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E.
Anthony Wrigley
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2020) 51 (2): 301–302.
Published: 01 September 2020
Abstract
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Kumar’s criticism is justified but only because the article in question failed to specify that England had achieved self-sufficiency in temperate foodstuffs rather than all foodstuffs. The ability of English agriculture between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries to meet the country’s temperate foodstuff needs was notable, especially as the number of men employed on farms changed only marginally.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2020) 50 (4): 495–515.
Published: 01 February 2020
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Historical narrative commonly involves both description and explanation. The nature of the information available to historians gives rise to problems that seldom appear in other disciplines. For example, it is not possible, given the nature of historical data, to conduct controlled experiments to resolve uncertainties concerning the cause of a given event. It is normally the case that the concept of negative and positive feedback is a more appropriate framework for this purpose than causation. Such a framework can be used in discussing the interplay of demographic behavior, urban growth, and occupational change in facilitating England’s escape from the constraints suffered by all organic economies. Comparison of the contrast in this regard between England and continental Europe helps to clarify the nature of the divergence between the island and the continent over a period of 300 years, from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2018) 49 (1): 9–42.
Published: 01 June 2018
FIGURES
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In the mid-sixteenth century, England was a small country on the periphery of Europe with an economy less advanced than those of several of its continental neighbors. In 1851, the Great Exhibition both symbolized and displayed the technological and economic lead that Britain had then taken. A half-century later, however, there were only minor differences between the leading economies of Western Europe. To gain insight into both the long period during which Britain outpaced its neighbors and the decades when its lead evaporated, it is illuminating to focus on the energy supply. Energy is expended in all productive activities. The contrast between the limitations inherent to organic economies dependent on the annual round of plant photosynthesis for energy and the possibilities open to an economy able to make effective use of the vast quantity of energy available in coal measures is key both to the understanding of the lengthy period of Britain’s relative success and to its subsequent swift decline.