Product Description

As in earlier editions of this work, Professor Aldcroft presents a succinct and lucid account of the development and problems of the European economy throughout the twentieth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3562836 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 344 pages

Review
'An excellent introductory volume, difficult to fault, well balanced, lucid, reliable, civilized.' - Economics

'Aldcroft demonstrates his confirmed ability to summarise with clarity and understanding the research of others ... a reliable guide to the present state of knowledge and there is no other single work in the field of which that can be said.' - West European Economics

'Based on a comprehensive range of source material ... Aldcroft has great knowledge and much understanding of twentieth-century economics.' - The Times Education Supplement

'Well written and clearly organized ... he uses his statistics judiciously to amplify the text ... the bibliography is ample and up-to-date.' - The Historian

From the Back Cover
As in earlier editions of this work, Professor Aldcroft presents a succinct and lucid account of the development of the European economy throughout the twentieth century. The text divides into several clearly defined sub-periods: the aftermath of the First World War and reconstruction in the 1920s, through to the depression and recovery of the 1930s, the impact of the Second World War and the new division of Europe, the postwar boom of the 1950s and 1960s, and then on to the growth slowdown of the 1970s and the pervasive problems of inflation and unemployment.
This new edition incorporates extensive revisions, including wide ranging coverage of the impact of economic union and the demise of the centrally-planned economies, revised bibliographies and topics for discussion.
The European Economy 1914-2000 provides an invaluable guide to the major economic changes in both Western and Eastern Europe during the twentieth century.

About the Author
Dereck Aldcroft is Research Professor in Economic History at Manchester Metropolitan University. As well as the three previous editions of this book, he is the author of numerous books on the history of the European Economy stretching back three decades

Customer Reviews

European Economy
I studied a module in the European Economy for my first year at University and this book was really useful because it backed up my course perfectly. It was the sort of book that you can actually read and understand, whereas I have found some economics books to be quite hard going. The text was easy to understand and it was easy to find what I was looking for.

A detailed look at a complex topic
Aldcroft has written an exceptional book with the fourth edition of ‘The European Economy’. The title of the book may suggest that it is for economists, and whilst it may mainly be economists who read it, there is nothing to complex to stop anybody else from reading it. With the book being on a modern topic, there is a vast wealth of information that is open to Aldcroft, and he chooses his information carefully and the result is a very good book. The facts and figures that Aldcroft uses give his book a realistic feel, the events in it have taken place within the last 100 years so there are people alive that still remember the events.

The idea of laying the book out in chronological order is a well placed idea as the book could not have been laid out any better. His comparisons between inter-war Europe and pre-First World War Europe allows the reader to draw stark comparisons as to how badly the economic situation was in Europe between 1918 and 1939. In the light of the First and Second World Wars, Aldcroft does exceptionally well to look at the economic effects of the war and not overly concentrate on the events, something that he could have probably done quite easily. Post-Second World War, Aldcroft writes about the development of the EEC, and compares the different methods used by countries to recover from the effects of war. Whilst this is a book that is designed primarily for historians and economists, so some readers may find it a little heavy, anybody with perseverance will get a great deal of useful knowledge from the book.