ABSTRACT
History seems important because it provides a large quarry of information about past economic growth, a rich source of raw materials for processing into generalizations about growth. The great social evil of the inter-war years had been unemployment; economists were already preoccupied with the theoretical problem of the unemployment of resources, especially human resources, and, equally important, the lesson of history was that wars were followed by depressions. There was a period when an attempt was made to give economics a historical basis. History shows that ingenuity can offset relative poverty in raw materials. It also shows that investment–output ratios have varied a good deal between countries and in same country over time. Superior natural resources, or high resource to population ratio, give a country great advantages for growth, and great inducement for investment and growth. The main examples of growth are European, but perhaps it is futile to look for general lessons of growth from industrialization of Europe.
