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This book explores how the institution of privilege and liberty shaped early modern economic development in France between 1650 and 1820.
Privilege has long been understood as the constitutional basis of Ancien Régime France, legalising the provision of a variety of rights, powers and exemptions to some, whilst denying them to others. In this fascinating new study however, Jeff Horn reveals that Bourbon officials utilized privilege as an instrument of economic development, freeing some sectors of the economy from pre-existing privileges and regulations, while protecting others. He explores both government policies and the innovations of entrepreneurs, workers, inventors and customers to uncover the lived experience of economic d.
The major changes experienced by France's cities over the period from the end of the middle ages to the eve of the Revolution are explored by six French and North American historians.
First published in 1979, this richly documented study of French development from the early nineteenth century to the present day is of particular importance to students both of history and economics. Francis Caron moves as confidently through the fields of current economic policy and modern economics as he does through the traditional subject matter of French nineteenth-century economic history. His book incorporates the mass of research that has appeared in monograph and periodical form in recent years, making it accessible for the first time to the English-speaking reader.
This collection of essays draws on fresh readings of classic texts as well as rigorous research in the archives of Europe's greatest imperial power. Its contributors paint a powerful picture of the nature and implementation of political economy in the long eighteenth century, from the East to the West Indies.
This is the first study to analyze a wide spread of price data to determine whether market development led to economic growth in the early modern period.
This volume takes stock of recent research on economic growth, as well as the development of capital and labour markets, during the centuries that preceded the Industrial Revolution. The book underlines the diversity in the economic experiences of early modern Europeans and suggests how this variety might be the foundation of a new conception of economic and social change.
Examines the way economic historians have approached two sets of problems. Should the French economy in 18th and 19th centuries be considered "retarded," or an early European development success, and, should economic performance be explained by material conditions, or in social terms.
This volume makes available the first English version of L' conomie mondiale et les frappes mon taires en France, 1493-1680, Frank C. Spooner's original and distinguished contribution to economic and monetary history. Generously illustrated with maps and graphs, and abridged by the author, this study introduces the English-reading audience to the methodological approaches of the modern school of French economic history. In this edition, Spooner covers an additional forty-five years not included in his original work: the period 1680-1725 which marks the prelude to the great monetary reform and consolidation of France in 1726. In addition to bringing the reader up to date on his continuing research, he presents a number of important conclusions concerning this economic era. Drawing from his vast insight into French monetary history and his thorough technical knowledge of French coinage and minds of the period, the author maps the historical and spatial perspectives of the two and a half centuries when France experienced successive periods of inflation as bullion, copper, and credit emerged into the forefront of economic affairs. To illustrate the way in which the sequence of these periods affected the structure of the French economy, he discusses how the relative supply and demand of the metals used in varying degrees as a medium of exchange increased the demand for the metal and influenced the credit system. Credit thus made a special contribution in coordinating and adjusting the various inconsistencies in the production and circulation of the different metals. Throughout his study, Spooner attributes an important role to money as a significant factor in economic change and development in early modern Europe and focuses on the relationship between the supply of money and the level and pattern of economic activity.
