What is History 11: World Economic History

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Richard Baldwin The Great Convergence 2016

 Breadtag Sagas ©: Author Tony, 4 May 2020

What is History 11: World Economic History to 1990

What is History: Richard Baldwin The Great Convergence 2016

Introduction

I was planning to write the next Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel articles following on from Guns, Germs and Steel: Overview and Polynesia A Natural Experiment of History and I will soon. I accidentally picked up a second hand copy of The Great Convergence by Richard Baldwin 2016 from Canty’s bookshop and decided that it had important information that couldn’t wait.

I usually don’t have much time for macroeconomists and rarely read economics books. But, at least Baldwin is interested in economic history and covers a period from 200,000 years ago to the present, which is extraordinary, certainly a much longer period than most economists ever think about. He has some quite important things to say about the early history of humankind and on the development of world economics up to the modern era.

I had been introduced to Kondratiev cycles (or waves) some time ago by Fred Emery (See Future Predicting and Q Research methods). Fred was interested in the modern modifications of the cycles (see Wikipedia below). He was also interested in the energy implications of the following:

• Industrial Revolution (1771)
• Age of Steam and Railways (1829)
• Age of Steel and Heavy Engineering (1875)
• Age of Oil, Electricity, the Automobile and Mass Production (1908)
• Age of Information and Telecommunications (1971)

(Wikipedia, Kondratiev Wave)

But, Fred thought the new forms of energy or ways of using new technologies were still intricately tied up in the Kondratiev idea of 40-60 year cycles of expansion, stagnation and recession, with their impacts on labour, production and prosperity.

Richard Baldwin is also interested in phases (cycles) in economic history but not wedded to equal time periods. Phase 1 Humanising the globe is from 200,000 years ago to around 12,000 years ago. Phase 2 Agriculture and the first bundling is from 12,000 years ago to around 200 years ago. Phase 3 is from around 1820 to 1990, the industrial revolution, the age of steam and globalisation’s first unbundling. Phase 4 is from 1990 and begins with the ICT revolution (information, communications technology) and is the second unbundling.

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