Population Movement and Agrarian Depression in the Later Middle Ages

Population Movement and Agrarian Depression in the Later Middle Ages

K. F. Helleiner

Agosto 1949

Journal Article

K. F. Helleiner

Journal Article

10.1017/S0315489000015553

null

If it be true that every generation selects and reads historical evidence in the light of its own aspirations and anxieties, one should expect one's contemporaries to take some interest in, and show sympathetic understanding for, periods of social stresses and strains. Having passed through three and a half decades of political and economic upheavals, and having little reason for believing that the time of troubles has come to an end, this generation is likely to feel some affinity with past epochs that appear to have suffered from similar symptoms of a deep-rooted social malaise. Perhaps the historian may derive some comfort from the knowledge that his age is not unique in having to contend with what, in moments of despair, appears to be an adverse trend of a secular nature. At one time or another during his studies every economic historian must have come up against questions that should have shocked him into a realization of the vast methodological difficulties of his subject. If, as the theorists insist, inter-personal comparisons of utility are illegitimate, how can the historian justify his practice of using such concepts as group welfare? If he cannot form aggregates, how can he hope to be able to compare the wealth of nations at different times? But even assuming that such comparisons were possible: do we have properly defined criteria of economic growth and decline, or of prosperity and depression? And if not, are we entitled to use these and similar ill-defined terms for the purpose of characterizing and contrasting different periods of economic history?

2015-03-22 16:00:44

Agosto 1949

03

Cambridge Journals Online

368–377

Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science

Population Movement and Agrarian Depression in the Later Middle Ages

http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0315489000015553

15

Cambridge Journals Snapshot