ABSTRACT
THE academic discipline of Economic History is, as its name implies, of mixed parentage. In this, as one of the most distinguished living economic historians has remarked recently,! it resembles the mule. But while he went on to muse that it was not for him to decide which of the two parent-subjects was equine, and which asinine, I would rather draw attention to another characteristic of this most appropriate animal: its inability to reproduce its own kind.
