Debate the costs and benefits of british imperialism 1846–1914
About: This article is published in Past & Present.The article was published on 1989-11-01. It has received 31 citations till now.
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04 Mar 2010TL;DR: In this article, the author assesses the extensive new literature on the war's origins and the July Crisis as well as introducing new themes such as the relationship between economic interdependence and military planning.
Abstract: A second edition of this leading introduction to the origins of the First World War and the pre-war international system. William Mulligan shows how the war was a far from inevitable outcome of international politics in the early twentieth century and suggests instead that there were powerful forces operating in favour of the maintenance of peace. He discusses key issues ranging from the military, public opinion, economics, diplomacy and geopolitics to relations between the great powers, the role of smaller states and the disintegrating empires. In this new edition, the author assesses the extensive new literature on the war's origins and the July Crisis as well as introducing new themes such as the relationship between economic interdependence and military planning. With well-structured chapters and an extensive bibliography, this is an essential classroom text which significantly revises our understanding of diplomacy, political culture, and economic history from 1870 to 1914.
58 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the British experience since 1750 has been studied in terms of gentlemenly capitalism and empire, with a focus on women's roles in the British economy and society.
Abstract: (1990). ‘Gentlemanly capitalism’ and empire: The British experience since 1750? The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 265-295.
51 citations
15 Jan 2004
TL;DR: This article argued that defects in the performance of the British economy can be best explained by lacklustre enterprise and management and a general weakness of the industrial spirit, and pointed out that not all theoretical advances have favoured British entrepreneurs.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION The argument that defects in the performance of the British economy can be best explained by lacklustre enterprise and management and a general weakness of the industrial spirit has a long history. Assertions of entrepreneurial failure remain both seductive and appealing, particularly for those who favour cultural explanations. However, in their celebrated 1971 essay on late Victorian business performance Donald McCloskey and Lars Sandberg countered this conventional wisdom. On the basis of the neoclassical conceptual and empirical literature, they found limited evidence for significant and economically relevant instances of failure. Not all theoretical advances have favoured British entrepreneurs. Institutional approaches reinforce the perspective that entrepreneurs need to be judged against their operating environment. Entrepreneurs interact with institutions, which can both reduce transaction costs and facilitate benefits from exchange, or act as a brake on economic development if ‘institutional rigidities’ are present. Advocates of this approach claim that competing industrial nations displaced Britain from economic pre-eminence by performing better in respect of labour relations, education, industrial organisation, corporate finance and government policy towards enterprise. Thus, institutional writers have challenged the argument of entrepreneurial redemption deeply rooted in the neoclassical analysis of business behaviour. Cultural approaches to entrepreneurship broadly agree with this challenge; they explain performance differences between countries by reference to a capacity for enterprise and initiative. In Britain, it is claimed, a rigid social structure and the persistence of gentlemanly capitalism eroded the industrial spirit. Advocates of conventional cultural approaches hail ‘the limits of economic explanation’ (Wiener 1981: 167). Scholars writing historically on culture have been reluctant to use formal methods or economic theory as analysis tools, preferring casual empiricism as a framework for explanation.
42 citations
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01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: This article reviewed UK economic growth performance from mid-Victorian times to the end of the interwar period and compared the UK experience with that of Germany and the United States in terms of economic performance.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION This chapter reviews UK economic growth performance from mid-Victorian times to the end of the interwar period. It aims to place this experience in the context both of initial British pre-eminence and subsequent relative economic decline and of new ideas in growth economics. A growth accounting framework is used to establish the proximate sources of growth and to compare UK experience with that of Germany and the United States. Against this background, special attention is given to two controversies, namely, whether the British economy ‘failed’ in the late Victorian and Edwardian period and whether the interwar period and, especially the 1930s, saw a successful regeneration of the economy’s growth potential. Finally, in so far as the UK underperformed during these years, it is important to examine the incentive structures which informed decisions to invest and to innovate and the roles played by market and/or government failure. AN OVERVIEW OF GROWTH Britain was the first industrial nation but by the end of the twentieth century had become just another OECD economy with an income level below that of North America, most of western Europe and parts of East Asia. This relative economic decline is sometimes regarded as a continuous process that started around 1870 and had already alarmed contemporaries in the late nineteenth century as Germany and the United States emerged as powerful economic rivals. Its dimensions are, however, not well understood by many commentators. This section sets out a basic quantitative framework within which debates about UK growth performance can be placed.
32 citations