Other Topics: General | Standard of Living | Productivity | Lowell and the Early Textile Mills | Pope and the American System of Manufactures | DEC and the Computer in New England

Books

Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England, edited by Peter Temin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Engines of Enterprise is the foundation text for the New England Economic Adventure. A book review of Engines of Enterprise is available at http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/library/0278.shtml

The Lever of Riches by Joel Mokyr. Oxford University Press, 1990.
A survey of technological creativity throughout history, asking "why are some nations more creative than others?"

The Making of an Economic Society by William Milberg and Robert L. Heilbroner. Tenth edition. Prentice Hall, 1997.
Surveys the development of the market society and its problems throughout history. The more concise 10th edition is preferable to the 11th edition, published in 2001.

The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs. Second edition. Vintage Books, 2001.
Written as a dialogue among five fictional characters, this book explores Jacobs’ premise that "we should look to the processes of nature for vibrant and flexible models of economic planning."

Reflections in Bullough’s Pond: Economy and Ecosystem in New England by Diana Muir. University Press of New England, 2000.
Environmental and economic history of the six New England states from Native Americans' neolithic agriculture through the 19th century factory boom to the destructive aftermath of the factory boom.

The Value of the Dollar: 1860–1999, edited by Scott Derks. Millennium (second) edition. Grey House Publishing, 1999.
A historical survey of American wages and prices.

Other Readings

"The Wealth of Nations Revisited," speech by Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System. Macroeconomic Stability, Financial Markets, and Economic Development, Second International Conference, Banco de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, November 12, 2002.
http://federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021112/default.htm