The world is rich. Yes, it is certainly true that not everyone is rich by either historical or contemporary standards. But the world is richer than it has ever been. A smaller fraction of the world’s population is in dire poverty than ever before. And there is reason to believe that much of the worst … Continue reading How the World Became Rich (Part I)
In my previous two Broadstreet posts, I discussed various ways in which religion has played a role in historical political economy. These included ancient religious (“big gods”), religious legitimacy, and religious persecution. If those topics interest you, you should check out those posts! Although they hardly cover the entire literature, I think they give a … Continue reading Religion and Political Economy in History (Part III)
It has been nearly four months since my last new column, which I titled “Religion and Political Economy in History (Part I).” That title suggested there would at minimum be a part II. But we here at Broadstreet thought we should take a well-deserved break over the summer, so part II has been slow in … Continue reading Religion and Political Economy in History (Part II)
When I was young, I was told that there were two topics you should never bring up in polite society: religion and politics. The advice clearly did not rub off. I have spent a good portion of my career studying the two. It seems obvious to even a casual observer that religion has played an … Continue reading Religion and Political Economy in History (Part I)
A number of my recent posts have discussed different ways that culture and institutions interact with each other. It’s something I am interested in, and it is one of those areas where I believe historical political economy can really tell us something about the present. Anywhere you look, culture seems to impinge upon formal political … Continue reading Cultural Revivals
I have already posted a few times on here about the interaction between culture and institutions in history. So forgive me for indulging again. Most of my career I have focused on this interaction. At the broadest level, I have long been interested in why some societies have been relatively successful economically and others have not. … Continue reading Culture, Institutions, and Economic Divergence
So, I had been planning on writing a post on religion in historical political economy. It is something I have long been interested in, mainly for the role that religion plays in legitimating political rule. Then January 6 happened. The freaking Capitol was stormed. Spurred on by the president! That post on religion is gonna … Continue reading What the Hell Happened on January 6? Critical Junctures and Institutional Theory
Networks are everywhere. Of course, today we are used to social networks, where information, ideas, and cat memes can spread at an extremely rapid rate. Social scientists call these “network effects”. If I send a meme to two friends, and they send that meme to two friends, and so on, my idea gets to thousands … Continue reading Networks in History
So, there is an election tomorrow. A pretty big one. One that makes you want to curl up with a big bottle of whiskey. A really big bottle. But why is it so important? Why does so much of our future — not just for those of us living in the US, but the world … Continue reading Political Legitimacy: Lessons from Institutional Theory
Economics and history Twitter are all abuzz about a HPE paper! That’s good, right? Even if there is occasionally discord between economic historians and historians? Oh, wait ... the comments are something. Fortunately, one of the paper’s authors, Martin Fiszbein, has a response to many of the comments. There have also been a few threads on it. I … Continue reading On the Frontier Thesis