100 Books Like Pre-Industrial Societies

Marc Bloch was one of the greatest historians of the 20th century. He was also hero of the French Resistance, tortured and executed by the notorious Nazi Klaus Barbie. Feudal Society (2 volumes) is perhaps his best book. 

It is often said that the past is a foreign country, and it is true that the world of the Middle Ages is alien to us in many respects. What Bloch does is to provide a systematic examination of all aspects of that world, that is he examines it it from a legal, a sociological, an anthropological, an economic, and a political perspective. 

In so doing, he paints a remarkable portrait of a coherent, self-contained society. The economy was basic, laws and politics were personalized, but it was a social and political order that made sense in its own terms. More recent historians have criticized specific aspects of Bloch's vision of feudalism… show more.

Syme was wrote about the fall of the Roman Republic in the shadow of the rise of totalitarianism. 

But for me what is most interesting about this book is its use of collective biography and its argument that the rise of Caesar and Augustus is best understood as the rise of a party or a faction. Most books on the Late Republic focus on the larger-than-life personalities: Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, and Cicero. Syme focuses on structures and systematic factors.

He writes with an at times jarring cynicism. His treatment of Cicero is particularly critical for example. For Syme, all states are governed by coalitions of elites.

And the writing is unforgettable: "a monarchy rules through an oligarchy"; "at its worst, biography is flat and schematic: at its best, it is often baffled by the hidden discords of human nature... undue insistence on upon the character and exploits of a single… show more.

This is a landmark book in political economy and economic history. 

Douglass North won the Noble Prize in Economics in part for the study of institutions in economic history. 

This was his final work (coauthored with Wallis and Weingast). And while the lessons of North's earlier work on institutions have been incorporated into the wider body of scholarship in economic history and development economics, I think the lessons of this book haven't been fully absorbed.  

The fundamental idea is that all societies face "the problem of violence". They have to deter individuals from resorting to violence in order to take what they want. But the means through which society limits violence vary and are often detrimental to long-run economic growth. There is thus a "natural" form of government that is common throughout history, capable of producing social order but not widespread prosperity.

Achieving sustained economic growth in the long-run requires… show more.

One of the most influential and popular history books ever written, Macaulay's history of England is rarely read these days. 

It is a detailed account of the reign of James II and the buildup to the Glorious Revolution, a turning point in the history of constitutional government. But for me, Macaulay's book was also a revelation as a work of economic history.

Macaulay was one of the writers to really understand the momentous consequences of economic growth. He includes a chapter in volume 1 where the attempts to measure how much economic activity had increased between 1685 and his own time.

When I first read this, I was in graduate school doing economics and reading Macaulay was one of the factors that pushed me towards specializing in economic history.  

By the sixteenth century, the desire for exchange had only grown, but the money available for it had not kept pace. In this classic study, the English historian Craig Muldrew uses sources such as probate inventories and borough courts to show how resourceful people at all income and wealth levels were at pursuing their deals—for labor, services, or goods of all kinds. People, it turns out, coped largely with a lick and a promise. Debt, sometimes formal but often based on oral reckoning, was far more central to daily transactions than we might imagine. And even the humblest people could use the court system resourcefully to advance their interests.

I like books that change the very ways in which I see and understand the world.

Polanyi’s The Great Transformation from the end of WW2 made it much clearer to me how a world which regularly finds technological solutions to humankind’s problems could also descend into barbarism. Modern capitalism’s subordinating the functioning of society to the demands of the market changes the status of nature itself in ways that I am increasingly aware of, as the ecological crisis threatens the very survival of humankind.

The book appeals to me not least because of the ways in which it draws important philosophical conclusions from a detailed historical narrative rather than just stating theoretical positions.

I like this book because it is a really helpful guide to all of the great thinkers who have grappled with what capitalism is, from Adam Smith to the present. And it does so in a single volume.

One of the things I also really liked about the book is that one learns about the individuals and their lives and challenges. So, it is like having lots and lots of small biographies.

This is a wide-ranging, thought-provoking, accessible, informed, lively, and convincing economic history of the “long” 20th century (1870 to 2010). 

Among its many narratives, the book shows how “thirty glorious years of social democracy” ended around 1975 when the U.S. and other economies in the global north took “the neoliberal turn” in favor of relying more on the market to organize society. 

That history is essential context for understanding why the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s, relaxed the “structural era” antitrust rules in place since the 1940s, which had emphasized skepticism about growing concentration and the conduct of large firms in concentrated markets. 

The book also emphasizes the importance of technology-driven economic growth for human well-being. That perspective helps make the case today for economic policies that promote competition among firms, which fosters productivity and growth.

The British Industrial Revolution is the single most important event in shaping the modern world. Since 1800 the standard of living in Western Industrial nations has increased nearly 40-fold, and in the last half-century, this prosperity has spread more widely. Writing in an engaging style, Clark offers a unique and provocative account of these changes and their causes.

Quite simply the best survey of 20th-century international political economy out there. I assign it to my students and turn to it whenever I need a brief refresher on things.

How exactly did the classic gold standard collapse? Why again did Latin American countries turn autarkic after World War II? What was the role of foreign direct investment under Bretton Woods? Why did labor suffer in the 1970s, and why did finance boom in the 1980s?

Frieden has the answers, and he presents them in a supple narrative and with a commendably sharp sense of politics.