The Decline Of British Economic Power Since 1870

This book was first published in 1981.

Michael Dintenfass provides a challenging account of Britain's economic performance since 1870. He combines a succinct, clearly-written survey of recent scholarly work in British economic and business history with an original interpretive alternative to the institutionalized accounts of Britain's relative decline. Dintenfass addresses both specifically economic questions and socio-historical questions to place Britain's economic history in its broadest context.

Since the 1870s the British economy has steadily declined from its position as the 'workshop of the world' to that of a low-ranking European power. Michael Sanderson examines the question of how far defects in education and training have contributed to this economic decline. By looking at issues such as literacy, the quality of scientific and technical training, the supposed anti-industrial bias of public schools and the older universities, the neglect of vocational and technical training and the neglect of the non-academic teenager, Michael Sanderson demonstrates that education was far from the sole cause of economic decline, but that its deficiencies have certainly played a part. This book offers an accessible and concise analysis of a topic of current importance, interest and debate and will be of interest to students and teachers of the history of education and its impact on British economic development in the twentieth century.

This is the first systematic quantitative account of British economic growth from the thirteenth century to the Industrial Revolution.

The theme of British economic decline is inescapable in contemporary debates about Britain's economic performance and sense of national identity. Understanding Decline is a serious contribution to an important argument, approached in a way that is accessible not only to the specialist academic market but to students of economics, history and politics. Barry Supple, to whom the volume is dedicated, when Professor of Economic History at Cambridge was concerned with various aspects of this historical problem. Indeed, his 1993 Presidential Address to the Economic History Society, 'Fear of failing', already a classic, is reprinted here as a highly effective keynote essay. Other essays pick up this theme in diverse but essentially unified ways, seeking to assess British economic performance in different ways over the past two centuries. They include case-studies through which the reality of decline can be explored, while differing perceptions of decline are examined in a number of essays dealing with ideas and policy issues.

A new edition of the leading textbook on the economic history of Britain since industrialization. Combining the expertise of more than thirty leading historians and economists, Volume 1 tracks Britain's economic history in the period ranging from 1700 to 1870 from industrialisation to global trade and empire. Each chapter provides a clear guide to the major controversies in the field and students are shown how to connect historical evidence with economic theory and apply quantitative methods. New approaches are proposed to classic issues such as the causes and consequences of industrialisation, the role of institutions and the state, and the transition from an organic to an inorganic economy, as well as introducing new issues such as globalisation, convergence and divergence, the role of science, technology and invention, and the growth of consumerism. Throughout the volume, British experience is set within an international context and its performance benchmarked against its global competitors.

This book sets out the present state of the discussion of the decline in British industry and introduces new directions in which the debate is now proceeding.

Annual estimates of GDP constructed from the output side are used to analyse British business cycles between 1270 and 1870. After c.1670 the scale of recessions tended to diminish as the economy grew, diversified and became more resilient. Until c.1730, business cycles were driven largely by agricultural fluctuations, but shocks to industry and commerce became more important over time as the structure of the economy changed. A number of severe recessions can be identified, associated with harvest failures, disease outbreaks, wars and disruptions to commerce. Monetary and financial factors also played a role in some of these severe recessions.