary of the potentially stunning fruits of the industrial/technology revolution, 3) modern production techniques demand workers who exhibit discipline, hard work, meticulous attention to task completion, patience,literacy, thrift, prudence, 4)handouts of money to developing diverging countries where workers have poor attitudes are wasted(i.e. wasted "Alms"), 5)happiness does not depend upon absolute well being.
I like all the data he has, especially the trove from England 1200-1870, and can use some of it in my Megatrend research, but will the average reader wade through the numbers and charts? I strongly disagree with his comment on page 289 that demography is unimportant in the U.S. and UK because of reductions in fertility. My research suggests that the reduction in fertility in the U.S. and most industrialized nations is leading to negative economic consequences that will rival an asteroid hit. Maybe the birthrate at UC-Davis is still OK?
Why Clark gets into the "happiness" issue is not clear? After he has demonstrated that good work ethic people are well rewarded with enormous per capita income, he bursts our balloon with the notion that it won't make you happy, unless you have more than your next door neighbor. For a more useful definition of happiness, Gregory should check out the research papers from the University of Chicago's Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, or see his book "Flow" published in 1990.
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This item: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
