SHORTER NOTICES
Ecolsiomic history has not yet received the attention it deserves. Those who wish to have an introduction to the subject, and students who wish to find how far the research of the last few decades has revised previous judgements, would be well advised to read the excellent account given in Professor Court's book. To cover two centuries of economic life in a book of 340 pages requires a capacity for intellectual integration and abnegation which only a master of the sub- ject could achieve. Moreover, Professor Court has an economy of phrase and a directness of approach which enable him to be both compre- hensive and concise. He disclaims originality in a subject to which so many contribute but on every page the subject is illuminated by acute observa- tions which set the problems in the right context and give them a new significance. Indeed, a great merit of the book is the way in which the reader is made aware of the significance of the economic facts; the author does not share the view that the social costs of economic development can be ignored.
In the first part of the book there is an excel- lent account of the changes in industrial and financial commercial organisation which laid the foundations of Victorian supremacy; in addition Professor Court indicates the trend of opinion and legislation, which reflected something of the problems that these changes brought in their train. In the second part, Professor Court is concerned to trace with great care the strands of economic life which have borne the main weight of our economic destiny from the Victorian era up to the beginning of the Second World War. Here many current problems can be seen in the making at the end of the century and followed • through the changes of the inter-war period. It is to be hoped that Professor Court's sugges- tion that an official collection of British historical statistics should be prepared, will come to the notice of the appropriate authorities. In this we are at a considerable disadvantage compared with the much younger economic community.
Previous page
