The Global Economy

Living up to its title, this volume puts the global economy front and center in a concise history that covers the Neolithic Revolution through the 2008 financial crisis in only a few hundred pages. Editors Colli and Amatori (both, Bocconi Univ., Italy) focus on how goods, services, and resources moved across national boundaries, using the experiences of individual countries in service to the larger theme. Chapters elucidate how these systems evolved in response to flows of goods and resources and in turn shaped them over time, primarily centering on the period since roughly AD 1700, what economic historians have come to call “the Great Divergence.” This is when western European (and later North American) incomes per person started growing much more rapidly than in the rest of the world. The book grapples with both the causes of this divergence and the consequences for the global economy. The text’s greatest strength is its up-to-date scholarship, bringing the latest findings to bear on classic issues such as late-19th-century globalization and the origins of the Great Depression, making this an excellent addition to any economic historian’s or library’s collection.

--L. D. Johnston, College of St. Benedict/St. John's University