Inspired by Vincent Geloso, here is a list of the 20-25 books in economic history published since 2000 which I have found most stimulating or provocative. Not necessarily the best or the most ‘correct’, but stimulating or provocative.
- Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective
- Clark, A Farewell to Alms
- Clark, The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility
- De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Culture and the Household Economy, 1650-present
- (added late) Engerman & Sokoloff, Economic Development in the Americas since 1500
- Federico, Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800-2000
- Findlay & O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium
- Galor, Unified Growth Theory
- Gat, War in Human Civilization
- Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade
- Kuran, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East
- Lee & Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000
- Lieberman, Strange Parallels (2 volumes)
- Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850
- Mitterauer, Why Europe? The Medieval Origins of its Special Path
- North, Wallis & Weingast, Violence & Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History
- O’Rourke & Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy
- Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy
- Seabright, The Company of Strangers: The Natural History of Economic Life
- Smil, Vaclav (several)
- Temin, The Roman Market Economy
- Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
- Turchin & Nefedov, Secular Cycles
- Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
- Williamson, Trade and Poverty: How the Third World Fell Behind
Some of these are on my bigger Economic History Books List, which is intended to be a list of survey books for the economic history of particular regions or countries.
Filed under: books, Uncategorized Tagged: books
