World Economic Primacy: 1500-1990

This work examines why certain countries have achieved, at some period in their history, economic superiority over all other countries. Not only looking at the factors that lead to this primacy, the author also explores the factors that cause this primacy. Beginning in 1350 with Italian city-states, the work continues through Portugal, Spain, the Low Countries, Great Britain and the United States. There have been, during all those centuries, times where there was a clear economic...
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This work examines why certain countries have achieved, at some period in their history, economic superiority over all other countries. Not only looking at the factors that lead to this primacy, the author also explores the factors that cause this primacy. Beginning in 1350 with Italian city-states, the work continues through Portugal, Spain, the Low Countries, Great Britain and the United States. There have been, during all those centuries, times where there was a clear economic leader and times of uncertainty about world economic primacy. Additional chapters treat France as a perennial challenger, explore how Germany twice waged war to attain primacy, and Japan's ascendancy. World Economic Primacy will be of great interest to students and scholars of economics and economic history.