ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the underlying long-term trend of the world economy rather than the usual stuff of economic history, its recent fluctuations. The conventional wisdom is that the entire world economy was stagnant in all material respects until the Industrial Revolution. Although it is admitted that there were changes, these are taken to have been cycles of little lasting economic significance—they are seen as the counterparts of the inconclusive wheeling in Milton’s battles of the kites and crows. However, following Goudsblom’s precept that nothing is ever self-evident (see page31 above) would lead us to question the interpretation of preindustrial economic activity as directionless.
