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Author: Peter Bernholz
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Published: 2004-01-01
Total Pages: 238
ISBN-13: 1845423356
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDo political decentralisation and inter-state competition favour innovation and growth? There has long been a lively debate surrounding this question, going back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant. This book is a new attempt to test its veracity. The existin
Author: Peter Bernholz
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 248
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDo political decentralisation and inter state competition favour innovation and growth? There has long been a lively debate surrounding this question, going back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant. This book is a new attempt to test its veracity. The existing literature tends to assume that the beneficial effects of inter state competition have been confined to European history. By contrast, China, India and the Islamic Middle East are regarded as inherently imperial and overcentralised. However, these civilisations have not always been unified politically. In their history, there have been long spells of decentralised rule or inter state competition. The same is true for Japan. If the Hume-Kant hypothesis is correct, it should also apply to those periods. This volume analyses the qualitative and quantitative evidence. The authors comprise eminent historians, sociologists, economists and socio-psychologists and the resulting book is a truly interdisciplinary enterprise. Addressing a wide readership, this book will hold strong appeal for scholars and researchers of general, Asian and economic history, political economy, political science and sociology.
Author: Jimmy Teng
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Published: 2014-09-18
Total Pages: 314
ISBN-13: 3110399261
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWaves of military technological changes have swept through the Eurasian land mass since the dawn of civilization. Military technological changes decisively shaped geopolitics and the fortunes of states, empires and civilizations. In his book Jimmy Teng claims that to understand the impacts of these military technological changes is in fact to understand the causes behind the following major historical puzzles or important facts: the leading position of the Near East during the dawn of civilization; the splendid achievements of Greece, India and China during the axial era; the classical golden age of India under the Gupta Empire; the Abbasid Golden Age of the Islamic world and the Sung Puzzle of China during the medieval era; and the rise of the West during the early modern and modern era.
Author: Joel Mokyr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 424
ISBN-13: 0691180962
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today's unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture--the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior--was a deciding factor in societal transformations. Mokyr looks at the period 1500-1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive "market for ideas" and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the "Republic of Letters" freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China's version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite. Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.
Author: Leonid E. Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
Published:
Total Pages: 400
ISBN-13: 5705753861
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe scope of human thought along with its ability to proceed from reconstruction of the most ancient periods to anticipation of the distant future, from small objects to galaxies and the Universe as well as, to embrace different trends and dimensions of reality never ceases to amaze us. You are reading a new issue of the Yearbook which contains some ‘grains’ of the description of the billion years' path. This Yearbook presents the global studies which cover different fields of research. The present volume is the sixth in the series of yearbooks with the title Globalistics and Globalization Studies. The subtitle of the volume is ‘Global Evolution, Historical Globalistics and Globalization Studies’ which reflects the contents. The present issue brings together a variety of contributions devoted to mega- and global evolution (Part I); historical globalistics (Part II); globalization and glocalization (Parts III–IV). Besides, Part IV comprises some issues on the view in the future. We become more and more accustomed to think globally and to see global processes. The yearbook will be interesting to a wide range of researchers, teachers, students and all those who are concerned about global issues.
Author: Hendrik Spruyt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2020-07-02
Total Pages: 413
ISBN-13: 1108870678
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTaking an inter-disciplinary approach, Spruyt explains the political organization of three non-European international societies from early modernity to the late nineteenth century. The Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires; the Sinocentric tributary system; and the Southeast Asian galactic empires, all which differed in key respects from the modern Westphalian state system. In each of these societies, collective beliefs were critical in structuring domestic orders and relations with other polities. These multi-ethnic empires allowed for greater accommodation and heterogeneity in comparison to the homogeneity that is demanded by the modern nation-state. Furthermore, Spruyt examines the encounter between these non-European systems and the West. Contrary to unidirectional descriptions of the encounter, these non-Westphalian polities creatively adapted to Western principles of organization and international conduct. By illuminating the encounter of the West and these Eurasian polities, this book serves to question the popular wisdom of modernity, wherein the Western nation-state is perceived as the desired norm, to be replicated in other polities.
Author: D. E. Andersson
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Published: 2011-01-01
Total Pages: 575
ISBN-13: 0857936395
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWith the publication of The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida in 2002, the 'creative city' became the new hot topic among urban policymakers, planners and economists. Florida has developed one of three path-breaking theories about the relationship between creative individuals and urban environments. The economist Åke E. Andersson and the psychologist Dean Simonton are the other members of this 'creative troika'. In the Handbook of Creative Cities, Florida, Andersson and Simonton appear in the same volume for the first time. The expert contributors in this timely Handbook extend their insights with a varied set of theoretical and empirical tools. The diversity of the contributions reflect the multidisciplinary nature of creative city theorizing, which encompasses urban economics, economic geography, social psychology, urban sociology, and urban planning. The stated policy implications are equally diverse, ranging from libertarian to social democratic visions of our shared creative and urban future. Being truly international in its scope, this major Handbook will be particularly useful for policy makers that are involved in urban development, academics in urban economics, economic geography, urban sociology, social psychology, and urban planning, as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students across the social sciences and in business.
Author: Leonid E. Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
Published:
Total Pages: 200
ISBN-13: 5705760442
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis fifth issue of the Yearbook ‘Kondratieff Waves’ has the subtitle ‘Historical and Theoretical Aspects’, as its papers cover some interesting aspects of long-wave dynamics both in historical trends and in theoretical researches. The Yearbook consists of three sections. The first section (Theoretical Aspects) includes two articles devoted to the correlation between the long waves and much longer cycles, i.e. the Industrial and the Cybernetic revolutions. The second section (Historical Aspects) presents three contributions which consider the history of the USA, technological activity since the Middle Ages and some little-known aspects of the history of long-wave dynamics research. The final section (Reviews, Notes, and Reflections) includes two reviews. This issue will be useful for economists, social scientists, as well as for a wide range of those interested in the problems of the past, present, and future of global economy and globalization.
Author: Larry Neal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014-01-23
Total Pages: 633
ISBN-13: 1316025705
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe first volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism provides a comprehensive account of the evolution of capitalism from its earliest beginnings. Starting with its distant origins in ancient Babylon, successive chapters trace progression up to the 'Promised Land' of capitalism in America. Adopting a wide geographical coverage and comparative perspective, the international team of authors discuss the contributions of Greek, Roman, and Asian civilizations to the development of capitalism, as well as the Chinese, Indian and Arab empires. They determine what features of modern capitalism were present at each time and place, and why the various precursors of capitalism did not survive. Looking at the eventual success of medieval Europe and the examples of city-states in northern Italy and the Low Countries, the authors address how British mercantilism led to European imitations and American successes, and ultimately, how capitalism became global.
Author: Deepak Lal
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2010-12-16
Total Pages: 335
ISBN-13: 1400837448
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReviving the Invisible Hand is an uncompromising call for a global return to a classical liberal economic order, free of interference from governments and international organizations. Arguing for a revival of the invisible hand of free international trade and global capital, eminent economist Deepak Lal vigorously defends the view that statist attempts to ameliorate the impact of markets threaten global economic progress and stability. And in an unusual move, he not only defends globalization economically, but also answers the cultural and moral objections of antiglobalizers. Taking a broad cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach, Lal argues that there are two groups opposed to globalization: cultural nationalists who oppose not capitalism but Westernization, and "new dirigistes" who oppose not Westernization but capitalism. In response, Lal contends that capitalism doesn't have to lead to Westernization, as the examples of Japan, China, and India show, and that "new dirigiste" complaints have more to do with the demoralization of their societies than with the capitalist instruments of prosperity. Lal bases his case on a historical account of the rise of capitalism and globalization in the first two liberal international economic orders: the nineteenth-century British, and the post-World War II American. Arguing that the "new dirigisme" is the thin edge of a wedge that could return the world to excessive economic intervention by states and international organizations, Lal does not shrink from controversial stands such as advocating the abolishment of these organizations and defending the existence of child labor in the Third World.
