Continuity in History and Other Essays

This collection of essays by Alexander Gerschenkron, who has been called the doyen of economic history in the United States, is a companion volume to the authors highly acclaimed Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. The essays range over a wide variety of subjects, but the major theme, as in Gerschenkrons previous book, is the conditions of industrial development, particularly in regard to nineteenth-century Europe. The book is divided into three parts. In Part I, Methodology, the essays are: On the Concept of Continuity in History, Some Methodological Problems in Economic History, and Reflections on Ideology as a Methodological and Historical Problem. Part II, Problems in Economic History, deals with The Typology of Industrial Development as a Tool of Analysis, The Industrial Development of Italy: A Debate with Rosario Romeo, The Modernization of Entrepreneurship, Russia: Agrarian Policies and Industrialization, 18611914, and City Economies Then and Now. In Part III, The Political Framework, the essays are: Reflections on the Economic Aspects of Revolution, The Changeability of a Dictatorship, and The Stability of Dictatorships. A series of appendices presents reviews and review articles by Gerschenkron.