Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century

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1. versaleNov 2021
   This is clearly an idealistic approach. A materialistic view is better explained in Fernand Braudel's "Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century".
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2. mitchelldeacon9Sep 2016
   Here is my short list of favorite books on finance and economics:

   FINANCIAL SECURITIES / BANKING / VENTURE CAPITAL

   Bruck, Connie (1988) Predator's Ball: Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and Rise of Junk Bond Raiders

   Draper, William (2011) Startup Game

   Graham, Benjamin and Jason Zweig (2006) Intelligent Investor, revised ed.

   _________ and David Dodd (2008) Security Analysis, 6E

   Greenblatt, Joel (1999) You Can Be a Stock Market Genius

   Greenwald, Kahn, Sonkin, Biema (2001) Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond

   Henwood, Doug (1997) Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom

   Levitt, Arthur (2003) Take on the Street: How to Fight for Your Financial Future

   Lewis, Michael (1989) Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

   _________ (2010) Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

   STATISTICS

   Ayres, Ian (2007) Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart

   Bernstein, Peter (1996) Against the Gods: Remarkable Story of Risk

   Kahneman, Daniel (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow

   Silver, Nate (2012) Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail, but Some Don't

   Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2005) Fooled by Randomness, 2E

   _________ (2010) Black Swan: Impact of the Highly Improbable, 2E

   BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT / ENTREPRENEURSHIP / INNOVATION

   Christensen, Clayton (1997) Innovator's Dilemma

   Stone, Brad (2013) Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

   Wallace, James and Jim Erickson (1992) Hard Drive: Bill Gates and Making of the Microsoft Empire

   Walton, Sam with John Huey (1992) Sam Walton: Made in America

   Wilson, Mike (1996) Difference between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corp

   POLITICAL ECONOMY / THEORY / ECONOMIC HISTORY

   Arrighi, Giovanni (1994) Long Twentieth Century

   Braudel, Fernand (1979) Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century, vol. 3: Perspective of the World, trans. Siân Reynolds

   Brechin, Gray (2006) Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin

   Heilbroner, Robert (1999) Worldly Philosophers: Lives, Times & Ideas of Great Economic Thinkers, 7E

   Marx, Karl (1867) Capital, vol. 1

   Stiglitz, Joseph (2003) Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World’s Most Prosperous Decade

   _________ (2010) Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy

   Vallianatos, E.G. (2014) Poison Spring: Secret History of Pollution and EPA

   Vilar, Pierre (1976) A History of Gold and Money: 1450-1920

   Yergin, Daniel (1992) Prize: Epic Quest for Money, Oil and Power

   Would enjoy email correspondence with anyone interested in these subjects: mitchelldeacon9@gmail.com All the best

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3. daodedickinsonApr 2016
   Famines were certainly common and devastating. I recommend Braudel's The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization & Capitalism: 15th-18th Century: Volume 1:

   "Famine recurred to insistently for centuries on end that it became incorporated into man's biological regime and built into his daily life. Dearth and penury were continual, and familiar, even in Europe, despite its privileged position... It could not have been otherwise. Cereal yields were poor; two consecutive bad harvests spelt disaster... France, by any standards a privileged country, is reckoned to have experienced 10 general (nation-wide) famines during the tenth century: 26 in the 11th... 13 in the sixteenth; 11 in the seventeenth, and 16 in the eighteenth."

   "For when they are extreme, demographic increases lead to a deterioration in the standard of living; they enlarge the always horrifying total of the underfed, poor, and uprooted. A balance between mouths to be fed and the difficulties of feeding them, between manpower and jobs, is re-established by epidemics and famines... these extremely crude adjustments were the predominant feature of the centuries of the ancien régime."

   Contrast this with Germany taking over a million migrants in during 2015, with none starving. How can agriculture be so much different now to be able to support something like this? Crop yields are much greater now due to artificial selection and technology:

   "From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, the results were disappointing. For every grain sown, the harvest was usually no more than five and sometimes less. As the grain required for the next sowing had to be deducted, four grains were therefore produced for consumption from every one sown..." In Poland, Hungary and Slovakia between 1550 and 1650, yields were between 2 or 4 grains per 1! For 10% of Polish harvests, yields were below 2 to 1!

   Things have improved greatly: England 1200-49: 3.7 for 1 England 1750-1820:

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4. Aym_CJul 2014
   Dive into the classics.

   John Cowper Powys may help you to plan a great journey :

   http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12914/pg12914.html

   (Despite a few bizarre choices. Paul Bourget, seriously ?)

   If I had to choose myself : Homer (The Iliad and the Odyssey), the Bible (David's psalms and Job's book), Augustine, Dante, Saint Simon, Shakespeare, Rousseau, Dostoievsky, Proust, Céline.

   Aparté :

   If you like ambitious history with economic insights, I would strongly suggest to read Fernand Braudel works. He wrote three fantastic triptychs :

   - The Mediterranean: And the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (his thesis)

   - Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (the best history books I've ever read)

   - The Identity of France

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5. nbernardApr 2024
   According to Braudel (in Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, vol. 1), without irrigation rice farming depletes the soil much, much more than wheat. If I remember correctly, he states that if one waits for natural soil regeneration (fallowing and/or crop rotation) wheat can be grown at the same place every 2 to 3 years, whereas for rice it is only every 10 to 30 years.
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6. divkakwaniDec 2019
   Some of the books I plan to read are:

   * The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

   * Complications by Atul Gawande

   * The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century by Fernand Braudel

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