Economic History of a Divided Europe: Four Diverse Regions in an Integrating Continent

ISBN-13: 9780367896508 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 282 str.

Ivan T. Berend

Opis

Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the sharp divergence in economic standing between the four different regions of Europe, as well as knowledge about how institutional corruption and other cultural features exacerbated these variations.

Spis treści

Table of Contents

Introduction: Europe, its civilization and historical regions

Europe and its civilization

The idea and reality of European integration

In spite of homogenized continent, major macro-regional differences

Is the Central and Eastern European backwardness a legacy of communism?

The ‘longue durèe’ approach

Evaluating and measuring peripheral backwardness

The terms of backwardness, its measurement and generalization

Regional differences and the future of Europe

Chapter 1. Long historical roads towards regional differences within Europe: Four regions in 1913

Explanatory theories and the reality

Road towards high level of advancement: Northwestern Europe

The revolutionary transformation of the western mind; from the renaissance via

reformation to scientific revolution and enlightenment

Northwest Europe at the top

Dead-end roads and relative backwardness in the peripheries

Three distinct peripheral macro-regions before World War I

Chapter 2. A radically changed world, yet unchanged regional division: Four regions in

Early-21st-century Europe

The 21st century: a dramatically changed world and Europe

Regionalization of the enlarged European Union

The other side of core-periphery relations: roads to catch-up

Four regions in early 21^st century

The changing positions of some countries in an unchanged regional divide

Europe’s divided regions’ position in the world

Chapter 3. What preserves regional differences? The social, economic and cultural factors

The dialectic of change and continuity

Survival of micro-regional peripheral backwardness in advanced countries

Social-economic structural weaknesses of peripheral countries

Preserved peripheral social-cultural characteristics

Anti-capitalist mentalities, sharply divided societies, and lower levels of education

Weaknesses in entrepreneurship

Peripheral attitude towards the state and institutions

The black (or shadow) economy

Labor market and work ethic weaknesses

Epidemic corruption and tax evasion

Tendencies towards authoritarian-dictatorial power

Chapter 4. The most developed core of Europe: the Northwest

Europe’s superpower status and the North-West region

Reunified Germany in the driver’s seat

What factors have helped the reproduction of North-West preeminence in the 21st century?

The economic strength of North-West Europe

Technological revolution, the renewed energy system and de-industrialization

The service revolution and the financial sector

The strength of modern industries

The North-West: the biggest service provider

The 2008 financial crisis in North-West Europe

Moderate neo-liberal turn: weakening the welfare state and workers’ rights

Questionable stability of the North-West

Chapter 5. The Mediterranean-Irish region: catching-up with the West but burdened with remnants of a peripheral past

Middle-income peripheral level until the mid-twentieth century

The rise of Ireland and the Mediterranean

The Irish miracle

Catching up on the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean-Irish twenty-first-century credit-fueled consumption bubble

Financial-economic crisis hits the region hard

Chapter 6. Central Europe and the Baltics: trapped in middle-income periphery?

Belated and partial modernization: the historical background

The interwar fiasco

"Detour from the periphery to the periphery"

Crisis and collapse

Transformation to democratic market capitalism in new state formations

Recovery and development based on capital inflow: under the tutelage of the European Union

Crisis: major weaknesses surface after 2008

Chapter 7. The Russia-Turkey-Balkans low-income region: outside Europe?

The early twentieth century: the most backward periphery of Europe

A new opening to the European world, new states and regimes after World War I

Successes and failures in the interwar decades

Economic performance of the region during the interwar decades

New political environment and troubled history after World War II

Rapid growth and industrialization

Ambivalent modernization in Turkey

Reproduced backwardness in Russia and the Balkans

The Russia-Turkey-Balkan region and the European Union

Transformation: rising or declining relative income level? The twenty-first century

Conclusion

Index

O autorze

Ivan T. Berend is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the British Academy; the Academy of Europe; and the Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Czech Academies of Sciences. He was president of the International Historical Association between 1995 and 2000 and is author of 35 books.