By relating economic changes to the political backdrop, The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600 1750 describes and analyzes the economic civilisation of Europe in the last epoch before the Industrial Revolution. The author makes a special effort to apply economic reasoning to the economic forces of the period and challenges some longstanding opinions about what was and was not important in explaining economic performance. The significance of this study rests in its identification of the ways a 'traditional' society developed its economy despite the absence of the obvious growth...

A comprehensive economic history of The Netherlands during its rise to European economic leadership, which argues that this was the first modern economy. This position is defended with detailed analyses of the major economic sectors and investigations into social structure and macro-economic performance. Dutch economic history is placed in its European and world context. Inter-continental and colonial trade are discussed fully. Special emphasis is placed on the environmental context and demographic developments.

In the long eighteenth century, new consumer aspirations combined with a new industrious behavior to fundamentally alter the material cultures of northwest Europe and North America. This industrious revolution is the context in which the economic acceleration associated with the Industrial Revolution took shape. This study explores the intellectual understanding of the new importance of consumer goods as well as the actual consumer behavior of households of all income levels. De Vries examines how the activation and evolution of consumer demand shaped the course of economic development,...