Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a particular, yet comprehensive, view of the economic history of Western Europe since the Renaissance. The focus is wide and the level of treatment deep. Between 1550 and 1940, Professor Parker contends, the development of European capitalism was, in a sense, all of a piece. He separates the development into three periods and processes - ?Malthusian?, ?Smithian?, and ?Schumpeterian?. Each period was governed by a characteristic dynamic that produced productivity growth, in the presence of other favourable elements, and influenced also the...