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"Students of history, politics, economic change, social hierarchy, and even Fascism will view this book as provocative and indispensable. It illuminates how plagues, blockades, migrations, and such world-changing innovations as the invention of printing precipitate political and social revolutions in some societies but peaceful adaptation in others"--
List of contents
Preface and acknowledgments; 1. How supply shocks arise and why political responses to them vary; 2. Who adjusts to a supply shock and who resists it: three determining factors; 3. Why a technological solution does, or does not, emerge; 4. Exogenous loss of labor: the black death in fourteenth century Europe; 5. Exogenous gain of labor: railroads, reproduction and revolution: the Russian population explosion between 1850 and 1914; 6. Exogenous loss of land: blockade, hunger and the Nazi pursuit of Lebensraum; 7. Exogenous increase of human capital: French Huguenots in German cities and principalities, 1685-1715; 8. When the endogenous becomes exogenous: the printing press as a multiplier of human capital; 9. Conclusion: the role of other factors, including institutions, ideas and human agency.
About the author
Ronald Rogowski is a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He has taught at Princeton, Duke, and Minnesota. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994 and has held research appointments at the Center for Advanced Study, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and Harvard University. His previous books include Rational Legitimacy (1974), Commerce and Coalitions (1990), and Electoral Systems and the Balance of Producer-Consumer Power (2010; co-authored).
Summary
Students of history, politics, economic change, social hierarchy, and even Fascism will view this book as provocative and indispensable. It illuminates how plagues, blockades, migrations, and such world-changing innovations as the invention of printing precipitate political and social revolutions in some societies but peaceful adaptation in others.
Foreword
How do plagues, blockades, and world-changing innovations change social and political institutions in some, but not all, societies?
