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In search of stability. Explorations in historical political economy
Book Reviews evidence that about 1369 Wyclif compiled a fu112mamost of which is (at present) lost. And W.R. Thomson surveys his hopes for the future of Wyclif scholarship, indicating lost works and the places where manuscripts are most likely to turn up. R.H. Britnell University of Durham
In Search of Stability. Explorations in Historical Political Economy, Charles S. Maier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), x + 293 pp., g25.00, cloth; $8.95, paper. This book is a collection of seven reprinted essays, originally published between 1970 and 1984 as articles in learned journals or as contributions to edited works, including two ~esfschr~ten. Most of them have been amended or expanded; some are equipped with bibliogmphical notes on recent writings; an introduction and conclusion are there to weld them together into a cohesive whole. The author explains that he is using the definition of political economy which presents it as an analysis of ‘what power relations underlie economic outcomes’ (p. 3). Finding that ‘stabilization is as challenging a historical problem as revolution’ (p. 154), he has addressed himself to the historical processes by which societies-specifically Western Europe and the U.S.A.-have sought stability. The results are, as Professor Maier himself acknowledges, ‘not really economic history’ and ‘not really political science’ but are ‘efforts at intellectual poaching” (pp. l-2). The contents of the poacher’s bag certainly reveal a poacher with a formidable knowledge of sources in English, French, German and Italian and of recent history both economic and political. The contents do, however, form a very mixed bag. Fart I, ‘Ideology and economics from World War I to mid-centu~‘, comprises essays on Taylorism and other management theories (not the practice thereof); on the economic ideas informing Fascism and Nazism and the performance of the Italian and German economies under those regimes; on the aims, internal sources, and consequences of U.S. economic policies towards Western Europe after World War II; and a comparison of European stabilisation after World Wars I and II, an extension of the author’s 1975 book, Recasting Bourgeois Europe. Part II, ‘Collective preferences and public outcomes’, consists of two essays. One, called ‘The politics of inflation’, examines the cause of inflation in various countries 1914-76 and concludes that ‘inflation is integrally linked with the stability conditions of twentieth-century capitalism’ (p. 224). The other looks at the ways in which societies have mediated between interest groups; it runs the gamut from Burke and Bagehot to Mussolini and the National Recovery Act. Over the book as a whole the theme of stabilisation sometimes proves rather elusive and not all the ideas and policies considered seem readily capable of being identi~ed s~cifically with a search for stability. Nevertheless, the range, diversity and ingenuity of these essays offers an impressive testimony to the author’s skills as well as encouragement in the necessary task of breaking down those artificial barriers which separate economic, political and social history. D.C. Coleman Pembroke College, Cambridge The Concept of Causality in Presocratic Vanias Publishing 1988), 132~~. Bertrand dispensable
Philosophy,
D.Z. Andriopoulos
(Thessaloniki:
Russell once claimed that, like religion, the concept of causality is merely a ‘relic of a bygone age’. Yet, as is often the case, reports of the demise of such
In Search of Stability. Explorations in Historical Political Economy, Charles S. Maier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), x + 293 pp., g25.00, cloth; $8.95, paper. This book is a collection of seven reprinted essays, originally published between 1970 and 1984 as articles in learned journals or as contributions to edited works, including two ~esfschr~ten. Most of them have been amended or expanded; some are equipped with bibliogmphical notes on recent writings; an introduction and conclusion are there to weld them together into a cohesive whole. The author explains that he is using the definition of political economy which presents it as an analysis of ‘what power relations underlie economic outcomes’ (p. 3). Finding that ‘stabilization is as challenging a historical problem as revolution’ (p. 154), he has addressed himself to the historical processes by which societies-specifically Western Europe and the U.S.A.-have sought stability. The results are, as Professor Maier himself acknowledges, ‘not really economic history’ and ‘not really political science’ but are ‘efforts at intellectual poaching” (pp. l-2). The contents of the poacher’s bag certainly reveal a poacher with a formidable knowledge of sources in English, French, German and Italian and of recent history both economic and political. The contents do, however, form a very mixed bag. Fart I, ‘Ideology and economics from World War I to mid-centu~‘, comprises essays on Taylorism and other management theories (not the practice thereof); on the economic ideas informing Fascism and Nazism and the performance of the Italian and German economies under those regimes; on the aims, internal sources, and consequences of U.S. economic policies towards Western Europe after World War II; and a comparison of European stabilisation after World Wars I and II, an extension of the author’s 1975 book, Recasting Bourgeois Europe. Part II, ‘Collective preferences and public outcomes’, consists of two essays. One, called ‘The politics of inflation’, examines the cause of inflation in various countries 1914-76 and concludes that ‘inflation is integrally linked with the stability conditions of twentieth-century capitalism’ (p. 224). The other looks at the ways in which societies have mediated between interest groups; it runs the gamut from Burke and Bagehot to Mussolini and the National Recovery Act. Over the book as a whole the theme of stabilisation sometimes proves rather elusive and not all the ideas and policies considered seem readily capable of being identi~ed s~cifically with a search for stability. Nevertheless, the range, diversity and ingenuity of these essays offers an impressive testimony to the author’s skills as well as encouragement in the necessary task of breaking down those artificial barriers which separate economic, political and social history. D.C. Coleman Pembroke College, Cambridge The Concept of Causality in Presocratic Vanias Publishing 1988), 132~~. Bertrand dispensable
Philosophy,
D.Z. Andriopoulos
(Thessaloniki:
Russell once claimed that, like religion, the concept of causality is merely a ‘relic of a bygone age’. Yet, as is often the case, reports of the demise of such