Economic History 135

duclion.343 Checkland succeeds in overcoming the limitations
of space sufficiently to provide a genuinely learned explana-
tion of the complications of economic development;849 Ash-
worth, tackling the next period, does not manage quite so
well.550 His book should be used in conjunction with Court's
valuable selection from the sources.851 Habakkuk has opened
up a more general theme in his comparative study of England
and America: the former disposed of more capital and of no
lebs inventive genius or entrepreneurial zeal, but a surplus of
available labour arrested the drive for explosive innovation.852
That the major problems of the early stages of industrializa-
tion arose in the main from the uncertainties of investment
and the market is recognized in two studies which thoroughly
analyse the consequent sharp crises for two important de-
cades.853 A general survey of trading policy is undertaken in a
work whose titles appropriate really only for one fifth of the
time covered, betrays its American origin.854 Church main-
tains the solid tradition of town histories, which has provided

***J. D. Chambers, The Workshop of the World; British economic
history from 1820 to 1880. L: OUP: 1961, Pp. viii, 239. Rev:
EHR 77, 796f. - R, S. Sayers, A History of Economic Change in
England, 1880-1939. L: OUP: 1967. Pp. viii, 179. Rev: EHR
84, 63if.

•" Sidney G. Checkland, The Rise of Industrial Society in England,
1815-1885. L: Longmans: 1964. Pp. xiv, 471. Rev: EHR 81,
43of.; EcHR* 18, 65of.

850 W. Ashworth, An Economic History of England, 1870 - 7939. L:
Methuen: 1960. Pp. ix, 438, Rev: EHR 77, 405^; EcHR* 15,

8*1 \v. fjm g. Court, British Economic History, 1870 - 19/4: commentary
and documents. CUP: 1965* Pp. xxviii, 495.

852 Hrothgar J. Habakkuk, American and British Technology in the
Nineteenth Century. CUP: 1962. Pp. ix, 222.

853 R. C. O. Mathews, A Study in Trade Cycle History: economic fluctua-
tions in Great Britain, 1833-1842* CUP: 1954. Pp. xiv, 228.-
J. R. T* Hughes, Fluctuations in Trade, Industry and Finance: a study
of British economic development^ 1850 - 1860. O: Clarendon: 1960. Pp.
xviii, 344.

«** Robert L. Schuyler, The Fall of the Old Colonial System: a study in
British free trade, 1770 - 1870. L: OUP: 1945. Pp. vii, 344.