Decline in History: The European Experience

"James Thomson's Decline in History offers an original approach to its subject, combining boldness in conception with care in execution and a lucid exposition with the capacity to draw distinctions wherever they are necessary. The author, a well-known specialist on Mediterranean history, is clearly in command of his material, he is analytic and comparative, and his conclusions are as fresh as they are judicious. This is an ideal book to set students thinking." Professor Peter Burke, Emmanuel College, Cambridge

<!--end-->"This is an unusual and challenging book. James Thomson has chosen to study what to many will seem an unfashionable theme - economic decline - and his approach is ambitiously broad and comparative, from the great ancient empires, via Byzantium to Italy, Portugal and Spain. His study will be of undoubted value to university students through his clear outline of the main theses of historians and social scientists with a comparative approach, in particular Braudel, Wallerstein, Jonathan Israel and Michael Mann, but equally through his valuable discussion of why the different Italian and Iberian economies declined." Stuart Woolf, Università ca'Foscari de Venezia

"His thesis is a bold one and will not commmand universal assent, but the theory is certainly stimulating and Thomson's contribution to discussion over decline is much to be welcomed." Jeremy Black, University of Exeter

"Thomson's theory is certainly stimulating, and his contribution to discussion over decline is much to be welcomed". Jeremy Black, University of Exeter, Brill's journals