Economic History

Despite its isolation from the mainstream of human development, Basil Davidson writes, African society before the coming of the Europeans was neither savage nor stagnant.

George Woodcock describes the industry, expeditions, and characters that opened the American North West to European development.

Graham Dukes traces the birth of the press to the English Civil War period.

Charles Dimont traces the establishment and development of Britain's South American dependency.

Eric Robson provides the social and economic backdrop to the outbreak of revolutionary war between the nascent USA and her British colonial masters.

L.W. Cowie explains how the Hansard merchants from northern Germany maintained their own Community in London from medieval times until 1852.

Patricia Wright profiles Falconer Larkworthy, a man who served in the banks of both Australia and New Zealand during the great Gold Rush of the 1850s.

Shakespeare was born into an England rejoicing in the peace and prospects of a new reign, but anxious about the future, writes Joel Hurstfield.

A solid middle-class clan who exported English wool to foreign markets, the Celys have left behind them a graphic record of their private affairs and shrewd commercial dealings, as Alison Hanham here finds.

Benn Steil argues that John Maynard Keynes had an astute grasp of Britain’s debt situation in 1944 and how it might recover from ‘financial Dunkirk’. Yet his arrogance and ineptitude in negotiating with the Americans at Bretton Woods cost Britain dear and has had repercussions to this day.