This book highlights the contribution of language standardization to the economic rise of the West between 1600 and 1860. Previous studies have been unable to explain why during this period almost all industrial innovation was confined to small areas around the main cultural centers of three...

Nowadays remembered mostly through Adam Smith’s references to the short-lived Ayr Bank in the Wealth of Nations, the 1772-3 financial crisis was an important historical episode in its own right, taking place during a pivotal period in the development of financial capitalism and coinciding with...

This book focuses on wealth inequality trends in the North Atlantic Anglo-sphere countries of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States over the period from 1668 to 2013: a wider perspective than generally used when wealth inequality is discussed. This book demonstrates that it is...

This two-volume book explores how the great buildings of England bear witness to a thousand years of the nation’s history. In every age, investment in iconic buildings reaches a climax when the prevailing mode of production is operating most effectively, surplus wealth is most plentiful, and...

This book is a study of New Zealand shaking off its quasi-colonial dependence on Britain. Has New Zealand moved beyond its colonial heritage? Is it now time to remove the Union Jack from the national flag and change to a Republic? Hall analyses the three decades after World War II when changes...

This book explores the political and economic issues currently challenging EU member states. It analyses and explains how its own economic, and political, relationships have been critically influenced by fierce competition from its rivals in other major global economies, as well as by the...