27 results on '"Berg, Maxine"'
Search Results
2. From imitation to invention: creating commodities in eighteenth-century Britain
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
New products -- Intellectual property ,Inventions -- History ,Manufacturing industry -- Product development ,Commodities -- Product development ,Industrial development -- History ,Imitation -- Economic aspects ,Patents -- 18th century AD ,Product development -- Economic aspects ,Economics ,History - Abstract
This article presents the history of new goods in the eighteenth century as a part of the broader history of invention and industrialization. It focuses on product innovation in manufactured commodities as this engages with economic, technological and cultural theories. Recent theories of consumer demand are applied to the invention of commodities in the eighteenth century; special attention is given to the process of imitation in product innovation. The theoretical framework for imitation can be found in evolutionary theories of memetic transmission, in archaeological theories of skeuomorphous, and in eighteenth-century theories of taste and aesthetics. Inventors, projectors, economic policy makers, and commercial and economic writers of the period dwelt upon the invention of new British products. The emulative, imitative context for their invention made British consumer goods the distinctive modern alternatives to earlier Asian and European luxuries.
- Published
- 2002
3. The machinery question : conceptions of technical change in political economy during the Industrial Revolution c.1820 to 1840
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
330.9 ,Economics ,History ,Machinery in the workplace ,Technological innovations ,19th century - Abstract
The Machinery Question during the early Nineteenth Century was the question of the impact of technical progress on the total economy and society. The question was central to everyday relations between, master and workman, but it was also of major theoretical and ideological interest. The very technology at the basis of economy and society was a fundamental platform of challenge and struggle. In the early Nineteenth Century, it was political economy, the 'natural science' of economy and society which took up the theoretical debate on the introduction, diffusion, and social impact of the radically new techniques of production associated with the era. The machine question also came to infuse not only the theoretical realm of political economy, but also the wider culture and consciousness of the bourgeoisie and the working classes. The machine question reflected the close connections of the relations of production to the concerns and conflicts pervading theory, culture and politics. This thesis has analyzed only one part of this many sided issue. It has focused on the attempt of the middle classes to use the new science of political economy to depict technical progress as a natural and evolutionary phenomenon. However, the thesis also shows that the great variety of theoretical traditions in political economy, combined with significant theoretical and working class dissent with the so called doctrine of political economy prevented the unqualified success of this attempt. The depth of the controversy evoked over the machinery issue indicated the still marked uncertainty of the experience of industrialization. By the 1820's and 1830's the factory, urban agglomerations and the coal heaps of mining counties had transformed some parts of the industrial landscape. But the permanence of this change still seemed questionable. Such change was still confined to a very small number of regions, affected small sections of the population, and contributed minimally to national income. The experience of technical change was of great novelty and excitement for those who contemplated the prospects of wealth and power it might bring. On the other hand, for the first generation of factory labour and cast off artisans and domestic workers, it still seemed possible to stop the 'unnatural' progress of technology. Working men and women felt keenly the unprecedented demands for mobility, both geographical and occupational. For them the machine meant, or at least threatened, unemployment, an unemployment which at best was transitional between and within sectors of the economy, and at worst affected the economy as a whole at times of scarce capital. For them the machine was accompanied by a change in the pattern of skills, and involved all too often the introduction of cheap and unskilled labour. In the period before the 1840's, when labour's great onslaught was against the machine itself, the machine question also featured in middle class doctrine. The times were still uncertain enough to demand that the 'cult of improvement' take on the shape of a cultural offensive rather than mere complacency. Thus the 'cult of improvement' during this era sought its -reatest scientific context in political economy. Most of the secondary literature on this period depicts the views of the middle classes and especially of political economy as ones of great pessimism. This thesis shows, to the contrary, that optimism and great faith in the new industrial technology was fundamental to the vision of political economy and to that of its middle class adherents. Ricardo's work was an intellectual and doctrinal tour de force which gripped the whole period, but which, in addition, just as significantly generated a great array of criticism. Curiously, the great historical problem of Ricardo's work was the lack of understanding it met, and the serious distortion it suffered at the hands of his popularizers. The great range of Ricardo criticism in the decades after his death was based often on misconceptions of his work. His own Principles which exuded so much interest in and hope for technical progress generated a wealth of dissident literature which also focused on improvement, skill and technical change. Though the political economy of these years was very diverse, and policy debates were hotly conducted, there is no doubt that the self-defined profession of political economy accepted certain assumptions and outlooks. There were several themes and conceptions which shaped the overall nature of this critique of Ricardo. These themes allow for the demarcation of two epochs of political economy between the 1820's and the 1830's. Political economists of the 1820's placed great emphasis on labour productivity and the skills of the artisan in their attempt to contradict the so called Ricardic predictions of overpopulation and the stationary state. By the 1830's economists still found in 'improvement,' technical change, and increasing returns, the great empirical and theoretical rebuttal to the 'Ricardian' predictions. However, 'improvement' was now discussed as the evolution of capital, and even more crucial to this change was the tendency to see capital as a material embodiment, as fixed capital and machinery. This shift of concepts was accompanied by a new methodological thrust. The political economy of the 1830's reflected a polemically inductivist mood. Unprecedented energy was devoted to debates over abstraction and induction. The political economy which resulted was more empirical, comparative and historical. New interest was given over to visiting factory districts, drawing on government reports, and in using and participating in social surveys. Political economists devoted more time to comparing the course of economic development in Britain to that of other Western economies, that of primitive societies, and that of previous historical epochs. The conceptual shift in political economy over these years seems to parallel certain tendencies and changes in the economy itself. The political economy of the 1820's appears to reflect the concerns underlying the economic-phase defined by Marx as the phase of 'manufactures'. The shift that takes place in theory in the 1830's approximates to the shift in the economy to the phase of 'modern industry.' But the conceptual changes in political economy over the period are also very closely connected to class struggle. This shows in the very seriousness attached by political economists to the 1826 anti-machinery riots in Lancashire and to the 1830 agricultural riots. Discussion of these two disturbances infused the very heights of economic theory. The establishment of political economy reflected the alarm of the middle classes and provided the 'scientific' answers to the working man's critique of machinery. Moreover, in debate with their critics, they helped to generate a new theory of technical change based on the machine and on the evolution and security of capital and the capitalist. The overall effect of these riotc on the middle clashes was a celebration of the cult of technical improvement. The force of this 'scientific' optimism in political economy was given a deep cultural basis in middle class improvement societiesandmdash;the Mechanics Institute Movement of the 1820's and the scientific and statistical societies of the 1830's. These movements were attempts to involve both the working classes and the middle classes in a concerted energetic programme to promote technical advance. They also acted to forge new cultural connections between the provinces and the metropolis. A scientific movement which, in its rhetoric at least, focused on the practical, economic and technological connections of science, created a new nexus simultaneously economic and cultural between province and metropolis. This scientific culture was material and empirical.
- Published
- 1976
4. L’Histoire économique en mouvement
- Author
-
Arnoux, Mathieu, Baubeau, Patrice, Béaur, Gérard, Belfanti, Carlo, Berg, Maxine, Cassis, Youssef, Chatriot, Alain, Congost, Rosa, Daumas, Jean-Claude, Demeulemeester, Jean-Luc, Descat, Raymond, Diebolt, Claude, Feller, Laurent, Fontaine, Laurence, Hautcoeur, Pierre Cyrille, Kelly, Morgan, Lemercier, Claire, Maitte, Corine, Margairaz, Michel, Minard, Philippe, Ó Gráda, Cormac, Palermo, Luciano, Pomeranz, Kenneth, Terrier, Didier, Vries, Peer, and Daumas, Jean-Claude
- Subjects
théorie économique ,History ,économie ,Economics ,HB ,histoire économique ,crise financière ,HIS000000 ,inégalité - Abstract
L’histoire économique ne jouit plus aujourd’hui en France du prestige qui était le sien du temps de Braudel et de Labrousse, mais loin d’être le refuge d’une poignée de nostalgiques, elle ne cesse de se renouveler. Fruit d’une initiative du CNRS, ce livre s’interroge sur sa situation actuelle et ses perspectives de développement : poids des héritages, crise des paradigmes, rapports avec les autres secteurs de l’histoire et les disciplines voisines, chantiers en cours et thématiques émergentes y sont étudiés par les meilleurs spécialistes. De surcroît, sortant de l’hexagone, il donne à découvrir des travaux qui, au niveau international, sont en train de renouveler l’histoire économique et représentent autant de défis pour les historiens français. Faisant justice des stéréotypes réducteurs, il montre enfin que l’histoire économique aide à penser la complexité et, en éclairant le présent par le passé, contribue à rendre intelligibles les problèmes de notre temps - des crises financières à la montée de la Chine en passant par la fin des campagnes ou l’accroissement des inégalités.
- Published
- 2019
5. Les siècles asiatiques de l’Europe. Asie, luxe et approches nouvelles de la révolution industrielle
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
théorie économique ,History ,économie ,Economics ,HB ,histoire économique ,crise financière ,HIS000000 ,inégalité - Abstract
Comme bon nombre de mes collègues en histoire européenne, j’ai d’abord travaillé sur mon sujet en restant à l’intérieur d’un cadre purement européen. Mon travail, dont le but est de comprendre les sources de l’industrialisation, m’a menée à l’économie politique classique, l’organisation industrielle et la montée du factory system, la technologie et l’invention, la proto-industrialisation et l’attitude des consommateurs. J’ai écrit cette histoire sans prendre en compte l’impact sur ces dévelop...
- Published
- 2019
6. Women's consumption and the industrial classes of eighteenth-century England
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
United Kingdom -- History ,Consumer behavior -- History -- Social aspects ,Commodities -- Social aspects ,History ,Sociology and social work ,Social aspects - Abstract
This paper addresses questions of gender and class in consumer behaviour in early industrial England. It explores the role of new commodities and their significance to the practices of middling consumers in two rapidly expanding industrial towns of eighteenth-century England, Birmingham and Sheffield. The paper investigates qualitative questions of the social and emotional significance attached to goods, as well as quantitative indicators of ownership through the use of wills, probate inventories and insurance policies. Bequests in wills display the kinds of goods thought to be significant by a large number of consumers, and reveal, in addition, different attitudes among men and women to their possessions. Urban middling women conveyed a sensitivity to commodities which may have been the crucial factor behind the shift from an elite consumption of foreign luxuries to a broadly-based demand for consumer novelties., I Recent research on the origins of industrialization in Britain and Europe has opened new questions on the role of demand, consumption and foreign trade. Did a growth in demand [...]
- Published
- 1996
7. Shopping for Britain: Maxine Berg looks at the commercial battle to dominate Europe that ran alongside the wars with France, and the product revolution that gave Britain the edge in this field
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Trademarks -- Influence -- History ,International trade -- History -- Influence ,Nationalism -- Influence ,Industry -- History ,International trade ,History - Abstract
The collapse of MG Rover in April brought us face to face once again with job losses in our manufacturing regions, with widespread regret over the loss of another British [...]
- Published
- 2005
8. Women's property and the industrial revolution
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
United Kingdom -- Social aspects ,Wealth -- United Kingdom ,Women -- Civil rights ,History - Abstract
An examination of the custom of holding property, patrimony and guardianship of children by women in the two industrial towns of Birmingham and Sheffield, UK, shows that they play a significant role in deciding about the distribution of family wealth. They receive and amass family goods, clothing and cash, which they allot with extreme care. They use the trusts made primarily for children to prevent the family wealth from insolvency. The trusts serve as an important source to ensure the independent use of wealth by the women.
- Published
- 1993
9. The first women economic historians
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Women economists -- History ,Social scientists -- Analysis ,Economics ,History - Abstract
MAXINE BERG. The first women economic historians. Women scholars and teachers played a prominent part in the foundations of the economic and social history profession in this country. Yet today few of these are remembered, and economic history in particular now attracts few women. This paper examines the key intellectual connections forged among a number of women scholars in the discipline through Girton College, Cambridge, the L.S.E., and the Economic History Society. It examines the impact on the discipline of women's involvement just before World War I and during the interwar year in the campaign for female suffrage and the peace movement. Finally it assesses in depth the intellectual formation and contribution of one key figure, Eileen Power.
- Published
- 1992
10. Rehabilitating the industrial revolution
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine and Hudson, Pat
- Subjects
Historiography -- Analysis ,Industry -- History ,Economics ,History - Abstract
MAXINE BERG and PAT HUDSON. Rehabilitating the industrial revolution. Gradualist perspectives now dominate economic and social histories of the industrial revolution. Analyses of economic change which rely on growth accounting and macroeconomic estimates of productivity indicate continuity with the past; social historians have followed in turning aside from the analysis of new class formations. This article challenges these perspectives. Currently accepted economic indicators and recent social history underplay the extent and uniqueness of economic and social transformation. The article emphasizes change in technology, the use of a female and child labour force, regional specialization, demographic behaviour, and political change.
- Published
- 1992
11. The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785-1865
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785-1865 (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,History - Published
- 1990
12. Growth and change: a comment on the Crafts-Harley view of the industrial revolution
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine and Hudson, Pat
- Subjects
Industrial development -- Research ,Labor market -- Research ,Economics ,History - Abstract
Historical growth rates recorded during the industrial revolution need to be modified upwards to take into account the contributions of child labor and women in the workforce. A key argument for this lies in the dominant role played by child and female workers in many of the emerging consumer goods industries that arose during the period, such as textiles, food processing amd potteries.
- Published
- 1994
13. The machinery question
- Author
-
Berg, M and Berg, Maxine L.
- Subjects
History ,Economics ,19th century ,Machinery in the workplace ,Technological innovations - Abstract
The Machinery Question during the early Nineteenth Century was the question of the impact of technical progress on the total economy and society. The question was central to everyday relations between, master and workman, but it was also of major theoretical and ideological interest. The very technology at the basis of economy and society was a fundamental platform of challenge and struggle. In the early Nineteenth Century, it was political economy, the 'natural science' of economy and society which took up the theoretical debate on the introduction, diffusion, and social impact of the radically new techniques of production associated with the era. The machine question also came to infuse not only the theoretical realm of political economy, but also the wider culture and consciousness of the bourgeoisie and the working classes. The machine question reflected the close connections of the relations of production to the concerns and conflicts pervading theory, culture and politics. This thesis has analyzed only one part of this many sided issue. It has focused on the attempt of the middle classes to use the new science of political economy to depict technical progress as a natural and evolutionary phenomenon. However, the thesis also shows that the great variety of theoretical traditions in political economy, combined with significant theoretical and working class dissent with the so called doctrine of political economy prevented the unqualified success of this attempt. The depth of the controversy evoked over the machinery issue indicated the still marked uncertainty of the experience of industrialization. By the 1820's and 1830's the factory, urban agglomerations and the coal heaps of mining counties had transformed some parts of the industrial landscape. But the permanence of this change still seemed questionable. Such change was still confined to a very small number of regions, affected small sections of the population, and contributed minimally to national income. The experience of technical change was of great novelty and excitement for those who contemplated the prospects of wealth and power it might bring. On the other hand, for the first generation of factory labour and cast off artisans and domestic workers, it still seemed possible to stop the 'unnatural' progress of technology. Working men and women felt keenly the unprecedented demands for mobility, both geographical and occupational. For them the machine meant, or at least threatened, unemployment, an unemployment which at best was transitional between and within sectors of the economy, and at worst affected the economy as a whole at times of scarce capital. For them the machine was accompanied by a change in the pattern of skills, and involved all too often the introduction of cheap and unskilled labour. In the period before the 1840's, when labour's great onslaught was against the machine itself, the machine question also featured in middle class doctrine. The times were still uncertain enough to demand that the 'cult of improvement' take on the shape of a cultural offensive rather than mere complacency. Thus the 'cult of improvement' during this era sought its -reatest scientific context in political economy. Most of the secondary literature on this period depicts the views of the middle classes and especially of political economy as ones of great pessimism. This thesis shows, to the contrary, that optimism and great faith in the new industrial technology was fundamental to the vision of political economy and to that of its middle class adherents. Ricardo's work was an intellectual and doctrinal tour de force which gripped the whole period, but which, in addition, just as significantly generated a great array of criticism. Curiously, the great historical problem of Ricardo's work was the lack of understanding it met, and the serious distortion it suffered at the hands of his popularizers. The great range of Ricardo criticism in the decades after his death was based often on misconceptions of his work. His own Principles which exuded so much interest in and hope for technical progress generated a wealth of dissident literature which also focused on improvement, skill and technical change. Though the political economy of these years was very diverse, and policy debates were hotly conducted, there is no doubt that the self-defined profession of political economy accepted certain assumptions and outlooks. There were several themes and conceptions which shaped the overall nature of this critique of Ricardo. These themes allow for the demarcation of two epochs of political economy between the 1820's and the 1830's. Political economists of the 1820's placed great emphasis on labour productivity and the skills of the artisan in their attempt to contradict the so called Ricardic predictions of overpopulation and the stationary state. By the 1830's economists still found in 'improvement,' technical change, and increasing returns, the great empirical and theoretical rebuttal to the 'Ricardian' predictions. However, 'improvement' was now discussed as the evolution of capital, and even more crucial to this change was the tendency to see capital as a material embodiment, as fixed capital and machinery. This shift of concepts was accompanied by a new methodological thrust. The political economy of the 1830's reflected a polemically inductivist mood. Unprecedented energy was devoted to debates over abstraction and induction. The political economy which resulted was more empirical, comparative and historical. New interest was given over to visiting factory districts, drawing on government reports, and in using and participating in social surveys. Political economists devoted more time to comparing the course of economic development in Britain to that of other Western economies, that of primitive societies, and that of previous historical epochs. The conceptual shift in political economy over these years seems to parallel certain tendencies and changes in the economy itself. The political economy of the 1820's appears to reflect the concerns underlying the economic-phase defined by Marx as the phase of 'manufactures'. The shift that takes place in theory in the 1830's approximates to the shift in the economy to the phase of 'modern industry.' But the conceptual changes in political economy over the period are also very closely connected to class struggle. This shows in the very seriousness attached by political economists to the 1826 anti-machinery riots in Lancashire and to the 1830 agricultural riots. Discussion of these two disturbances infused the very heights of economic theory. The establishment of political economy reflected the alarm of the middle classes and provided the 'scientific' answers to the working man's critique of machinery. Moreover, in debate with their critics, they helped to generate a new theory of technical change based on the machine and on the evolution and security of capital and the capitalist. The overall effect of these riotc on the middle clashes was a celebration of the cult of technical improvement. The force of this 'scientific' optimism in political economy was given a deep cultural basis in middle class improvement societiesandmdash;the Mechanics Institute Movement of the 1820's and the scientific and statistical societies of the 1830's. These movements were attempts to involve both the working classes and the middle classes in a concerted energetic programme to promote technical advance. They also acted to forge new cultural connections between the provinces and the metropolis. A scientific movement which, in its rhetoric at least, focused on the practical, economic and technological connections of science, created a new nexus simultaneously economic and cultural between province and metropolis. This scientific culture was material and empirical. It was a feature of everyday life that permeated to the technical and managerial manual, dictionary and encyclopedia. The empirical thrust of the scientific movement was a way of involving more people in the great scientific debates. It acted as a democratization of culture within the middle class, and provided a complement to the academic controversy of theory. This empiricist scientific movement was also very congenial to the inductivist mood of political economy in the 1830's. The scientific movement which promoted fascination with the great prospects of technical progress was closely connected with the political economy of improvement. The study of science and the study of political economy were, for many, integrated pursuits practised in overlapping societies. One area of political economy, the study of the condition of the poor and the working classes, became the major concern of the social survey, the new method and tool of the statistical movement. The social investigators kept their interests in poverty away from the sensitive areas of the wages and conditions of work. They focused instead on moral problemsandmdash;education, religion, and providence. Political economy and science were left safely to indulge in the glorifidation of growth and technical change, while the statistical societies provided the basis of a 'scientific' philanthropy to lull the early Victorian conscience. The problem of the social impact of technical change was thus transferred from an economic question to a moral question. These intellectual and cultural formulations of the road to improvement were not, as stated above, unchallenged and accepted ideologies. The intellectual vigour and richness of working class culture in the period was just as important in acting to create a fundamental critique and reformulation of the machinery question. In contrast to the political economist of the middle clashes, 'big bottomed spiders, weaving their theoretical cobwebs in comfortable seclusion,'1 the working classes conceived of their own truly popular political economyandmdash;popular in the sense that it was written from the standpoint of the working classes. Middle class science promoted the integration of worker and master in the generation of technical progress, and hoped for a skilled, disciplined and hierarchical labour market. The working class conception of science was a demand not for 'useful knowledge,' but for 'really useful knowledge.' Science gave them materialist and rationalist explanations of the world which helped to free them from political and religious authority. The very act of learning not only science, but literature, art, and political economy was a claim to culture, to be acquired through 'mutual instruction' in contrast to the 'aristocracy of theory.' While the middle classes worshipped at the altar of improvement and marvelled at the new technology, the working classes resisted the mechanical culture which seemed to bring only degradation. They lamented their fate in verse and petition in ways like the following: 'Mechanics and poor labourers Are wandering up and down There is nothing now but poverty In country and in town; Machinery and steam power has The poor man's hopes destroyed, Then pray behold the numbers of The suffering unemployed.'2 These conflicts in culture and ideology met directly in the political arena of the policy debate. Working men and masters clashed with each other and among themselves in the discussion of the source of Britain's industrial superiority during the policy debate over the repeal of the laws against the emigration of artisans and the exportation of machinery. These debates were crucial in highlighting and generating much more intellectual debate on the role of the capital goods sector and on the ownership of skill. This sector, which contained the possibilities for the manufacture of machines by machines, was the very heart of the development and diffusion of new techniques. The debates also projected and fostered a piecemeal and empirical view of technical change which fitted in closely with the scientific movement and the political economy of the time. A contrast over the debate on the capital goods sector was the controversy over the handloom weavers. Great concern was shown in this period for the mechanization of the 'backward' domestic sectors of the fastest growing consumer industry, the textile industry. This concern was projected most strikingly in the handloom weaver debates, and they were certainly the most widespread of the political debates on technical progress. The importance of the machinery question reached far beyond the place of production in the 1820's and the 1830's. It featured in the theoretical, cultural and political struggles of these years and as such, was formative to the consciousness of both the bourgeoisie and the working classes. Cited by Raphael Samuel, 'Mayhew and Labour History,' Bulletin for the Society of Labour History, 1973, p. 52 The Present Condition of British Workmen, n.p., 1834.
- Published
- 2016
14. The genesis of 'useful knowledge'
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
The Gifts of Athena (Book) -- Criticism and interpretation ,Authors, European -- Criticism and interpretation ,History ,Science and technology - Abstract
A discussion on Joel Mokyr's 2002 book, 'The gifts of Athena', which argues the centrality of 'useful knowledge' to the genesis of Europe's industrialization, is presented.
- Published
- 2007
15. In pursuit of luxury: global history and British consumer goods in the eighteenth century
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
United Kingdom -- Economic aspects ,Industrial development -- Evaluation ,Consumer goods -- Imports ,Ethnic, cultural, racial issues/studies ,History ,Sociology and social work - Abstract
Import of goods from the East made a difference to the subsequent development of European, but especially British, consumer markets and production technologies. The new consumer goods by the end of the eighteenth century had come to be perceived in Europe and America as the distinctive modern alternatives to former Asian and European luxuries.
- Published
- 2004
16. Great Bubbles: Reactions to the South Sea Bubble, the Mississippi Scheme and the Tulip Mania Affair
- Author
-
Breuninger, Scott and Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Great Bubbles: Reactions to the South Sea Bubble, the Mississippi Scheme and the Tulip Mania Affair (Book) ,Books -- Book reviews ,Economics ,History - Published
- 2001
17. The Middling Sort Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England: 1680-1780
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
The Middling Sort (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,Economics ,History - Published
- 1998
18. East-West Dialogues: Economic Historians, the Cold War, and Détente.
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
- *
COLD War, 1945-1991 , *DETENTE , *INTERNATIONAL cooperation , *HISTORIANS , *HISTORY of diplomacy , *ECONOMIC history , *MOTIVATION (Psychology) , *TWENTIETH century , *HISTORY - Abstract
The article discusses the establishment of the organization the International Economic History Association (IEHA) and its significance to dialogue among economic historians during the Cold War and détente. It examines the significance of the IEHA to academic international diplomacy, the motivation of the organizers of the IEHA to keep the group together through Cold War crises, and the role of the field of economic history in international collaborations during the Cold War. It also discusses the roles of scholars Michael M. Postan, Fernand Braudel, and Ernst Söderlund in organizing the IEHA.
- Published
- 2015
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
19. English Porcelain, 1745-95: Its Makers, Design, Marketing and Consumption
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
English Porcelain, 1745-95: Its Makers, Design, Marketing and Consumption (Book) ,Books -- Book reviews ,Economics ,History - Published
- 2001
20. Consuming Splendor Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (Book) -- Peck, Linda Levy ,Books -- Book reviews ,History - Abstract
Consuming Splendor Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England Linda Levy Peck Cambridge University Press 43 Ipp 20 £ ISBN 0521842328 Over the course of eight weeks in 1608 Lady Frances [...]
- Published
- 2006
21. Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom: 1750-1920
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom 1750-1920 (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,Geography ,History - Published
- 1989
22. Most Wonderful Machine: Mechanization and Social Change in Berkshire Paper Making 1801-1885
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Most Wonderful Machine (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,Anthropology/archeology/folklore ,High technology industry ,History - Published
- 1989
23. Textile manufacturers in early modern England
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Textile Manufacturers in Early Modern England (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,Economics ,History - Published
- 1987
24. The Power of the Past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
The Power of the Past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,History ,Regional focus/area studies - Published
- 1988
25. Gentlemen of Science. Early Correspondence of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
Gentlemen of Science. Early Correspondence of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Book) -- Book reviews ,Books -- Book reviews ,History ,Regional focus/area studies - Published
- 1988
26. The machinery question
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
History ,Economics ,19th century ,Machinery in the workplace ,Technological innovations - Abstract
The Machinery Question during the early Nineteenth Century was the question of the impact of technical progress on the total economy and society. The question was central to everyday relations between, master and workman, but it was also of major theoretical and ideological interest. The very technology at the basis of economy and society was a fundamental platform of challenge and struggle. In the early Nineteenth Century, it was political economy, the 'natural science' of economy and society which took up the theoretical debate on the introduction, diffusion, and social impact of the radically new techniques of production associated with the era. The machine question also came to infuse not only the theoretical realm of political economy, but also the wider culture and consciousness of the bourgeoisie and the working classes. The machine question reflected the close connections of the relations of production to the concerns and conflicts pervading theory, culture and politics. This thesis has analyzed only one part of this many sided issue. It has focused on the attempt of the middle classes to use the new science of political economy to depict technical progress as a natural and evolutionary phenomenon. However, the thesis also shows that the great variety of theoretical traditions in political economy, combined with significant theoretical and working class dissent with the so called doctrine of political economy prevented the unqualified success of this attempt. The depth of the controversy evoked over the machinery issue indicated the still marked uncertainty of the experience of industrialization. By the 1820's and 1830's the factory, urban agglomerations and the coal heaps of mining counties had transformed some parts of the industrial landscape. But the permanence of this change still seemed questionable. Such change was still confined to a very small number of regions, affected small sections of the population, and contributed minimally to national income. The experience of technical change was of great novelty and excitement for those who contemplated the prospects of wealth and power it might bring. On the other hand, for the first generation of factory labour and cast off artisans and domestic workers, it still seemed possible to stop the 'unnatural' progress of technology. Working men and women felt keenly the unprecedented demands for mobility, both geographical and occupational. For them the machine meant, or at least threatened, unemployment, an unemployment which at best was transitional between and within sectors of the economy, and at worst affected the economy as a whole at times of scarce capital. For them the machine was accompanied by a change in the pattern of skills, and involved all too often the introduction of cheap and unskilled labour. In the period before the 1840's, when labour's great onslaught was against the machine itself, the machine question also featured in middle class doctrine. The times were still uncertain enough to demand that the 'cult of improvement' take on the shape of a cultural offensive rather than mere complacency. Thus the 'cult of improvement' during this era sought its -reatest scientific context in political economy. Most of the secondary literature on this period depicts the views of the middle classes and especially of political economy as ones of great pessimism. This thesis shows, to the contrary, that optimism and great faith in the new industrial technology was fundamental to the vision of political economy and to that of its middle class adherents. Ricardo's work was an intellectual and doctrinal tour de force which gripped the whole period, but which, in addition, just as significantly generated a great array of criticism. Curiously, the great historical problem of Ricardo's work was the lack of understanding it met, and the serious distortion it suffered at the hands of his popularizers. The great range of Ricardo criticism in the decades after his death was based often on misconceptions of his work. His own Principles which exuded so much interest in and hope for technical progress generated a wealth of dissident literature which also focused on improvement, skill and technical change. Though the political economy of these years was very diverse, and policy debates were hotly conducted, there is no doubt that the self-defined profession of political economy accepted certain assumptions and outlooks. There were several themes and conceptions which shaped the overall nature of this critique of Ricardo. These themes allow for the demarcation of two epochs of political economy between the 1820's and the 1830's. Political economists of the 1820's placed great emphasis on labour productivity and the skills of the artisan in their attempt to contradict the so called Ricardic predictions of overpopulation and the stationary state. By the 1830's economists still found in 'improvement,' technical change, and increasing returns, the great empirical and theoretical rebuttal to the 'Ricardian' predictions. However, 'improvement' was now discussed as the evolution of capital, and even more crucial to this change was the tendency to see capital as a material embodiment, as fixed capital and machinery. This shift of concepts was accompanied by a new methodological thrust. The political economy of the 1830's reflected a polemically inductivist mood. Unprecedented energy was devoted to debates over abstraction and induction. The political economy which resulted was more empirical, comparative and historical. New interest was given over to visiting factory districts, drawing on government reports, and in using and participating in social surveys. Political economists devoted more time to comparing the course of economic development in Britain to that of other Western economies, that of primitive societies, and that of previous historical epochs. The conceptual shift in political economy over these years seems to parallel certain tendencies and changes in the economy itself. The political economy of the 1820's appears to reflect the concerns underlying the economic-phase defined by Marx as the phase of 'manufactures'. The shift that takes place in theory in the 1830's approximates to the shift in the economy to the phase of 'modern industry.' But the conceptual changes in political economy over the period are also very closely connected to class struggle. This shows in the very seriousness attached by political economists to the 1826 anti-machinery riots in Lancashire and to the 1830 agricultural riots. Discussion of these two disturbances infused the very heights of economic theory. The establishment of political economy reflected the alarm of the middle classes and provided the 'scientific' answers to the working man's critique of machinery. Moreover, in debate with their critics, they helped to generate a new theory of technical change based on the machine and on the evolution and security of capital and the capitalist. The overall effect of these riotc on the middle clashes was a celebration of the cult of technical improvement. The force of this 'scientific' optimism in political economy was given a deep cultural basis in middle class improvement societiesandmdash;the Mechanics Institute Movement of the 1820's and the scientific and statistical societies of the 1830's. These movements were attempts to involve both the working classes and the middle classes in a concerted energetic programme to promote technical advance. They also acted to forge new cultural connections between the provinces and the metropolis. A scientific movement which, in its rhetoric at least, focused on the practical, economic and technological connections of science, created a new nexus simultaneously economic and cultural between province and metropolis. This scientific culture was material and empirical. It was a feature of everyday life that permeated to the technical and managerial manual, dictionary and encyclopedia. The empirical thrust of the scientific movement was a way of involving more people in the great scientific debates. It acted as a democratization of culture within the middle class, and provided a complement to the academic controversy of theory. This empiricist scientific movement was also very congenial to the inductivist mood of political economy in the 1830's. The scientific movement which promoted fascination with the great prospects of technical progress was closely connected with the political economy of improvement. The study of science and the study of political economy were, for many, integrated pursuits practised in overlapping societies. One area of political economy, the study of the condition of the poor and the working classes, became the major concern of the social survey, the new method and tool of the statistical movement. The social investigators kept their interests in poverty away from the sensitive areas of the wages and conditions of work. They focused instead on moral problemsandmdash;education, religion, and providence. Political economy and science were left safely to indulge in the glorifidation of growth and technical change, while the statistical societies provided the basis of a 'scientific' philanthropy to lull the early Victorian conscience. The problem of the social impact of technical change was thus transferred from an economic question to a moral question. These intellectual and cultural formulations of the road to improvement were not, as stated above, unchallenged and accepted ideologies. The intellectual vigour and richness of working class culture in the period was just as important in acting to create a fundamental critique and reformulation of the machinery question. In contrast to the political economist of the middle clashes, 'big bottomed spiders, weaving their theoretical cobwebs in comfortable seclusion,'1 the working classes conceived of their own truly popular political economyandmdash;popular in the sense that it was written from the standpoint of the working classes. Middle class science promoted the integration of worker and master in the generation of technical progress, and hoped for a skilled, disciplined and hierarchical labour market. The working class conception of science was a demand not for 'useful knowledge,' but for 'really useful knowledge.' Science gave them materialist and rationalist explanations of the world which helped to free them from political and religious authority. The very act of learning not only science, but literature, art, and political economy was a claim to culture, to be acquired through 'mutual instruction' in contrast to the 'aristocracy of theory.' While the middle classes worshipped at the altar of improvement and marvelled at the new technology, the working classes resisted the mechanical culture which seemed to bring only degradation. They lamented their fate in verse and petition in ways like the following: 'Mechanics and poor labourers Are wandering up and down There is nothing now but poverty In country and in town; Machinery and steam power has The poor man's hopes destroyed, Then pray behold the numbers of The suffering unemployed.'2 These conflicts in culture and ideology met directly in the political arena of the policy debate. Working men and masters clashed with each other and among themselves in the discussion of the source of Britain's industrial superiority during the policy debate over the repeal of the laws against the emigration of artisans and the exportation of machinery. These debates were crucial in highlighting and generating much more intellectual debate on the role of the capital goods sector and on the ownership of skill. This sector, which contained the possibilities for the manufacture of machines by machines, was the very heart of the development and diffusion of new techniques. The debates also projected and fostered a piecemeal and empirical view of technical change which fitted in closely with the scientific movement and the political economy of the time. A contrast over the debate on the capital goods sector was the controversy over the handloom weavers. Great concern was shown in this period for the mechanization of the 'backward' domestic sectors of the fastest growing consumer industry, the textile industry. This concern was projected most strikingly in the handloom weaver debates, and they were certainly the most widespread of the political debates on technical progress. The importance of the machinery question reached far beyond the place of production in the 1820's and the 1830's. It featured in the theoretical, cultural and political struggles of these years and as such, was formative to the consciousness of both the bourgeoisie and the working classes. Cited by Raphael Samuel, 'Mayhew and Labour History,' Bulletin for the Society of Labour History, 1973, p. 52 The Present Condition of British Workmen, n.p., 1834.
- Published
- 1976
27. Passionate Projectors: Savants and silk on the Coromandel coast 1780-98.
- Author
-
Berg, Maxine
- Subjects
- *
SILK industry , *BUSINESS failures , *EIGHTEENTH century , *CORPORATE history , *HISTORY - Abstract
The article looks at botanist and surgeon James Anderson's silk projects along India's Coromandel coast. Anderson set up an extensive network of correspondents, learning which species of silkworm and mulberry tree were the best options for plantations in Southern India. Ultimately the venture failed, but according to the author it shows how many of English trading company, the East India Company's ventures in India were economically inviable.
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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