The Program Committee for the thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association began its work in early 1975, after several months of consultation with David Landes, President-elect of the Association. The basic goal of the Committee was two-fold. First, we selected a general theme—“Historical Dimensions of Social and Political Economy”—which would reassert the fundamental and integral importance of society and politics within economic history. It was, and is, our considered judgment that economic history runs a grave risk of losing general appeal and significance if it becomes a latter-day scholasticism focusing almost exclusively on narrowly defined “economic” problems. Second, we wanted to attract to our meeting and Association scholars with varied interests and methodologies within the entire field of economic history broadly conceived.

Some time ago I picked up a magazine that contained an article by Red Smith, a man whose work I try not to miss. The article was about the job of sports writer for a metropolitan newspaper and it opened with an account of an overnight journey from New York to a World's Series game in St. Louis. This was an eon or so ago, when Smith was a young man and I was a boy, and people travelled in sensible conveyances, such as railroad trains. The trip was a merry one, the activities including, among other things, much pleasurable and instructive chat. Smith didn't report the latter in any detail. But the point was that it was pleasurable and instructive and it lasted the whole night. Smith went on to say that sports writers are not paid much, in money, but that if you threw in the psychic income of pleasant afternoons in the sun and nights spent in the company of affable and intelligent eccentrics, they did pretty well.

Wars in early modern times, although frequent, generated little price inflation because of their limited demands on real resources. The invention of paper currency and the resort to deficit financing to pay for wars changed that situation. In recent centuries wars have been the principal causes of inflation, although since World War II programs of social welfare unmatched by offsetting taxation have also fueled inflationary flames.

This article examines the economic costs to the British nation of the Seven Years War. Drawing upon manuscript records and secondary studies, the author analyzes in detail the diversion of resources to the Navy and the effect of increased debts on the economy. Finding that the burden was great but the impact apparently slight, the author suggests that the English may have drawn substantially upon extra-national sources of capital, labor and materials.

This study, based on primary sources, shows that the army's role in the wartime mobilization of the industry was fundamental and extensive. It determined aircraft prices and labor exemptions, regulated the industry's supply of credit and raw materials, limited patent rights, and ultimately interfered in management-labor relationships. Its policies resulted in the industry's expansion and concentration and in above average real wages for the industry's labor force. The article concludes that while the mobilization of the aircraft industry was successful, military regulation of the German war economy in World War I was generally inefficient.

This article examines the impact of gold mining on slavery in colonial Brazil. Crown policies, economic pressures, and gold's role as an instrument for social mobility had demographic repercussions—affecting sexual imbalance, the ratio of slaves to freedmen, the availability and distribution of labor. Economic factors determined ethnic origins, slave trade patterns, and the assimilative capability of blacks as illustrated by the slave family. Differences between slavery in mining and plantation societies are emphasized. The transfer of technical skills is signalled as a major African contribution to the New World. The article concludes by assessing the psychological and administrative impact of a black majority.

Although white women have only recently entered the work force, their black counterparts have participated throughout American history. Differences between their rates of participation have been recorded only for the post-1890 period and analyzed only for the post-1940 period due to a lack of available data. To remedy this deficiency my work explores female labor supply at the dawn of emanicipation, 1870 and 1880, in seven southern cities, using data drawn from the manuscripts of the population census. Probit regression techniques demonstrate that economic and demographic variables explain only part of the difference between black and white women and, as in the findings of contemporary research, race is shown to be an important factor. Several explanations are discussed, in particular one relying on socialization differences which are termed a “legacy of slavery.”

This study suggests that the militaristic orientation of the Meiji government and the wars fought against China and Russia contributed significantly to technological development in Meiji Japan (1868–1911). The roles played by the arsenals and the government-owned shipyards and factories in adopting and disseminating foreign technology are described to demonstrate their importance in the rapid Meiji industrialization. The article suggests that it is necessary to reexamine the view, primarily based on macro-economic analysis, that Meiji militarism was basically detrimental to economic growth in Japan.

This article examines the evolution of the Russian government's policies between 1861 and 1917 in the sphere of rural credit, especially the extent to which social and cultural factors and ministerial politics impinged on the choice of banks and their development. Discussions concerned measures for economic change that could take place within the traditional and legal framework of the village community. The Ministry of Interior supported a classbased estate bank. The Ministry of Finance opted for the cooperative credit association which was to foster rural pacification and agricultural development by mobilizing peasant collective habits and private initiative that favored cooperative organizations.

Tax systems in England, France, Spain, and Venice are regarded as providing payments from subjects to governments for protection against foreign and domestic threats. In each developing state, the supply and demand for protection at the time of the tax system's origin determined the long-term character of taxation. Only where taxes arose in an environment of exceptionally long wars did subjects forfeit their right to control levies. Groups having close substitutes available for central government paid non-extortionate taxes. Collusion in the supply of protection led to noble tax privileges. Once created, taxes survived as long as the government itself.

The countryside of Europe in the Roman period was one of dispersed villas and farmsteads placed in a regular grid. That of post-Roman Europe was one of nucleated villages surrounded by irregular fields and “spider's web” tracks. The change occurred between the sixth and the ninth centuries, when the countryside was largely emptied of its population. The reasons for this change should be explored, for this reconstruction of the countryside was the start of the medieval economic expansion that gave Europe a density of population and intensity of land exploitation it had never before achieved.

This article compares the development of the workers' right to organize and bargain collectively in England, France, and the U.S. Starting with a common repressive policy, each country followed a different path toward establishing the workers' rights. The main ultimate difference lies in the extent to which the state became involved in industrial relations. In England the state remained aloof after securing very broad legal rights of collective action. The workers were left to do their own battling. In France the state came to look upon collective agreements as an aspect of public policy and became the dominant partner in labor negotiations. The American pattern lies in between: state protection extends to procedural but not to substantive issues.