Modern British Economic History (Volume 2)

Author: Yao Zeng Krapen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1977-09-01
Features: It is often doubted whether 1914 is not too recent to serve as an appropriate endpoint for this narrative. In a certain sense, 1914 is undoubtedly distant enough; but this perspective, I believe, is either a poet's perspective—if an economic writer can associate himself with such sublime matters—or more often the perspective of the ordinary self living day by day, full of the conviction that problems and circumstances are constantly changing, when in fact they are not. From the historical self of "vondreitausendJahrensichweissRechenschaftzugeben" [to acknowledge the explanation from three thousand years], the war years appear very recent, and their significance is unmatched by any subsequent period. At the same time, for a historian, there is no period more convenient than this one. Moreover, in the history of the British economy—whether in German or Russian economic history—this period, apart from the acceleration of development, brought almost nothing new. The changes that were expected to occur in the next one or two generations appeared within a decade. In certain technical fields, inventions and adaptation to new environments meant not gains or losses, but life or death, thus accelerating their realization. The latent forces that were clearly present but whose emergence was highly questionable have now emerged. New things did exist, but the main impression was one of a somewhat surprising continuity. Therefore, the year 1914 and the general structure of this conclusion have been retained.