The publication of a new volume of the Cambridge Economic History is itself an historical event. Like a great freight train, bursting out from its dark tunnel, it rattles across our landscape, loaded high with gold and spices, coal and lumber—a few peasants, merchants, silk-hatted bankers, officials, and businessmen clinging to the roofs of the cars. Livestock are terrified and students astonished; but as happy economic historians we line the tracks and wave our greeting, and then, as the noise and smoke fade away, we return to our firesides to tell each other stories of what we have seen.