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The Cambridge Economic History of the United States. Vol. 2: The Long Nineteenth Century

2001; Oxford University Press; Volume: 88; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2700409

1945-2314

Jean Rivière, Stanley L. Engerman, Robert E. Gallman,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

With two bulky volumes of over one thousand pages each, Stanley Engerman and the late Robert Gallman have put the finishing touch to an overall economic history of the United States that stands as the achievement of a generation of economists and economic historians. I shall try first to give some useful tips for a helpful handling of the subjects treated. Each book is divided into seventeen chapters. Twelve of them treat the same subject in each volume: Economic growth, Canada, inequality, population, labor force, agriculture (extended into two chapters in volume 2 but with only one in volume 3), technological change, business organization, business and government (two chapters in volume 3 and one in volume 2), banking and finance, foreign trade, and foreign and financial relations. Tw o chapters of volume 2 extend to the end of the twentieth century: business law and internal transportation. The last chapter, “The Social Implications of US Economic Development,” stands as an apt conclusion to volume 2 and a transition to the next volume. The chapter on slavery is naturally the only chapter centered on the peculiar institution, but it also branches out into the aftermath of Reconstruction and the black exodus to the North. Four chapters are specific to volume 3: “Structural Changes: Regional and Urban,” “The Great Depression,” which is long on causes, upturns, and downturns and short on bibliography and consequences, “War and the Economy in the Twentieth Century,” and “Labor Law.” Documentation on each chapter is gathered either at the end of the volume in bibliographic essays (16 out of 17 in volume 2, 15 out of 17 in volume 3) or at the end of a chapter; those at the end of chapters are in alphabetical order and without comments, but they are supplemented by telling statistics and charts and abundant footnotes.