population history

Economists vs Historians on Economic History

A man with stag`s horns growing out of his head and a spear in his hand is bitten by a pack of small dogs with long snouts — Aktaion is devoured by his hounds. Imagine me as a particularly yippy one just out of scene. Photo of an Apulian red-figure vase in the Badisches Landensmuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany courtesy of the Theoi Project http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K6.8.html; they have copyright

Economists such as Gregory Clark and Brad DeLong like to tell people that between the dawn of time and 1800 or 1900 there was no growth in GDP per capita and very slow population growth. As an ancient historian this leaves me scratching my head. I decided to write this post after reading the 1998 version of DeLong’s ideas but similar ones appear to be common.