A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World by Gregory Clark

From the Publisher

Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources--explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations. Countering the prevailing theory that the Industrial Revolution was sparked by the sudden development of stable political, legal, and economic institutions in seventeenth-century Europe, Clark shows that such institutions existed long before industrialization. He argues instead that these institutions gradually led to deep cultural changes by encouraging people to abandon hunter-gatherer instincts-violence, impatience, and economy of effort-and adopt economic habits-hard work, rationality, and education. The problem, Clark says, is that only societies that have long histories of settlement and security seem to develop the cultural characteristics and effective workforces that enable economic growth. For the many societies that have not enjoyed long periods of stability, industrialization has not been a blessing. Clark also dissects the notion, championed by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that natural endowments such as geography account for differences in the wealth of nations. A brilliant and sobering challenge to the idea that poor societies can be economically developed through outside intervention, AFarewell to Alms may change the way global economic history is understood.

The New York Times - Benjamin M. Friedman

Clark's book is delightfully written, offering a profusion of detail on such seeming arcana as technology in Polynesia and Tasmania before contact with the West, Sharia-consistent banking practices in the Ottoman Empire and bathing habits (actually, the lack thereof) in 17th-century England. But Clark's eye is fixed steadily on the idea he's pushing; the details are fascinating, but they are there because they help make his central argument. Clark is also marvelously adept at drawing out the relevance of many facets of his historical inquiry for present-day concerns…Right or wrong, or perhaps somewhere in between, Clark's is about as stimulating an account of world economic history as one is likely to find.

Lawrence R. Maxted - Library Journal

In 1798, Thomas Malthus theorized that real economic progress was impossible, as any improvement of living standards would inevitably lead to population growth that would then devour resources and lower living standards back to their earlier subsistence level. Clark (economics, Univ. of California, Davis) explores this Malthusian Trap and how England broke through it around 1800, starting the Industrial Revolution that spread throughout the West. He paints a bleak portrait of the pre-1800 Malthusian world and contends that the Industrial Revolution was more a coincidental combination of technological advances and societal factors than an evolutionary inevitability. He also doubts that Western economic prescriptions will cure the ills of developing countries still in the Malthusian Trap. In measured language and with many explanatory tables and charts, he eloquently reaffirms the importance of this Malthusian Trap in understanding economics. Because his thesis depends on somewhat arcane economic and societal arguments such as comparing fertility to wealth in 1620-38 England, Clark's work, which doesn't deserve such a silly, punning title, is appropriate only for academic and larger public libraries, for which it is highly recommended.

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Table of Contents