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Economic history of Europe (1000 AD–present)

May 09, 2023

This article covers the Economic history of Europe from about 1000 AD to the present. For the context, see History of Europe.

Real GDP per capita development in Europe, 1820 to 2018

Middle Ages

Agriculture

Further information: Agriculture in the Middle Ages

Early in the first millennium, improvements in technique and technology began to emerge. Monasteries spread throughout Europe and became important centers for the collection of knowledge related to agriculture and forestry. The manorial system, which existed under different names throughout Europe and Asia, allowed large landowners significant control over both their land and its laborers, in the form of peasants or serfs.[1] There were exchanges with distant regions mediated through the Arab world. Arabs introduced summer irrigation to Europe.[2] Population continued to increase along with land use.

By 900 AD in Europe, developments in iron smelting allowed for increased production, leading to developments in the production of farm tools such as ploughs, hand tools and horse shoes. The plough was significantly improved, developing into the mouldboard plough, capable of turning over the heavy, wet soils of northern Europe. This led to the clearing of forests in that area and a significant increase in agricultural production, which in turn led to an increase in population.[3] Farmers in Europe moved from a two field crop rotation to a three field crop rotation in which one field of three was left fallow every year. This resulted in increased productivity and nutrition, as the change in rotations led to different crops being planted, including legumes, such as peas, lentils and beans. Inventions such as improved horse harnesses and the whippletree also changed methods of cultivation.[3]

Watermills were initially developed by the Romans, but were improved throughout the Middle Ages, along with windmills, and were provided the power needed to grind grains into flour, cut wood and process flax and wool, and irrigate fields.[4]

Field crops included wheat, rye, barley and oats; they were used for bread and animal fodder. Peas, beans, and vetches became common from the 13th century onward as food and as a fodder crop for animals; they also had nitrogen-fixation fertilizing properties. Crop yields peaked in the 13th century, and stayed more or less steady until the 18th century.[5] Although the limitations of medieval farming were once thought to have provided a ceiling for the population growth in the Middle Ages, recent studies[6][7] have shown that the technology of medieval agriculture was always sufficient for the needs of the people under normal circumstances, and that it was only during exceptionally harsh times, such as the terrible weather of 1315–17, that the needs of the population could not be met.[8]

Famines and plagues

There were episodes of famines, and also of deadly epidemics. Soil exhaustion, overpopulation, wars, diseases and climate change caused hundreds of famines in medieval Europe.[9][10] Around 1300, centuries of European prosperity and growth came to a halt. Famines such as Great Famine of 1315–1317 slowly weakened the populace. Few people died of starvation because the weakest had already succumbed to a routine disease they otherwise would have survived. A plague like the Black Death killed its victims in one locality in a matter of days or even hours, reducing the population of some areas by half as many survivors fled. Kishlansky reports:

The Black Death touched every aspect of life, hastening a process of social, economic, and cultural transformation already underway.... Fields were abandoned, workplaces stood idle, international trade was suspended. Traditional bonds of kinship, village and even religion were broken and the horrors of death, flight, and failed expectations. "People cared no more for dead men that we care for dead goats," wrote one survivor.[11]

Depopulation caused labor to become scarcer; the survivors were better paid and peasants could drop some of the burdens of feudalism. There was also social unrest; France and England experienced serious peasant risings: the Jacquerie, the Peasants' Revolt. These events have been called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.[12]

Technology

A major technological advance came in long-distance navigation, from the 8th century to the 12th century. Viking raids and the Crusader invasions of the Middle East led to the diffusion of and refinement of technology instrumental to overseas travel. People made improvements in ships, particularly the longship. The astrolabe, for navigation, greatly aided long-distance travel over the seas. The improvements in travel in turn increased trade and the diffusion of consumer items.

Crafts and urban growth

From the 11th century to the 13th century, farmers and small-scale producers of crafts increasingly met in towns to trade their goods. They met in either seasonal trade fairs or they traded in an ongoing basis. Craft associations called guilds fostered the development of skills and the local growth of trade in particular goods. Over the course of the centuries of this period towns grew in size and number, first in a core in England, Flanders, France, Germany and northern Italy.

Spinning, weaving, sewing and cutting were considered women's work until the mid-12th century when men began taking over some positions with more sophisticated industrial structures and technologies. In the large cities of Northern France, centers of medieval textile production, the shift to male dominated production started even earlier, in the 11th century, when the vertical loom was replaced by the horizontal treadle loom. Especially the guilds of furriers, tailors, dyers and tapestry makers were dominated by men. Some women did participate in guilds, but it was rare. Most commercial roles were occupied by men, while women were preferred for positions within households. When women were accepted for guild membership it was usually as a second-rank member (similar to young boys or disabled men).[13]

The economic system of this era was merchant capitalism. The core of this system was in merchant houses, backed by financiers acting as intermediaries between simple commodity producers. This system continued until it was supplanted by industrial capitalism in the 18th century.

Economic activity over a broad geographic range began to intensify in both northern and southern Europe in the 13th century.

Trade flourished in Italy (albeit not united, but rather ruled by different princes in different city-states), particularly by the 13th century. Leading the trade in Mediterranean Europe were traders from the port cities of Genoa and Venice. The wealth generated in Italy fueled the Italian Renaissance.

 
Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League

Hanseatic League

In cities linked to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea a trade monopoly developed in the Hanseatic League. This facilitated the growth of trade among cities in close proximity to these two seas. Long-distance trade in the Baltic intensified, as the major trading towns came together in the Hanseatic League, under the leadership of Lübeck.

The League was a business alliance of trading cities and their guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe and flourished from the 1200 to 1500, and continued with lesser importance after that. The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine River, Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea, and Lübeck on the Baltic.[14]

The Hanseatic cities each had its own legal system and a degree of political autonomy.[15] The Hanseatic League was an alliance of North German and Baltic cities during the Middle Ages. The Hanseatic League was founded for the purpose of joining forces for promoting mercantile interests, defensive strength and political influence. By the 14th century, the Hanseatic League held a near-monopoly on trade in the Baltic, especially with Novgorod and Scandinavia.[16]

France

The collapse of the Roman Empire unlinked the French economy from Europe. Town life and trade declined and society became based on the self-sufficient manor. Some international trade existed for luxury goods such as silk, papyrus, and silver; it was handled by foreign merchants such as the Radanites.

Agricultural output began to increase in the Carolingian age as a result of the arrival of new crops, improvements in agricultural production, and good weather conditions. However, this did not lead to the revival of urban life; in fact, urban activity further declined in the Carolingian era as a result of civil war, Arab raids, and Viking invasions. (See also Pirenne thesis). The High Middle Ages saw a continuation of the agricultural boom of the Carolingian age. In addition, urban life grew during this period; Paris expanded dramatically.

The 13 decades from 1335 to 1450 spawned a series of economic catastrophes, with bad harvests, famines, plagues and wars that overwhelmed four generations of Frenchmen. The population had expanded, making the food supply more precarious. The Black Death of 1347 was echoed by several smaller plagues at 15 year intervals. The French and English armies during the Hundred Years War marched back and forth across the land; they did not massacre civilians, but they drained the food supply, disrupted agriculture and trade, and left disease and famine in their wake. Royal authority weakened, as local nobles became strongmen fighting their neighbors for control of the local region. France's population plunged from 17 million, down to 12 million in 130 years. Finally, starting in the 1450s, a long cycle of recuperation began.[17]

Early modern Europe: 1500–1800

The age of exploration, seen from the European point of view, introduced major economic changes. The Columbian exchange resulted in Europe adopting new crops, as well as shaking up traditional cultural ideas and practices. The commercial revolution continued, with Europeans developing mercantilism and European imports of luxury goods (notably spices and fine cloth[18]) from eastern and southern Asia switching from crossing Islamic territory in the present-day Middle East to passing the Cape of Good Hope. Spain proved adept at plundering the gold and silver of the Americas, but incompetent at converting its new wealth into a vibrant domestic economy, and declined as an economic power. From the 1600s, the centres of commerce and manufactures shifted definitively from the Mediterranean to the centres of shipping and colonisation on the western Atlantic coastal fringe: economic activity went into a relative decline in 17th century Italy and Turkey - but to the advantage of Portugal, Spain, France, the Dutch Republic and England/Britain. In eastern Europe, Russia suppressed the Tatar slave-trade, expanded commerce in luxury furs from Siberia and rivalled the Scandinavian and German states in the Baltic. Colonial goods like sugar and tobacco from the Americas came to play a role in the European economy. Meanwhile, changes in financial practice (especially in the Netherlands and in England), the second agricultural revolution in Britain and technological innovations in France, Prussia and England not only promoted economic changes and expansion in themselves, but also fostered the beginnings of the industrial revolution.

France

Main articles: Ancien Régime and Early modern France

Before 1800, France was the most populated country in Europe, with a population of 17 million in 1400, 20 million in the 17th century, and 28 million in 1789.[citation needed] The 17th and 18th centuries saw a steady increase in urban populations, although France remained a profoundly rural country, with less than 10% of the population located in urban areas. Paris was the largest city in Europe, in 1754, with 650,000 people by the end of the 18th century.[19]

Agricultural production of a variety of food items expanded: olive oil, wine, cider, woad (a source of blue dye), and saffron. After 1500, New World crops appeared such as beans, corn (maize), squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and bell peppers. Production techniques remained attached to medieval traditions and produced low yields. With the rapidly expanding population, additional land suitable for farming became scarce. The situation worsened with repeated disastrous harvests in the 1550s.[20]

The introduction of the high-temperature forge in northeast France led to mineral mining, although France had to import copper, bronze, tin, and lead. Mines and glasswork benefited greatly from royal tax exemptions for a period of about twenty years. Silk production (introduced in Tours in 1470 and in Lyon in 1536) enabled the French to join a thriving market, but French products remained of lesser quality than Italian silks. Wool production was widespread, as was the production of linen and of hemp (both major export products).

Lyon served as the center of France's banking and international trade markets. Market fairs occurred four times a year and facilitated the export of French goods (such as fabrics), and the import of Italian, German, Dutch, English goods. It also allowed the importation of exotic goods such as silks, alum, glass, wools, spices, dyes. Lyon also contained houses of most of Europe's banking families, including the Fuggers and the Medici. Regional markets and trade routes linked Lyon, Paris and Rouen to the rest of the country. Under King Francis I (reigned 1515–1547) and King Henry II (reigned 1547–1559), the relationships between French imports and exports to England and to Spain were in France's favor. Trade was roughly balanced with the Netherlands, but France continually ran a large trade deficit with Italy due to the latter's silks and exotic goods. In subsequent decades, English, Dutch and Flemish maritime activity would create competition with French trade, which would eventually displace the major markets to the northwest,[where?] leading to the decline of Lyon.

By the middle of the 16th century, France's demographic growth, its increased demand for consumer goods, and its rapid influx of gold and silver from Africa and the Americas led to inflation (grain became five times as expensive from 1520 to 1600), and wage stagnation. Although many land-owning peasants and enterprising merchants had been able to grow rich during the boom, the standard of living fell greatly for rural peasants, who were forced to deal with bad harvests at the same time. This led to reduced purchasing power and a decline in manufacturing. The monetary crisis led France to abandon (in 1577) the livre as its money of account, in favor of the écu in circulation, and banning most foreign currencies.

Meanwhile, France's military ventures in Italy and disastrous civil wars demanded huge sums of cash, which were raised with through the taille and other taxes. The taille, which was levied mainly on the peasantry, increased from 2.5 million livres in 1515 to 6 million after 1551, and by 1589 the taille had reached a record 21 million livres. Financial crises hit the royal household repeatedly, and so in 1523, Francis I established a government bond system in Paris, the "rentes sur l'Hôtel de Ville".

Great Britain

Main articles: Economic history of the United Kingdom and Mercantilism
 
Mercantilism helped create trade patterns such as the triangular trade in the North Atlantic, in which raw materials were imported to the metropolis and then processed and redistributed to other colonies.

Mercantilism and empire

The basis of the British Empire was founded in the age of mercantilism, an economic theory that stressed maximizing the trade inside the empire, and trying to weaken rival empires. The modern or "second" British Empire was based upon the English Empire which first took shape in the early 18th century, with the English settlement of the Thirteen Colonies which in 1776 became the United States, as well as Canada's Maritime provinces, and the control of sugar plantation islands of the Caribbean, notably Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, the Leeward Islands, Barbados, Jamaica and Bermuda. These islands, where slavery became the basis of the economy, comprised Britain's most lucrative colonies in terms of profits flowing to the absentee owners (who lived in Britain). The American colonies also utilized slave labour in the farming of tobacco, indigo and rice in the south. Britain's American empire was slowly expanded by war and colonization. Victory over the French during the Seven Years' War gave Britain control over what is now most of Canada.

Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies.[21] Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants—and kept others out—by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling—which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch.[22] The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the British Navy captured New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country.[23]

Industrial Revolution: 1750s–1840s

The Industrial Revolution brought factories to Europe, especially England and Scotland, 1750s to 1830s. France and the U.S. experienced its industrial revolution in the early 19th century; Germany in the 19th century; and to Russia in the early-mid 20th century.

In Britain, the Industrial Revolution was a period of economic transformation from the 1750s to the 1830s, characterized by the growth of a new system comprising factories, railroads, coal mining and business enterprises using new technologies that it sponsored. The new system operated first on textiles, then spread to other sectors and by the mid 19th century totally transformed the British economy and society, setting up sustained growth; it spread to parts of America and Europe and modernized the world economy. Although localized to certain parts of Britain (the London area was not included), its impact was felt worldwide on migration and trade, society and politics, on cities and countryside, and affected the remotest areas. The growth rate in the British GDP was 1.5% per year (1770–1815), doubling to 3.0% (1815–1831).[24]

Success in building larger, more efficient steam engines after 1790 meant that the cost of energy fell steadily. Entrepreneurs found uses for stationary engines in turning the machines in a factory or the pumps at a mine, while mobile engines were put into locomotives and ships (where they turned paddles or, later, propellers). The use of water power was growing too, so that in 1830 steam mills and water mills were about equal (at 165,000 horsepower each); by 1879 Britain obtained 2.1 million horsepower from steam engines, and 230,000 from water.[25]

During the early industrial revolution and the transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial one, major conflicts arose between agricultural landholders and capitalists. Landholders did not benefit as much as industrialists from educating their workers (and thus increasing the human capital of their region). Educated agricultural workers were not significantly more productive than uneducated ones, and moreover, "educated workers have more incentives to migrate to urban, industrial areas than their less educated counterparts." For that reason, less industrialized regions where large land owners held more political power than industrialists, tended to have less educated workers than industrialized ones. The unequal distribution of land therefore has a negative correlation with the development of human capital.[26]

Belgium

Further information: Industrial Revolution § Belgium

No one expected that Belgium-seemingly a "sluggish" and "culturally dormant" bastion of traditionalism-would leap– to the forefront of the industrial revolution on the Continent.[27] Nevertheless, Belgium was the second country, after Britain, in which the industrial revolution took place and it set the pace for all of continental Europe, while leaving the Netherlands behind.[28]

Industrialization took place in Wallonia (French-speaking southern Belgium), starting in the middle of the 1820s, and especially after 1830. The availability of cheap coal was a main factor that attracted entrepreneurs. Numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around Liège and Charleroi. The leader was a transplanted Englishman John Cockerill. His factories integrated all stages of production, from engineering to the supply of raw materials, as early as 1825.[29] By 1830, when iron became important the Belgium coal industry had long been established, and used steam-engines for pumping. Coal was sold to local mills and railways as well as to France and Prussia. The textile industry, based on cotton and flax, employed about half of the industrial workforce for much of the industrial period. Ghent was the premier industrial city in Belgium until the 1880s, when the center of growth moved to Liège, with its steel industry.[30]

Cheap and readily available coal attracted firms producing metals and glass, both of which required considerable amounts of coal, and so regions around coal fields became highly industrialised. The Sillon industriel (Industrial Valley), and in particular the Pays Noir around Charleroi, were the center of the steel industry until the 1940s.

Railways

Further information: History of rail transport

The growth of industry soon brought to light the need for a better system of transportation. While canals and roads did improve, they were soon overshadowed by a means of transportation that held great promise: the railroads. The railroads may have been that most important factor of the industrial revolution. Railways had existed as early as 1500, but in 1700s the primitive wooden rails were replaced with wrought iron. These new rails enabled horses to pull even heavier loads with relative ease. But dependence on horsepower did not last for long. In 1804, the first steam-powered locomotive pulled 10 tons of ore and 70 people at 5 miles per hour. This new technology improved dramatically; locomotives soon reached speeds of 50 miles per hour. While the railroads revolutionized transportation, they further contributed to the growth of the industrial revolution by causing a great increase in the demand for iron and coal.[31]

Iron and steel

Throughout the Middle Ages iron was smelted using charcoal, however in the eighteenth century, new methods of iron production were discovered; the resulting iron was of higher quality than ever before. These advances, such as the process developed by Henry Cort in the 1780s, greatly encouraged the use of machinery in other industries.

Iron was so durable that it became the preferred metal for tools and equipment until displaced by steel after 1860.[32] Britain had iron ores but lacked a process to produce iron in quantity until in 1760 John Smeaton invented a blast furnace that could smelt iron both quickly and cheaply. His invention used an air-blast produced by a fan run by a waterwheel. In 1783, Henry Cort introduced the puddling, or reverberatory furnace, in which the final product was a pasty solid instead of a liquid. It was rolled into balls, squeezed and rolled to eliminate the impurities, or slag. The result was malleable iron in large quantities. The greatest of the early ironmasters, John Wilkinson (1728–1808) invented new machinery to process the iron. In 1779, the first cast-iron bridge was constructed across the Severn; in 1790 the first iron ship was launched. By 1830, Britain was producing 700,000 tons of iron a year; the amount quadrupled a quarter-century later, with centers in Scotland, South Wales, and Staffordshire. Railway builders were the chief customer. In 1847–48 they bought 3 million tons for rolling stock, bridge building, and station building for 2000 new miles, plus the demands of the 3000 previously built miles of railway.[33]

Germany between the wars

After the war, Germany was supposed to pay all of the war reparations according to the Treaty of Versailles. The policy angered the Germans and caused deep resentment, especially of the sort that the Nazis capitalized upon. However the sums actually paid were not large, and were financed by loans from New York in the Dawes Plan. Payments ended in 1931, but in the 1950s West Germany did pay all the reparations. There was an overwhelming inflation in 1923 caused by the government's pumping out paper money. The reconstruction period was based on private investment and demand. When the stock market crashed in 1929, the investors who had been financing Germany pulled out, crippling its economy as unemployment soared to 25%.[34]

 
Salvage – Help put the lid on Hitler by saving your old metal and paper

World War II

Main article: Home front during World War II

The home front covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war. World War II was a total war that was ultimately decided in the factories and workplaces of the Allies of World War II, which had a much better performance than the Axis powers. Indeed, Germany and Japan depended as much or more on plunder of conquered territories than they did on their own production. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, evacuation in the face of air raids, and response to occupation by an enemy power. The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda. Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree. The success in mobilizing economic output was a major factor in supporting combat operations. All of the powers involved had learned from their experiences on the Home front during World War I and tried to use its lessons and avoid its possible sources of error. The home front engaged in several activities to help the British army and navy, including taking down metal fences and gates to replace them with stone or wood. The metal was then melted down, and used for battle ships or planes.[35][36]

The major powers devoted 50–61 percent of their total GDP to munitions production. The Allies produced about three times as much in munitions as the Axis powers.

Munitions Production in World War II
(Expenditures in billions of dollars, US 1944 munitions prices)
Country/Alliance Year
1935–39 ave 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 Total 1939–44
U.S. 0.3 1.5 4.5 20.0 38.0 42.0 106.3
Britain 0.5 3.5 6.5 9.0 11.0 11.0 41.5
U.S.S.R. 1.6 5.0 8.5 11.5 14.0 16.0 56.6
Allies Total 2.4 10.0 20.0 41.5 64.5 70.5 204.4
Germany 2.4 6.0 6.0 8.5 13.5 17.0 53.4
Japan 0.4 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.5 6.0 16.9
Axis Total 2.8 7.0 8.0 11.5 18.0 23.0 70.3

Source: Goldsmith data in Harrison (1988) p. 172

Real Value Consumer Spending
Country Year
1937 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
Japan 100 107 109 111 108 99 93 78
Germany 100 108 117 108 105 95 94 85
US 100 96 103 108 116 115 118 122

Source: Jerome B Cohen, Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction (1949) p. 354

Post–World War II

Marshall Plan

Main article: Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program or ERP) was a system of American economic aid to Western Europe 1948–51. It played a major role in the economic recovery, modernization, and unification of Europe. In three years the ERP gave away $12.4 billion (about 5% of the 1948 American GDP of $270 billion) for modernizing the economic and financial systems and rebuilding the industrial and human capital of war-torn Europe, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy and smaller nations. It required each government to set up a national economic plan, and for the countries to cooperate in terms of financial and trade flows. The money was not a loan and there was no repayment. Washington spent such vast sums because it was believed to be cheaper than the rearmament that isolationism or rollback would entail. In the long run, the logic went, a prosperous Europe would be more peaceful, and would make its main trading partner, the US, more prosperous. Stalin refused to allow any of his satellites to participate, the plan became exclusive to western Europe. However, the US extended a similar financial aid program to Japan at the same time.[37]

Historians reject the idea that it only miraculously revived Europe, since the evidence shows that a general recovery was already under way thanks to other aid programs, chiefly from the United States. Bradford De Long and Barry Eichengreen conclude it was, " History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program." They state:

It was not large enough to have significantly accelerated recovery by financing investment, aiding the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, or easing commodity bottlenecks. We argue, however, that the Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post-World War II Western Europe's rapid growth. The conditions attached to Marshall Plan aid pushed European political economy in a direction that left its post World War II "mixed economies" with more "market" and less "controls" in the mix.[38]

Historians also emphasize its political impact. The powerful combination of ERP and NATO (1949) gave Europe the assurance of America's commitment to the security and prosperity of Western Europe, and helped the recipients avoid the pessimism and despair that characterized the aftermath of World War I. The Marshall Plan thus created in Europe an unstoppable "revolution of rising expectations," the striking phrase coined in 1950 by Harlan Cleveland, an economist and senior ERP official.[39][38]

European Coal and Steel Community

Main article: European Coal and Steel Community

Six European nations, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands took a step toward economic integration with the formation of a common market of coal and steel. They formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. The idea was to stream-line coal and steel production. A side-benefit would be economic interdependence. Thereby, there would be less risk of Economic warfare or even a shooting war between the member nations.[40]

Industrial decline

The decades from the 1960s saw an economic decline in the output of the more developed nations of Europe, particularly in France and the UK. These nations' positions in output of refined raw materials, e.g. steel, and in finished goods fell in contrast to Asian countries. Several Asian nations made use of comparative advantage and specialized in producing certain goods, utilizing comparably cheaper labor forces. First this occurred in Japan and the four "Asian Tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore); by the latter half of the 1980s the shift of industrial production began occurring in the newly industrializing countries. First, the shift occurred in cheaper, lower technology products, such as textiles. Then, this shift occurred in higher-technology goods, such "durables" as refrigerators or automobiles. The shift of international industrial production out of Europe is a key outcome of globalization.

The Euro

 
European 10 year bonds, before the Great Recession in Europe bonds floated together in parity
  Greece 10 year bond
  Portugal 10 year bond
  Ireland 10 year bond
  Spain 10 year bond
  Italy 10 year bond
  France 10 year bond
  Germany 10 year bond
See also: European debt crisis

Introduction of the Euro

The Euro became the official currency of certain European Union members on January 1, 2001.[41] The currency was signed into effect in 1992 in the Treaty of Maastricht. The initial idea behind the Euro was that it eliminates exchange rates between European nations and makes currency fluctuation risks minimal.[42]

Countries involved

The nations involved in the initial treaty were Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. These nations agreed in principle to the European Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999 and installed the Euro as its currency on January 1, 2001. More European countries agreed to join the union in the following years; Slovenia (2007), Cyprus and Malta (2008), and Slovakia (2009), followed by the Baltic countries (Estonia 2011, Latvia 2014, Lithuania 2015) .[43] Countries are only allowed to begin utilizing the Euro when they have met certain requirements set about by the EMU. The criteria includes "a low and stable inflation, exchange rate stability and sound public finances."[44] The reason for such criteria is because the best way to achieve a successful economy is by ensuring price stability.

See also

References

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  3. ^ a b Backer, Patricia. . History of Technology. San Jose State University. Archived from the original on 2015-03-04. Retrieved 2013-04-24.
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  10. ^ Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Times of feast, times of famine: a history of climate since the year 1000 (1972)
  11. ^ Mark Kishlansky et al. Civilization in the West: Volume 1 to 1715 (5th ed. 2003) p. 316
  12. ^ Norman Cantor, The civilization of the Middle Ages (1993) p. 480.
  13. ^ Owen-Crocker, Gale; Netherton, Robin, eds. (2006). Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 2. p. 62.
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  15. ^ Clive Day (1914). A History of Commerce. Longmans, Green, and Company. pp. 252ff.
  16. ^ Cornelius Walford, "An Outline History of the Hanseatic League, More Particularly in Its Bearings upon English Commerce," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 9, (1881), pp. 82–136 in JSTOR
  17. ^ Roger Price, A Concise History of France (1993) pp. 41–46
  18. ^ Calico (from Calicut), muslin and chintz, for example.
  19. ^ Price, Roger (1993). A Concise History of France. Cambridge Concise Histories (3 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (published 2014). p. 29. ISBN 9781107729124. Retrieved 28 January 2019. Paris [...] by the middle of the seventeenth century had a population of c. 550.000, and by the end of the following century this had grown to 650,000 [...].
  20. ^ William Doyle, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Régime (2012)
  21. ^ Max Savelle (1948). Seeds of Liberty: The Genesis of the American Mind. pp. 204ff. ISBN 9781419107078.
  22. ^ George Otto Trevelyan (1899). The American Revolution vol 1. pp. 128ff.
  23. ^ Nester, William R. (2000). The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607–1755. Praeger. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-275-96772-7.
  24. ^ C.H. Feinstein, "National Statistics, 1760–1920", in C.H. Feinstein and S. Pollard, (eds.), Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1750–1920 (1988) table X.
  25. ^ Crafts, Nicholas (2004). "Steam as a General Purpose Technology: a Growth Accounting Perspective" (PDF). Economic Journal. 114 (495): 338–51. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2003.00200.x. S2CID 153979233. Crafts also estimates that all technological innovations, including steam engines, accounted for about 18% of British economic growth from 1780 to 1830, and 31% from 1830 to 1870.
  26. ^ Baten, Jörg; Hippe, Ralph (2017). "Geography, land inequality and regional numeracy in Europe in historical perspective". Journal of Economic Growth.
  27. ^ Schama, Simon (1972). "The Rights of Ignorance: Dutch Educational Policy in Belgium 1815–30". History of Education. 1 (1): 81–89. doi:10.1080/0046760720010106.
  28. ^ Mokyr, Joel (1974). "The Industrial Revolution in the Low Countries in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: A Comparative Case Study". Journal of Economic History. 34 (2): 365–99. doi:10.1017/S0022050700080116. JSTOR 2116987.
  29. ^ Evans, Chris; Rydén, Göran (2005). The Industrial Revolution in Iron; The impact of British Coal Technology in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Ashgate. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-0-7546-3390-7.
  30. ^ Strikwerda, Carl (1997). A House Divided: Catholics, Socialists, and Flemish Nationalists in Nineteenth-Century Belgium. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 44–46. ISBN 978-0-8476-8526-4.
  31. ^ O’Brien, Patrick (1983). Railways and the Economic Development of Western Europe, 1830–1914. London: MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-333-33000-5.
  32. ^ Small amounts of steel were produced before the 1860s, but it was five times stronger than cast iron.
  33. ^ John Clapham, An Economic History of Modern Britain (1952) 1:425–28
  34. ^ Kruedener, Jurgen Baron von. Economic Crisis and Political Collapse: The Weimar Republic. (1990) pp. 4–30.
  35. ^ I.C.B. Dear, and M.R.D. Foot, eds. The Oxford Companion to World War II (1995), has short articles on every country.
  36. ^ Mark Harrison, ed. The economics of World War II: six great powers in international comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
  37. ^ Martin Schain, ed., The Marshall Plan: Fifty Years After (2001).
  38. ^ a b DeLong, J. Bradford; Eichengreen, Barry (1993). "The Marshall Plan: History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program". In Dornbusch, Rudiger; Nolling, Wilhelm; Layard, Richard (eds.). Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today. MIT Press. pp. 189–230. ISBN 978-0-262-04136-2 – via Google Books.
  39. ^ Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952 (1987).
  40. ^ Louis Lister, Europe's Coal and Steel Community: an experiment in economic union (1960).
  41. ^ . Archived from the original on 2000-06-01.
  42. ^ Why the Euro?
  43. ^ European Commission – Economic and Financial Affairs
  44. ^ The Euro

Further reading

  • Birnie, Arthur. An economic history of Europe, 1760-1939 (1939) online
  • Cipolla, Carlo M., ed. The Fontana Economic history of Europe (10 vol 1973–80) title list
  • Clough, Shepard Bancroft and Charles Woolsey Cole. Economic History of Europe (1952) 920 pp online edition
  • Heaton, Herbert. Economic History Of Europe (1948) online
  • Jones, E. L. The European Miracle: Environments, economies and geopolitics in the history of Europe and Asia (2nd edition; 1987). excerpt and text search
  • Kellenbenz, Hermann, and Gerhard Benecke. The Rise of the European Economy: An Economic History of Continental Europe from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (1976) online
  • Persson, Karl Gunnar. An Economic History of Europe: Knowledge, Institutions and Growth, 600 to the Present (2010) excerpt and text search

Since 1750

  • Aldcroft, Derek H. The European Economy: 1914–2000 328 pp. (2001) online edition
  • Ashton, T. S. The Industrial Revolution, 1760–1830 (1948) online edition
  • Eichengreen, Barry J. The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (2008)
  • Farnie, Douglas Antony, and David J. Jeremy. The Fibre That Changed the World: The Cotton Industry in International Perspective, 1600–1990s (2004)
  • Landes, David S. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present 1969 online at ACLS e-books
  • Landes, David S. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (1998)
  • Mathias, Peter, and M. M. Postan, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire, Vol. 7, Pt. 1: The Industrial Economies: Capital, Labour and Enterprise, Britain, France, Germany and Scandinavia, (1978)
  • Milward, Alan S. and S. B. Saul. The Economic Development of Continental Europe 1780–1870 (2nd ed. 1979), 552 pp
  • Milward, Alan S. and S. B. Saul. The Development of the Economies of Continental Europe: 1850–1914 (1977)
  • Mokyr, Joel. The lever of riches: technological creativity and economic progress (Oxford University Press, 1990) online edition
  • Rider, Christine, ed. Encyclopedia of the Age of the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1920 2 vol (2007)
  • Rosenberg, Nathan, and L. E. Birdzell. How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World 1986 online edition
  • Snooks, Graeme Donald, ed. Was the Industrial Revolution Necessary? 1994. online edition
  • Stearns, Peter N. The Industrial Revolution in World History (1998)
  • Thorp, William Long. Business Annals: United States, England, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Netherlands, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Australia, India, Japan, China (1926) capsule summary of conditions in each country for each quarter-year 1790–1925
  • Woytinsky, W.S. World Population and Production: Trends and Outlook (1953). 1268 pp. tables, maps, analysis covering most industrial powers, 1800–1950
  • Woytinsky, W.S. World commerce and governments;: Trends and outlook (1955), 907 pp

National studies

Main articles: Economic history of Germany § Further reading, Economic history of the United Kingdom § Further reading, and Economic history of France § Further reading
  • Ashworth, William. An economic history of England 1870–1939 (Routledge, 2013)
  • Cameron, Rondo. France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800–1914: Conquests of Peace and Seeds of War (1961), awide-ranging economic and business history
  • Caron, François. An economic history of modern France (2nd ed. Routledge, 2014)
  • Clapham, John. A concise economic history of Britain. (1949), Abridged version of three volume history
  • Deane, P. and Cole, W. A. British Economic Growth, 1688–1959: Trends and Structure, (2nd ed 1967)
  • Gregory, Paul R. Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five-Year Plan (Princeton University Press, 2014)
  • Lynch, Frances. France and the International Economy: from Vichy to the Treaty of Rome (Routledge, 2006)
  • Mantoux, Paul. The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century: An Outline of the Beginnings of the Modern Factory System in England (1928, 1961) online edition
  • Mathias, Peter. The first industrial nation: The economic history of Britain 1700–1914 (Routledge, 2013)
  • Price, Roger. An economic history of modern France, 1730–1914 (Macmillan, 1981)
  • Stolper, Gustav, Karl Häuser, and Knut Borchardt. The German economy, 1870 to the present (1967)
  • Toniolo, Gianni. An Economic History of Liberal Italy, 1850–1918 (1990)
  • Toniolo, Gianni, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy since Unification (Oxford University Press, 2013) 785 pp. online review
  • Usher, Abbott Payson. An Introduction to the Industrial History of England (1920) 529 pages online edition
  • Zamagni, Vera. The Economic History of Italy, 1860–1990 (1993) 413 pp. ISBN 0-19-828773-9.

Middle Ages

  • Hodgett, Gerald A. A social and economic history of medieval Europe (Routledge, 2013)
  • Pirenne, Henri. Economic and social history of medieval Europe (1936) online
  • Postan, Michael. Mediaeval Trade and Finance (2002).
  • Pounds, N.J.G. An economic history of medieval Europe (1974) online
  • Pounds, Norman John Greville. An historical geography of Europe: 450 B.C.–A.D. 1330 (1973) online edition
  • Thompson, James Westfall. Economic and social history of Europe in the later Middle Ages (1300–1530) (1931) online

Primary sources

  • Cave, Roy C. and Herbert H. Coulson, eds. a Source Book for Medieval Economic History (1965) online
  • Pollard, Sidney and Colin Holmes, eds. Documents of European Economic History, Volume 1: The Process of Industrialization 1750–1870 (1968)
  • Pollard, Sidney and Colin Holmes, eds. Documents of European Economic History Volume 2 Industrial Power and National Rivalry 1870–1914 (1972)
  • Pollard, Sidney and Colin Holmes, eds. Documents of European Economic History Volume 3 The End of the Old Europe 1914–1939 (1973)

External links

  • , webpage linking to resources for economic historians of Europe. Contains links to major databases, technology descriptions, examples of use of data, a forum for economic historians.

May 09, 2023
economic, history, europe, 1000, present, this, article, covers, economic, history, europe, from, about, 1000, present, context, history, europe, real, capita, development, europe, 1820, 2018, contents, middle, ages, agriculture, famines, plagues, technology, . This article covers the Economic history of Europe from about 1000 AD to the present For the context see History of Europe Real GDP per capita development in Europe 1820 to 2018 Contents 1 Middle Ages 1 1 Agriculture 1 2 Famines and plagues 1 3 Technology 1 4 Crafts and urban growth 1 5 Hanseatic League 1 6 France 2 Early modern Europe 1500 1800 2 1 France 2 2 Great Britain 2 2 1 Mercantilism and empire 3 Industrial Revolution 1750s 1840s 3 1 Belgium 3 2 Railways 3 3 Iron and steel 4 Germany between the wars 5 World War II 6 Post World War II 6 1 Marshall Plan 6 2 European Coal and Steel Community 6 3 Industrial decline 7 The Euro 7 1 Introduction of the Euro 7 2 Countries involved 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 10 1 Since 1750 10 2 National studies 10 3 Middle Ages 10 4 Primary sources 11 External linksMiddle Ages EditAgriculture Edit Further information Agriculture in the Middle Ages Early in the first millennium improvements in technique and technology began to emerge Monasteries spread throughout Europe and became important centers for the collection of knowledge related to agriculture and forestry The manorial system which existed under different names throughout Europe and Asia allowed large landowners significant control over both their land and its laborers in the form of peasants or serfs 1 There were exchanges with distant regions mediated through the Arab world Arabs introduced summer irrigation to Europe 2 Population continued to increase along with land use By 900 AD in Europe developments in iron smelting allowed for increased production leading to developments in the production of farm tools such as ploughs hand tools and horse shoes The plough was significantly improved developing into the mouldboard plough capable of turning over the heavy wet soils of northern Europe This led to the clearing of forests in that area and a significant increase in agricultural production which in turn led to an increase in population 3 Farmers in Europe moved from a two field crop rotation to a three field crop rotation in which one field of three was left fallow every year This resulted in increased productivity and nutrition as the change in rotations led to different crops being planted including legumes such as peas lentils and beans Inventions such as improved horse harnesses and the whippletree also changed methods of cultivation 3 Watermills were initially developed by the Romans but were improved throughout the Middle Ages along with windmills and were provided the power needed to grind grains into flour cut wood and process flax and wool and irrigate fields 4 Field crops included wheat rye barley and oats they were used for bread and animal fodder Peas beans and vetches became common from the 13th century onward as food and as a fodder crop for animals they also had nitrogen fixation fertilizing properties Crop yields peaked in the 13th century and stayed more or less steady until the 18th century 5 Although the limitations of medieval farming were once thought to have provided a ceiling for the population growth in the Middle Ages recent studies 6 7 have shown that the technology of medieval agriculture was always sufficient for the needs of the people under normal circumstances and that it was only during exceptionally harsh times such as the terrible weather of 1315 17 that the needs of the population could not be met 8 Famines and plagues Edit There were episodes of famines and also of deadly epidemics Soil exhaustion overpopulation wars diseases and climate change caused hundreds of famines in medieval Europe 9 10 Around 1300 centuries of European prosperity and growth came to a halt Famines such as Great Famine of 1315 1317 slowly weakened the populace Few people died of starvation because the weakest had already succumbed to a routine disease they otherwise would have survived A plague like the Black Death killed its victims in one locality in a matter of days or even hours reducing the population of some areas by half as many survivors fled Kishlansky reports The Black Death touched every aspect of life hastening a process of social economic and cultural transformation already underway Fields were abandoned workplaces stood idle international trade was suspended Traditional bonds of kinship village and even religion were broken and the horrors of death flight and failed expectations People cared no more for dead men that we care for dead goats wrote one survivor 11 Depopulation caused labor to become scarcer the survivors were better paid and peasants could drop some of the burdens of feudalism There was also social unrest France and England experienced serious peasant risings the Jacquerie the Peasants Revolt These events have been called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages 12 Technology Edit A major technological advance came in long distance navigation from the 8th century to the 12th century Viking raids and the Crusader invasions of the Middle East led to the diffusion of and refinement of technology instrumental to overseas travel People made improvements in ships particularly the longship The astrolabe for navigation greatly aided long distance travel over the seas The improvements in travel in turn increased trade and the diffusion of consumer items Crafts and urban growth Edit From the 11th century to the 13th century farmers and small scale producers of crafts increasingly met in towns to trade their goods They met in either seasonal trade fairs or they traded in an ongoing basis Craft associations called guilds fostered the development of skills and the local growth of trade in particular goods Over the course of the centuries of this period towns grew in size and number first in a core in England Flanders France Germany and northern Italy Spinning weaving sewing and cutting were considered women s work until the mid 12th century when men began taking over some positions with more sophisticated industrial structures and technologies In the large cities of Northern France centers of medieval textile production the shift to male dominated production started even earlier in the 11th century when the vertical loom was replaced by the horizontal treadle loom Especially the guilds of furriers tailors dyers and tapestry makers were dominated by men Some women did participate in guilds but it was rare Most commercial roles were occupied by men while women were preferred for positions within households When women were accepted for guild membership it was usually as a second rank member similar to young boys or disabled men 13 The economic system of this era was merchant capitalism The core of this system was in merchant houses backed by financiers acting as intermediaries between simple commodity producers This system continued until it was supplanted by industrial capitalism in the 18th century Economic activity over a broad geographic range began to intensify in both northern and southern Europe in the 13th century Trade flourished in Italy albeit not united but rather ruled by different princes in different city states particularly by the 13th century Leading the trade in Mediterranean Europe were traders from the port cities of Genoa and Venice The wealth generated in Italy fueled the Italian Renaissance Main trading routes of the Hanseatic League Hanseatic League Edit In cities linked to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea a trade monopoly developed in the Hanseatic League This facilitated the growth of trade among cities in close proximity to these two seas Long distance trade in the Baltic intensified as the major trading towns came together in the Hanseatic League under the leadership of Lubeck The League was a business alliance of trading cities and their guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe and flourished from the 1200 to 1500 and continued with lesser importance after that The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine River Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea and Lubeck on the Baltic 14 The Hanseatic cities each had its own legal system and a degree of political autonomy 15 The Hanseatic League was an alliance of North German and Baltic cities during the Middle Ages The Hanseatic League was founded for the purpose of joining forces for promoting mercantile interests defensive strength and political influence By the 14th century the Hanseatic League held a near monopoly on trade in the Baltic especially with Novgorod and Scandinavia 16 France Edit The collapse of the Roman Empire unlinked the French economy from Europe Town life and trade declined and society became based on the self sufficient manor Some international trade existed for luxury goods such as silk papyrus and silver it was handled by foreign merchants such as the Radanites Agricultural output began to increase in the Carolingian age as a result of the arrival of new crops improvements in agricultural production and good weather conditions However this did not lead to the revival of urban life in fact urban activity further declined in the Carolingian era as a result of civil war Arab raids and Viking invasions See also Pirenne thesis The High Middle Ages saw a continuation of the agricultural boom of the Carolingian age In addition urban life grew during this period Paris expanded dramatically The 13 decades from 1335 to 1450 spawned a series of economic catastrophes with bad harvests famines plagues and wars that overwhelmed four generations of Frenchmen The population had expanded making the food supply more precarious The Black Death of 1347 was echoed by several smaller plagues at 15 year intervals The French and English armies during the Hundred Years War marched back and forth across the land they did not massacre civilians but they drained the food supply disrupted agriculture and trade and left disease and famine in their wake Royal authority weakened as local nobles became strongmen fighting their neighbors for control of the local region France s population plunged from 17 million down to 12 million in 130 years Finally starting in the 1450s a long cycle of recuperation began 17 Early modern Europe 1500 1800 EditThe age of exploration seen from the European point of view introduced major economic changes The Columbian exchange resulted in Europe adopting new crops as well as shaking up traditional cultural ideas and practices The commercial revolution continued with Europeans developing mercantilism and European imports of luxury goods notably spices and fine cloth 18 from eastern and southern Asia switching from crossing Islamic territory in the present day Middle East to passing the Cape of Good Hope Spain proved adept at plundering the gold and silver of the Americas but incompetent at converting its new wealth into a vibrant domestic economy and declined as an economic power From the 1600s the centres of commerce and manufactures shifted definitively from the Mediterranean to the centres of shipping and colonisation on the western Atlantic coastal fringe economic activity went into a relative decline in 17th century Italy and Turkey but to the advantage of Portugal Spain France the Dutch Republic and England Britain In eastern Europe Russia suppressed the Tatar slave trade expanded commerce in luxury furs from Siberia and rivalled the Scandinavian and German states in the Baltic Colonial goods like sugar and tobacco from the Americas came to play a role in the European economy Meanwhile changes in financial practice especially in the Netherlands and in England the second agricultural revolution in Britain and technological innovations in France Prussia and England not only promoted economic changes and expansion in themselves but also fostered the beginnings of the industrial revolution France Edit Main articles Ancien Regime and Early modern France Before 1800 France was the most populated country in Europe with a population of 17 million in 1400 20 million in the 17th century and 28 million in 1789 citation needed The 17th and 18th centuries saw a steady increase in urban populations although France remained a profoundly rural country with less than 10 of the population located in urban areas Paris was the largest city in Europe in 1754 with 650 000 people by the end of the 18th century 19 Agricultural production of a variety of food items expanded olive oil wine cider woad a source of blue dye and saffron After 1500 New World crops appeared such as beans corn maize squash tomatoes potatoes and bell peppers Production techniques remained attached to medieval traditions and produced low yields With the rapidly expanding population additional land suitable for farming became scarce The situation worsened with repeated disastrous harvests in the 1550s 20 The introduction of the high temperature forge in northeast France led to mineral mining although France had to import copper bronze tin and lead Mines and glasswork benefited greatly from royal tax exemptions for a period of about twenty years Silk production introduced in Tours in 1470 and in Lyon in 1536 enabled the French to join a thriving market but French products remained of lesser quality than Italian silks Wool production was widespread as was the production of linen and of hemp both major export products Lyon served as the center of France s banking and international trade markets Market fairs occurred four times a year and facilitated the export of French goods such as fabrics and the import of Italian German Dutch English goods It also allowed the importation of exotic goods such as silks alum glass wools spices dyes Lyon also contained houses of most of Europe s banking families including the Fuggers and the Medici Regional markets and trade routes linked Lyon Paris and Rouen to the rest of the country Under King Francis I reigned 1515 1547 and King Henry II reigned 1547 1559 the relationships between French imports and exports to England and to Spain were in France s favor Trade was roughly balanced with the Netherlands but France continually ran a large trade deficit with Italy due to the latter s silks and exotic goods In subsequent decades English Dutch and Flemish maritime activity would create competition with French trade which would eventually displace the major markets to the northwest where leading to the decline of Lyon By the middle of the 16th century France s demographic growth its increased demand for consumer goods and its rapid influx of gold and silver from Africa and the Americas led to inflation grain became five times as expensive from 1520 to 1600 and wage stagnation Although many land owning peasants and enterprising merchants had been able to grow rich during the boom the standard of living fell greatly for rural peasants who were forced to deal with bad harvests at the same time This led to reduced purchasing power and a decline in manufacturing The monetary crisis led France to abandon in 1577 the livre as its money of account in favor of the ecu in circulation and banning most foreign currencies Meanwhile France s military ventures in Italy and disastrous civil wars demanded huge sums of cash which were raised with through the taille and other taxes The taille which was levied mainly on the peasantry increased from 2 5 million livres in 1515 to 6 million after 1551 and by 1589 the taille had reached a record 21 million livres Financial crises hit the royal household repeatedly and so in 1523 Francis I established a government bond system in Paris the rentes sur l Hotel de Ville Great Britain Edit Main articles Economic history of the United Kingdom and Mercantilism Mercantilism helped create trade patterns such as the triangular trade in the North Atlantic in which raw materials were imported to the metropolis and then processed and redistributed to other colonies Mercantilism and empire Edit The basis of the British Empire was founded in the age of mercantilism an economic theory that stressed maximizing the trade inside the empire and trying to weaken rival empires The modern or second British Empire was based upon the English Empire which first took shape in the early 18th century with the English settlement of the Thirteen Colonies which in 1776 became the United States as well as Canada s Maritime provinces and the control of sugar plantation islands of the Caribbean notably Trinidad and Tobago the Bahamas the Leeward Islands Barbados Jamaica and Bermuda These islands where slavery became the basis of the economy comprised Britain s most lucrative colonies in terms of profits flowing to the absentee owners who lived in Britain The American colonies also utilized slave labour in the farming of tobacco indigo and rice in the south Britain s American empire was slowly expanded by war and colonization Victory over the French during the Seven Years War gave Britain control over what is now most of Canada Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies 21 Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth to the exclusion of other empires The government protected its merchants and kept others out by trade barriers regulations and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm The government had to fight smuggling which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French Spanish or Dutch 22 The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses so that gold and silver would pour into London The government took its share through duties and taxes with the remainder going to merchants in Britain The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires and sometimes seized them Thus the British Navy captured New Amsterdam New York in 1664 The colonies were captive markets for British industry and the goal was to enrich the mother country 23 Industrial Revolution 1750s 1840s EditThe Industrial Revolution brought factories to Europe especially England and Scotland 1750s to 1830s France and the U S experienced its industrial revolution in the early 19th century Germany in the 19th century and to Russia in the early mid 20th century In Britain the Industrial Revolution was a period of economic transformation from the 1750s to the 1830s characterized by the growth of a new system comprising factories railroads coal mining and business enterprises using new technologies that it sponsored The new system operated first on textiles then spread to other sectors and by the mid 19th century totally transformed the British economy and society setting up sustained growth it spread to parts of America and Europe and modernized the world economy Although localized to certain parts of Britain the London area was not included its impact was felt worldwide on migration and trade society and politics on cities and countryside and affected the remotest areas The growth rate in the British GDP was 1 5 per year 1770 1815 doubling to 3 0 1815 1831 24 Success in building larger more efficient steam engines after 1790 meant that the cost of energy fell steadily Entrepreneurs found uses for stationary engines in turning the machines in a factory or the pumps at a mine while mobile engines were put into locomotives and ships where they turned paddles or later propellers The use of water power was growing too so that in 1830 steam mills and water mills were about equal at 165 000 horsepower each by 1879 Britain obtained 2 1 million horsepower from steam engines and 230 000 from water 25 During the early industrial revolution and the transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial one major conflicts arose between agricultural landholders and capitalists Landholders did not benefit as much as industrialists from educating their workers and thus increasing the human capital of their region Educated agricultural workers were not significantly more productive than uneducated ones and moreover educated workers have more incentives to migrate to urban industrial areas than their less educated counterparts For that reason less industrialized regions where large land owners held more political power than industrialists tended to have less educated workers than industrialized ones The unequal distribution of land therefore has a negative correlation with the development of human capital 26 Belgium Edit Further information Industrial Revolution Belgium No one expected that Belgium seemingly a sluggish and culturally dormant bastion of traditionalism would leap to the forefront of the industrial revolution on the Continent 27 Nevertheless Belgium was the second country after Britain in which the industrial revolution took place and it set the pace for all of continental Europe while leaving the Netherlands behind 28 Industrialization took place in Wallonia French speaking southern Belgium starting in the middle of the 1820s and especially after 1830 The availability of cheap coal was a main factor that attracted entrepreneurs Numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around Liege and Charleroi The leader was a transplanted Englishman John Cockerill His factories integrated all stages of production from engineering to the supply of raw materials as early as 1825 29 By 1830 when iron became important the Belgium coal industry had long been established and used steam engines for pumping Coal was sold to local mills and railways as well as to France and Prussia The textile industry based on cotton and flax employed about half of the industrial workforce for much of the industrial period Ghent was the premier industrial city in Belgium until the 1880s when the center of growth moved to Liege with its steel industry 30 Cheap and readily available coal attracted firms producing metals and glass both of which required considerable amounts of coal and so regions around coal fields became highly industrialised The Sillon industriel Industrial Valley and in particular the Pays Noir around Charleroi were the center of the steel industry until the 1940s Railways Edit Further information History of rail transport The growth of industry soon brought to light the need for a better system of transportation While canals and roads did improve they were soon overshadowed by a means of transportation that held great promise the railroads The railroads may have been that most important factor of the industrial revolution Railways had existed as early as 1500 but in 1700s the primitive wooden rails were replaced with wrought iron These new rails enabled horses to pull even heavier loads with relative ease But dependence on horsepower did not last for long In 1804 the first steam powered locomotive pulled 10 tons of ore and 70 people at 5 miles per hour This new technology improved dramatically locomotives soon reached speeds of 50 miles per hour While the railroads revolutionized transportation they further contributed to the growth of the industrial revolution by causing a great increase in the demand for iron and coal 31 Iron and steel Edit Throughout the Middle Ages iron was smelted using charcoal however in the eighteenth century new methods of iron production were discovered the resulting iron was of higher quality than ever before These advances such as the process developed by Henry Cort in the 1780s greatly encouraged the use of machinery in other industries Iron was so durable that it became the preferred metal for tools and equipment until displaced by steel after 1860 32 Britain had iron ores but lacked a process to produce iron in quantity until in 1760 John Smeaton invented a blast furnace that could smelt iron both quickly and cheaply His invention used an air blast produced by a fan run by a waterwheel In 1783 Henry Cort introduced the puddling or reverberatory furnace in which the final product was a pasty solid instead of a liquid It was rolled into balls squeezed and rolled to eliminate the impurities or slag The result was malleable iron in large quantities The greatest of the early ironmasters John Wilkinson 1728 1808 invented new machinery to process the iron In 1779 the first cast iron bridge was constructed across the Severn in 1790 the first iron ship was launched By 1830 Britain was producing 700 000 tons of iron a year the amount quadrupled a quarter century later with centers in Scotland South Wales and Staffordshire Railway builders were the chief customer In 1847 48 they bought 3 million tons for rolling stock bridge building and station building for 2000 new miles plus the demands of the 3000 previously built miles of railway 33 Germany between the wars EditAfter the war Germany was supposed to pay all of the war reparations according to the Treaty of Versailles The policy angered the Germans and caused deep resentment especially of the sort that the Nazis capitalized upon However the sums actually paid were not large and were financed by loans from New York in the Dawes Plan Payments ended in 1931 but in the 1950s West Germany did pay all the reparations There was an overwhelming inflation in 1923 caused by the government s pumping out paper money The reconstruction period was based on private investment and demand When the stock market crashed in 1929 the investors who had been financing Germany pulled out crippling its economy as unemployment soared to 25 34 Salvage Help put the lid on Hitler by saving your old metal and paperWorld War II EditMain article Home front during World War II The home front covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war World War II was a total war that was ultimately decided in the factories and workplaces of the Allies of World War II which had a much better performance than the Axis powers Indeed Germany and Japan depended as much or more on plunder of conquered territories than they did on their own production Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing manpower allocation home defense evacuation in the face of air raids and response to occupation by an enemy power The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree The success in mobilizing economic output was a major factor in supporting combat operations All of the powers involved had learned from their experiences on the Home front during World War I and tried to use its lessons and avoid its possible sources of error The home front engaged in several activities to help the British army and navy including taking down metal fences and gates to replace them with stone or wood The metal was then melted down and used for battle ships or planes 35 36 The major powers devoted 50 61 percent of their total GDP to munitions production The Allies produced about three times as much in munitions as the Axis powers Munitions Production in World War II Expenditures in billions of dollars US 1944 munitions prices Country Alliance Year1935 39 ave 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 Total 1939 44U S 0 3 1 5 4 5 20 0 38 0 42 0 106 3Britain 0 5 3 5 6 5 9 0 11 0 11 0 41 5U S S R 1 6 5 0 8 5 11 5 14 0 16 0 56 6Allies Total 2 4 10 0 20 0 41 5 64 5 70 5 204 4Germany 2 4 6 0 6 0 8 5 13 5 17 0 53 4Japan 0 4 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 5 6 0 16 9Axis Total 2 8 7 0 8 0 11 5 18 0 23 0 70 3Source Goldsmith data in Harrison 1988 p 172 Real Value Consumer Spending Country Year1937 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945Japan 100 107 109 111 108 99 93 78Germany 100 108 117 108 105 95 94 85US 100 96 103 108 116 115 118 122Source Jerome B Cohen Japan s Economy in War and Reconstruction 1949 p 354Post World War II EditMarshall Plan Edit Main article Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan officially the European Recovery Program or ERP was a system of American economic aid to Western Europe 1948 51 It played a major role in the economic recovery modernization and unification of Europe In three years the ERP gave away 12 4 billion about 5 of the 1948 American GDP of 270 billion for modernizing the economic and financial systems and rebuilding the industrial and human capital of war torn Europe including Britain Germany France Italy and smaller nations It required each government to set up a national economic plan and for the countries to cooperate in terms of financial and trade flows The money was not a loan and there was no repayment Washington spent such vast sums because it was believed to be cheaper than the rearmament that isolationism or rollback would entail In the long run the logic went a prosperous Europe would be more peaceful and would make its main trading partner the US more prosperous Stalin refused to allow any of his satellites to participate the plan became exclusive to western Europe However the US extended a similar financial aid program to Japan at the same time 37 Historians reject the idea that it only miraculously revived Europe since the evidence shows that a general recovery was already under way thanks to other aid programs chiefly from the United States Bradford De Long and Barry Eichengreen conclude it was History s Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program They state It was not large enough to have significantly accelerated recovery by financing investment aiding the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure or easing commodity bottlenecks We argue however that the Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post World War II Western Europe s rapid growth The conditions attached to Marshall Plan aid pushed European political economy in a direction that left its post World War II mixed economies with more market and less controls in the mix 38 Historians also emphasize its political impact The powerful combination of ERP and NATO 1949 gave Europe the assurance of America s commitment to the security and prosperity of Western Europe and helped the recipients avoid the pessimism and despair that characterized the aftermath of World War I The Marshall Plan thus created in Europe an unstoppable revolution of rising expectations the striking phrase coined in 1950 by Harlan Cleveland an economist and senior ERP official 39 38 European Coal and Steel Community Edit Main article European Coal and Steel Community Six European nations Belgium France Germany Italy Luxembourg and the Netherlands took a step toward economic integration with the formation of a common market of coal and steel They formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 The idea was to stream line coal and steel production A side benefit would be economic interdependence Thereby there would be less risk of Economic warfare or even a shooting war between the member nations 40 Industrial decline Edit The decades from the 1960s saw an economic decline in the output of the more developed nations of Europe particularly in France and the UK These nations positions in output of refined raw materials e g steel and in finished goods fell in contrast to Asian countries Several Asian nations made use of comparative advantage and specialized in producing certain goods utilizing comparably cheaper labor forces First this occurred in Japan and the four Asian Tigers South Korea Taiwan Hong Kong and Singapore by the latter half of the 1980s the shift of industrial production began occurring in the newly industrializing countries First the shift occurred in cheaper lower technology products such as textiles Then this shift occurred in higher technology goods such durables as refrigerators or automobiles The shift of international industrial production out of Europe is a key outcome of globalization The Euro Edit European 10 year bonds before the Great Recession in Europe bonds floated together in parity Greece 10 year bond Portugal 10 year bond Ireland 10 year bond Spain 10 year bond Italy 10 year bond France 10 year bond Germany 10 year bond See also European debt crisis Introduction of the Euro Edit The Euro became the official currency of certain European Union members on January 1 2001 41 The currency was signed into effect in 1992 in the Treaty of Maastricht The initial idea behind the Euro was that it eliminates exchange rates between European nations and makes currency fluctuation risks minimal 42 Countries involved Edit The nations involved in the initial treaty were Austria Belgium Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg the Netherlands Portugal and Spain These nations agreed in principle to the European Monetary Union EMU in 1999 and installed the Euro as its currency on January 1 2001 More European countries agreed to join the union in the following years Slovenia 2007 Cyprus and Malta 2008 and Slovakia 2009 followed by the Baltic countries Estonia 2011 Latvia 2014 Lithuania 2015 43 Countries are only allowed to begin utilizing the Euro when they have met certain requirements set about by the EMU The criteria includes a low and stable inflation exchange rate stability and sound public finances 44 The reason for such criteria is because the best way to achieve a successful economy is by ensuring price stability See also Edit Economics portalEconomic history of Africa Economic history of Britain Economic history of France Economic history of Germany Economic history of Greece and the Greek world Economic history of Italy Economic history of the Netherlands 1500 1815 Economic history of Portugal Economic history of Russia Economic history of Scotland Economic history of Spain Economic history of Sweden Economic history of Venice Economic history of the world Economic history of World War I Economy of Europe History of economic thought Price revolution Social historyReferences Edit Jourdan Pablo Medieval Horticulture Agriculture Ohio State University Archived from the original on 2013 04 14 Retrieved 2013 04 24 Janick Jules 2008 Islamic Influences on Western Agriculture PDF Purdue University Retrieved 2013 05 23 a b Backer Patricia Part 1 Medieval European history History of Technology San Jose State University Archived from the original on 2015 03 04 Retrieved 2013 04 24 Newman Paul B 2001 Daily Life in the Middle Ages McFarland p 88 ISBN 9780786450527 Campbell Bruce M S M Overton 1993 A New Perspective on Medieval and Early Modern Agriculture Six Centuries of Norfolk Farming c 1250 c 1850 Past and Present 141 38 105 doi 10 1093 past 141 1 38 Campbell Bruce M S 2000 English Seigniorial Agriculture 1250 1450 Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 30412 2 Stone David 2005 Decision Making in Medieval Agriculture Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 924776 9 John Langdon 2010 Robert E Bjork ed The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages Oxford England Oxford University Press pp 20 23 ISBN 978 0 19 866262 4 Jordan William Chester 1997 The Great Famine Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century Princeton University Press ISBN 978 1400822133 Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie Times of feast times of famine a history of climate since the year 1000 1972 Mark Kishlansky et al Civilization in the West Volume 1 to 1715 5th ed 2003 p 316 Norman Cantor The civilization of the Middle Ages 1993 p 480 Owen Crocker Gale Netherton Robin eds 2006 Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 2 p 62 James Westfall Thompson Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages 1300 1530 1931 pp 146 79 Clive Day 1914 A History of Commerce Longmans Green and Company pp 252ff Cornelius Walford An Outline History of the Hanseatic League More Particularly in Its Bearings upon English Commerce Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Vol 9 1881 pp 82 136 in JSTOR Roger Price A Concise History of France 1993 pp 41 46 Calico from Calicut muslin and chintz for example Price Roger 1993 A Concise History of France Cambridge Concise Histories 3 ed Cambridge Cambridge University Press published 2014 p 29 ISBN 9781107729124 Retrieved 28 January 2019 Paris by the middle of the seventeenth century had a population of c 550 000 and by the end of the following century this had grown to 650 000 William Doyle ed The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Regime 2012 Max Savelle 1948 Seeds of Liberty The Genesis of the American Mind pp 204ff ISBN 9781419107078 George Otto Trevelyan 1899 The American Revolution vol 1 pp 128ff Nester William R 2000 The Great Frontier War Britain France and the Imperial Struggle for North America 1607 1755 Praeger p 54 ISBN 978 0 275 96772 7 C H Feinstein National Statistics 1760 1920 in C H Feinstein and S Pollard eds Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom 1750 1920 1988 table X Crafts Nicholas 2004 Steam as a General Purpose Technology a Growth Accounting Perspective PDF Economic Journal 114 495 338 51 doi 10 1111 j 1468 0297 2003 00200 x S2CID 153979233 Crafts also estimates that all technological innovations including steam engines accounted for about 18 of British economic growth from 1780 to 1830 and 31 from 1830 to 1870 Baten Jorg Hippe Ralph 2017 Geography land inequality and regional numeracy in Europe in historical perspective Journal of Economic Growth Schama Simon 1972 The Rights of Ignorance Dutch Educational Policy in Belgium 1815 30 History of Education 1 1 81 89 doi 10 1080 0046760720010106 Mokyr Joel 1974 The Industrial Revolution in the Low Countries in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century A Comparative Case Study Journal of Economic History 34 2 365 99 doi 10 1017 S0022050700080116 JSTOR 2116987 Evans Chris Ryden Goran 2005 The Industrial Revolution in Iron The impact of British Coal Technology in Nineteenth Century Europe Ashgate pp 37 38 ISBN 978 0 7546 3390 7 Strikwerda Carl 1997 A House Divided Catholics Socialists and Flemish Nationalists in Nineteenth Century Belgium Rowman amp Littlefield pp 44 46 ISBN 978 0 8476 8526 4 O Brien Patrick 1983 Railways and the Economic Development of Western Europe 1830 1914 London MacMillan ISBN 978 0 333 33000 5 Small amounts of steel were produced before the 1860s but it was five times stronger than cast iron John Clapham An Economic History of Modern Britain 1952 1 425 28 Kruedener Jurgen Baron von Economic Crisis and Political Collapse The Weimar Republic 1990 pp 4 30 I C B Dear and M R D Foot eds The Oxford Companion to World War II 1995 has short articles on every country Mark Harrison ed The economics of World War II six great powers in international comparison Cambridge University Press 2000 Martin Schain ed The Marshall Plan Fifty Years After 2001 a b DeLong J Bradford Eichengreen Barry 1993 The Marshall Plan History s Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program In Dornbusch Rudiger Nolling Wilhelm Layard Richard eds Postwar Economic Reconstruction and Lessons for the East Today MIT Press pp 189 230 ISBN 978 0 262 04136 2 via Google Books Michael J Hogan The Marshall Plan America Britain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe 1947 1952 1987 Louis Lister Europe s Coal and Steel Community an experiment in economic union 1960 Introduction The Euro Task Force Archived from the original on 2000 06 01 Why the Euro European Commission Economic and Financial Affairs The EuroFurther reading EditBirnie Arthur An economic history of Europe 1760 1939 1939 online Cipolla Carlo M ed The Fontana Economic history of Europe 10 vol 1973 80 title list Clough Shepard Bancroft and Charles Woolsey Cole Economic History of Europe 1952 920 pp online edition Heaton Herbert Economic History Of Europe 1948 online Jones E L The European Miracle Environments economies and geopolitics in the history of Europe and Asia 2nd edition 1987 excerpt and text search Kellenbenz Hermann and Gerhard Benecke The Rise of the European Economy An Economic History of Continental Europe from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century 1976 online Persson Karl Gunnar An Economic History of Europe Knowledge Institutions and Growth 600 to the Present 2010 excerpt and text searchSince 1750 Edit Aldcroft Derek H The European Economy 1914 2000 328 pp 2001 online edition Ashton T S The Industrial Revolution 1760 1830 1948 online edition Eichengreen Barry J The European Economy since 1945 Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond 2008 Farnie Douglas Antony and David J Jeremy The Fibre That Changed the World The Cotton Industry in International Perspective 1600 1990s 2004 Landes David S The Unbound Prometheus Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present 1969 online at ACLS e books Landes David S The Wealth and Poverty of Nations Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor 1998 Mathias Peter and M M Postan eds The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire Vol 7 Pt 1 The Industrial Economies Capital Labour and Enterprise Britain France Germany and Scandinavia 1978 Milward Alan S and S B Saul The Economic Development of Continental Europe 1780 1870 2nd ed 1979 552 pp Milward Alan S and S B Saul The Development of the Economies of Continental Europe 1850 1914 1977 Mokyr Joel The lever of riches technological creativity and economic progress Oxford University Press 1990 online edition Rider Christine ed Encyclopedia of the Age of the Industrial Revolution 1700 1920 2 vol 2007 Rosenberg Nathan and L E Birdzell How the West Grew Rich The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World 1986 online edition Snooks Graeme Donald ed Was the Industrial Revolution Necessary 1994 online edition Stearns Peter N The Industrial Revolution in World History 1998 Thorp William Long Business Annals United States England France Germany Austria Russia Sweden Netherlands Italy Argentina Brazil Canada South Africa Australia India Japan China 1926 capsule summary of conditions in each country for each quarter year 1790 1925 Woytinsky W S World Population and Production Trends and Outlook 1953 1268 pp tables maps analysis covering most industrial powers 1800 1950 Woytinsky W S World commerce and governments Trends and outlook 1955 907 ppNational studies Edit Main articles Economic history of Germany Further reading Economic history of the United Kingdom Further reading and Economic history of France Further reading Ashworth William An economic history of England 1870 1939 Routledge 2013 Cameron Rondo France and the Economic Development of Europe 1800 1914 Conquests of Peace and Seeds of War 1961 awide ranging economic and business history Caron Francois An economic history of modern France 2nd ed Routledge 2014 Clapham John A concise economic history of Britain 1949 Abridged version of three volume history Deane P and Cole W A British Economic Growth 1688 1959 Trends and Structure 2nd ed 1967 Gregory Paul R Before Command An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five Year Plan Princeton University Press 2014 Lynch Frances France and the International Economy from Vichy to the Treaty of Rome Routledge 2006 Mantoux Paul The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century An Outline of the Beginnings of the Modern Factory System in England 1928 1961 online edition Mathias Peter The first industrial nation The economic history of Britain 1700 1914 Routledge 2013 Price Roger An economic history of modern France 1730 1914 Macmillan 1981 Stolper Gustav Karl Hauser and Knut Borchardt The German economy 1870 to the present 1967 Toniolo Gianni An Economic History of Liberal Italy 1850 1918 1990 Toniolo Gianni ed The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy since Unification Oxford University Press 2013 785 pp online review Usher Abbott Payson An Introduction to the Industrial History of England 1920 529 pages online edition Zamagni Vera The Economic History of Italy 1860 1990 1993 413 pp ISBN 0 19 828773 9 Middle Ages Edit Hodgett Gerald A A social and economic history of medieval Europe Routledge 2013 Pirenne Henri Economic and social history of medieval Europe 1936 online Postan Michael Mediaeval Trade and Finance 2002 Pounds N J G An economic history of medieval Europe 1974 online Pounds Norman John Greville An historical geography of Europe 450 B C A D 1330 1973 online edition Thompson James Westfall Economic and social history of Europe in the later Middle Ages 1300 1530 1931 onlinePrimary sources Edit Cave Roy C and Herbert H Coulson eds a Source Book for Medieval Economic History 1965 online Pollard Sidney and Colin Holmes eds Documents of European Economic History Volume 1 The Process of Industrialization 1750 1870 1968 Pollard Sidney and Colin Holmes eds Documents of European Economic History Volume 2 Industrial Power and National Rivalry 1870 1914 1972 Pollard Sidney and Colin Holmes eds Documents of European Economic History Volume 3 The End of the Old Europe 1914 1939 1973 External links EditEHE An Economic History of Europe webpage linking to resources for economic historians of Europe Contains links to major databases technology descriptions examples of use of data a forum for economic historians Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Economic history of Europe 1000 AD present amp oldid 1145427133 Middle Ages, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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