The Late Elizabethan Age

After a long break on this blog I thought I would post a comic/book report on the Late Elizabethan Age 1585 - 1603. The Original idea was to cover the major historical developments that would lead to American colonization. The following pages provide details of many of the major players in the colonial project during the period as well as combining some different demographic and statistical information about the place and period. The pages detail a world perhaps more complex and unexpected than most American school children would recall for the lesson that period.

References:

I am not going to talk about every single reference I used to make the comic, but while try to get to the other ones by in a future blog post. I meant to keep things as is, as much as possible, and below is a little bit of commentary or interpretation from different sources.

The British Industrial Revolution from a Global Perspective, considers important elements that contributed to 18th industrial revolution. The book points to a high wage economy, emerging in London by 1600 and the availability of cheap energy (coal) by the 18th century as two key factors in promoting industrial innovation. Apparently it was the quirky fact that the English heated their homes with coal that led to other inventions that could also use coal as an energy source.

The impression this book gave was that the key unique quality was the availability of coal in the English midlands that, when matched with a high wage economy where there is an incentive to create labor saving innovation was the key to the Industrial Revolution. An example in today's terms is that there are two factory bosses: one pays her workers $15 an hour, another produces the same product but pays her workers $25 an hour. A new expensive technology comes on the market that will save on labor costs. The model would suggest that the factory boss paying $25 an hour would have more of an incentive to invest in the new labor saving (job cutting) technology. The $15 an hour paying boss might actually find more of an incentive to hire more workers instead of investing in the new technology to increase profits.

The Long Process of Development another fascinating book that I've been using as a resource is The Long Process of Development: Building Markets and States in Pre-industrial England, Spain and Their Colonies, this book investigates the very long process of state building in light of the US's endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan and considers the theories of Douglas North and other thinkers on state craft issues by investigating England, Spain and their colonial histories. Like any state craft book it has a real-politic lens of history and the terminology used to describe state prerequisites are helpful.

The main point the book bring up during the Anglo-Spanish war is the contrast of operations. Elizabeth, in today's terms is somewhat of a mob-boss who makes deals with pirates. That was the name of the game. The book reveals some of limits of institutions in those bygone ages. The book highlights some of the assurances the public might benefit from that took a very long time establish, certain benefits we could be taking for granted. Commentry

I felt that around the year 1600 is a good comparison point for the two books as they don't exactly match up chronologically or on topic. One is focused on state craft, perhaps more the perspective the tax collector or those that have to ensure safe trade networks. The other is more about the immediate economic actors and entrepreneurs and concerns itself more with economic development. The comic to me at least throws out some historical projections on what are worthy indicators for a developing societies. My research, or the game I play when I put together the information, limits me to the information available. One interesting track of mind was how literacy relates to human capital development and trying to understand what that means in long term economic change from generation to generation.