Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830

It is conventionally assumed that the pre-modern working year was fixed and that consumption varied with changes in wages and prices. This is challenged by the twin theories of the ‘industrious’ revolution and the consumer revolution, positing a longer working year as people earned surplus money to buy novel goods. In this study, we turn the conventional view on its head, fixing consumption rather than labour input. Specifically, we use a basket of basic consumption goods and compute the working year of rural and urban day labourers required to achieve that. By comparing with independent estimates of the actual working year, we find two ‘industrious’ revolutions among rural workers; both, however, are attributable to economic hardship, and we detect no signs of a consumer revolution. For urban labourers, by contrast, a growing gap between their actual working year and the work required to buy the basket provides great scope for a consumer revolution.Consumer Revolution; Cost-of-Living Index; Day Wages; ‘Industrious’ Revolution; Industrial Revolution; Labour Supply; Standard of Living

Spectacles spécifiques : Critique, assomption et régression du spectaculaire dans le système de l’art contemporain

L’article attire l’attention sur un ensemble de pratiques artistiques qui relèvent de l’« intervention », de la « performance » et de l’« installation » et qui entendent déconstruire le spectacle des villes. Les interventions artistiques en milieu urbain remettent en question les catégories usuelles de l’art et du spectateur, mais aussi celles de l’action culturelle, de l’interaction et de la communauté. Partant de l’hypothèse générale que les « oeuvres d’art » – qui ne sont pas nécessairement des « objets » – sont des configurations signifiantes, on examine les discours critiques et esthétiques qui concourent à la définition du genre, puis les éléments clés du champ de l’intervention artistique : la revitalisation urbaine, les politiques culturelles, les réseaux artistiques, les nouveaux espaces publics et les formes de participation. L’article vise à démontrer que les artistes qui pratiquent l’intervention urbaine doivent directement faire face à la difficulté de penser le nouvel espace public et de le concrétiser.The paper studies a set of artistic practices stemming from “intervention,” “performance” and “installation,” and which aim to deconstruct the spectacle of cities. Artistic interventions in an urban setting defy the usual categories of art and the spectator, but also those of cultural action, interaction and the community. Starting with the general hypothesis that “works of art”–which are not necessarily “objects”–are significant configurations, a study is made of the critical and aesthetic discourses which contribute to the definition of the genre, and secondly of the key elements in the field of artistic intervention : urban renewal, cultural policies, artistic networks, new public spaces and forms of participation. The paper aims to show that the artists who work in an urban setting must face head-on the problem of defining the new public space and giving it concrete form.El artículo llama la atención sobre un conjunto de prácticas artísticas que son de la competencia de “la intervención”, de la “prestación” y de la “instalación”, y que pretenden desconstruir el espectáculo de las ciudades. Las intervenciones artísticas en medio urbano cuestionan las categorías usuales del arte y el espectador, y también las de la acción cultural, la interacción y la comunidad. A partir de la hipótesis general de que las “obras de arte”–que no son necesariamente “objetos”–son configuraciones significativas, se examinan los discursos críticos y estéticos que concurren en la definición del género, y los elementos claves del campo de la intervención artística : la revitalización urbana, las políticas culturales, las redes artísticas, los nuevos espacios públicos y las formas de participación. El artículo tiene por objeto demostrar que los artistas que practican la intervención urbana se enfrentan directamente a la dificultad de pensar el nuevo espacio público y de concretarlo

The Impact of WW II on African Nationalism and Decolonization

Who was the true victor that emerged from the Second World War? General consensus among academia is that the United States and USSR were the chief benefactors from the downfall of the Axis, as they became the foremost states among the global community, in part due to the regression of traditional powers such as Britain and France. However, Africa as a whole was profoundly changed by the war and the most destructive conflict in history propelled the continent along the path to self-determination. Without the contribution of Africa to the allied cause, both in manpower and material, the eventual triumph of the Allies would have been very much in doubt. Not only did the war cripple many of the nations who had subjugated the majority of African peoples, proving to be a death sentence for vast overseas European empires, but key intellectual, philosophical and economic advances were made by Africans because of their participation in the conflict. The fledgling nationalism movements in colonies across the continent gained traction with the demise of the mother countries of repressive colonial regimes. Out of the largest war the world has seen, Africans acquired the sense of unity, direction and equality which would prove necessary to their efforts in throwing off the yoke of imperialism

Why did the First Farmers Toil?:Human Metabolism and the Origins of Agriculture

Time-budget studies done among contemporary primitive people suggest that the first farmers worked harder to attain subsistence than their foraging predecessors. This makes the adoption of agriculture in the Stone Age one of the major curiosities in human cultural history. Theories offered by economists and economic historians largely fail to capture work-intensification among early farmers. Attributing a key role to human metabolism, this study provides a simple framework for analysing the adoption of agriculture. It demonstrates how the additional output that farming offered could have lured people into agriculture, but that subsequent population increase would eventually have swallowed up its benefits, forcing early farmers into an irreversible trap, where they had to do more work to attain subsistence compared to their foraging ancestors. The framework draws attention to the fact that, if agriculture arose out of need, as some scholars have suggested, then this was because prehistoric foragers turned down agriculture in the first place. Estimates of population growth before and after farming, however, in the light of the present framework seem to suggest that hunters were pulled rather than pushed into agriculture. © 2009 European Historical Economics Society

Malthus Revisited:Fertility Decision Making based on Quasi-Linear Preferences

The traditional interpretation of Malthus ’ population theory makes it incompatible with the demographic transition and the massive expansion in income per capita which most industrialised countries have experienced. This study proposes a new interpretation of Malthus ’ ‘preventive check’ hypothesis which makes his theory perfectly consistent with the develop-ment path of an industrialised economy. Putting together a simple ana-lytical framework based on quasi-linear (‘zero income-effect’) preferences, this modified version of the Malthusian model predicts that a u-shaped relationship between income and fertility observed in historical England would have been caused by initial acceleration in agricultural productiv-ity growth (i.e., an ‘agricultural revolution’), succeeded by acceleration in industrial productivity growth (i.e., an ‘industrial revolution’).