The theme of the 2005 annual meetings of the Economic History Association has been War and Economic History: Causes, Costs and Consequences. In this essay I will address this theme by briefly examining the ways in which cliometricians have viewed one particular conflict—The American Civil War—over the past four decades. The first part of my essay deals with the attack, which began at the end of the 1950s, mounted by a group of “New Economic Historians” on the existing explanation of the war; the second part deals with my own adventures as I try to make sense of the economic and political factors that produced the conflict we call the Civil War.

This article explores how injuries, sickness, and the geographic mobility of Union Army veterans while in service affected their postservice migrations. Wartime wounds and illnesses significantly diminished the geographic mobility of veterans after the war. Geographic moves while carrying out military missions had strong positive effects on their postservice geographic mobility. Geographic moves while in service also influenced the choice of destination among the migrants. I discuss some implications of the results for the elements of self-selection in migration, the roles of different types of information in migration decisions, and the overall impact of the Civil War on geographic mobility.

Do large franchise extensions bring about dramatic electoral changes? Electoral reforms in 1918 nearly tripled the number of people eligible to vote in Ireland. Following the reforms—the largest franchise extension in U.K. history—the previously obscure Sinn Féin party secured 73 of Ireland’s 105 seats, an outcome that precipitated a guerrilla war and ultimately independence from the United Kingdom. However, our analysis finds little evidence that the franchise reforms benefited Sinn Féin. New female electors appear less likely to have supported Sinn Féin while new male electors were no more likely to vote for Sinn Féin than the existing electorate. Women also appear less likely to have cast a vote at all. Economic and social factors did matter when it came to voting, however, as did public opinion in relation to armed rebellion. These results remind us that dramatic political changes, such as those that took place in Ireland 1918, do not require dramatic changes in political participation. Sinn Féin’s electoral success was more likely driven by a change of heart on behalf of the Irish electorate, rather than a change in its composition.

In the 1950s the United States conducted scores of atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. This article studies the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests on agriculture in regions hundreds of miles from the NTS. While research has shown that this radioactive material posed a health risk near the NTS, little is known about the direct economic effects nuclear testing may have had. I find that fallout from nuclear tests adversely affected U.S. agricultural production, and this result suggests that nuclear testing had a much broader economic and environmental impact than previously thought.

Disputes over whether the Scientific Revolution contributed to the Industrial Revolution begin with the common assumption that natural philosophers and artisans formed distinct groups. In reality, these groups merged together through a diverse group of applied mathematics teachers, textbook writers, and instrument makers catering to a market ranging from navigators and surveyors to bookkeepers. Besides its direct economic contribution in diffusing useful numerical skills, this “practical mathematics” facilitated later industrialization in two ways. First, a large supply of instrument and watch makers provided Britain with a pool of versatile, mechanically skilled labor to build the increasingly complicated machinery of the late eighteenth century. Second, the less well-known but equally revolutionary innovations in machine tools—which, contrary to the Habbakuk thesis, occurred largely in Britain during the 1820s and 1830s to mass-produce interchangeable parts for iron textile machinery—drew on a technology of exact measurement developed for navigational and astronomical instruments.

It is impossible within the confines of a short paper to provide an adequate survey of the main works in Marxist economic history. The most that can be done is to introduce a limited number of issues that best illustrate the contributions of Marxist scholars. The topics covered in this paper include feudalism and the decline of serfdom, the transition to capitalism, the crisis of the seventeenth century, the English Civil War, and the rise of factories. An attempt is made to integrate these subjects into a more or less chronological account of European history.

France is often described as the country that planned its network of railroads with the greatest care, wisely arranging for private construction and operation under control of the Government. She deserves criticism, it has been said, only because it took ten years to make these excellent arrangements. Yet most of the writers who have painted this rather attractive picture have not looked beyond the well-known books of Audiganne and Kaufmann, studies based chiefly upon collections of French statutes and legislative debates as well as the best known contemporary newspapers and literary reviews. Little attention has been paid to the Corps des ponts et chaussées, whose activities were far more important than the speeches of its director in the Chambers. Little concern has been given to the vital problem of obtaining the very large amounts of capital that were needed, or to the influence of the serious depression that began in 1837.

Peter A. Schenck, Surveyor of Customs and Inspector of Revenue for the Port of New York, must have felt slightly exhilarated when he left his office on the evening of December 30, 1807. He had that day wielded for the first time the two-edged sword placed in his hands by Congress for the destruction of British maritime arrogance. Nay more, he had struck at least seven times, by seizing that number of shipments of British goods which had arrived in two vessels ten days before. In a few days Nathan Sanford, the District Attorney, would file seven separate libels in the Federal District Court on behalf of the United States vs. twenty-two bales of woolen cloth, two cases of hats, eight boxes linen cloth, sixteen boxes of linens, one case of woolen hosiery, two cases of plated ware, and two boxes of woolen hosiery. The goods would doubtless be condemned, for Sanford was a clever lawyer and the district judge was not, like the fellow up in Massachusetts, unfriendly to Jeffersonian policies. Later the United States marshal, Peter Curtenius, would have them sold by auction outside the Tontine Coffee House; the court and marshal's costs—totaling about $120 in each case—would be paid, and the balance, where there was any, would be shared equally between the customs staff and the Treasury. If this process could be repeated often enough, John Bull might soon be willing to come to terms.

This paper examines the impact of the Bank War on the economic events of the 1830's. An economic model of the antebellum money market is developed and tested. Specifications for money demand and supply are drawn from contemporary monetary literature and empirically estimated. Next, the historical hypotheses are tested by exploring the structural stability of the model. The results clearly indicate that: the Bank War affected the economy because it altered the pattern of financial behavior; wildcat banking was not characteristic of the post-Bank period; and finally, the Panic of 1837 was the result of a severe monetary contraction.

Analysis of balance-of-payments components with Spain and Spanish America helps account for spectacular economic gains to the United States in the neutrality years and for the subsequent turn to net deficit positions during the 1810s. Excess export values at constant prices with Spain and favorable terms of trade with Spanish America decisively contributed to large surpluses on commodity account through 1795–1813. Most cycles in merchandise trade are consistent with greater demand elasticities for exports than for imports.Net earings on freight, insurance, and mercantile profits boosted overall returns from the Spanish Empire at the very times when they were most needed to finance the re-export trade and to settle deficits elsewhere.

The thesis that long-term price movements in medieval and early modern periods were the results of changes in the supply of precious metals has been questioned by a number of historians who believe that fluctuations in population provide a more fundamental explanation. These men point out that if changes in the supply of money were primarily responsible, the secular rise and fall of prices would have been approximately the same for all commodities. Actually, agricultural prices rose and fell faster and more sharply than did the prices of industrial goods. It is claimed that these price changes and the lack of synchronization between them can be satisfactorily explained by changes in the size of population:

Studies of the postbellum South have neglected the development of the capital goods industry within the region. The argument of this note is that where the capital goods industry was limited or not present, economic development was inhibited. Within the South, I focus on regional differences in the development of the industry. Evidence is presented that indicates that the development of the capital goods industry and the pattern of inventive activity (as measured by patents) varied considerably within the South. One key finding is that the plantation Old South had fewer patents per capita compared with the nonplantation South.

The turn of economic events in the early 1970s correlates with a revival of ideas about the existence of long swings in economic development. The subject of Kondratieff cycles has attracted the pens of social scientists of very different persuasions. This paper draws on Walt W. Rostow's interpretation—with its emphasis on the role of exporters of food and raw materials in the world economy—to explore Australian long waves over the last 110 years. I conclude that the case for their existence is not confirmed and moreover that Rostow's cycle-mechanics offer a doubtful explication of movements in the Australian series.