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Problems in the Relationship of Communication and Economic History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

W. T. Easterbrook
W. T. Easterbrook
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

Present interest in communication research in the social and physical sciences raises some interesting and difficult questions for the economic historian. Arthur Cole, who claims that he is merely trying to carry further the work of Harold Innis and others at Toronto, but who is surely the moving spirit in this session, has suggested that we might begin by pin-pointing a few leading questions for examination. Is this comparatively recent development to be regarded as merely a passing phase in the history of fashions in thought? Is the process of relating communication to economic change mainly a process of sophistication and is there anything to argue about in this relationship? Or, on the other hand, does it in fact amount to a major break-through in scientific and historical analysis, something comparable to the impact made on economics about a century ago by the Austrian School?

Type
Communication and Economic Development
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1960 , pp. 559 - 565
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1960

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References

1 Business Enterprise in its Social Setting (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959Google Scholar).

2 Bailyn, Bernard, “Communications and Trade: The Atlantic in the Seventeenth Century.” The Journal of Economic History, XIII (Fall 1953), 378–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The Hudson's Bay Company, 1670–1870. Vol. 1: 1670–1763 (London: The Hudson's Bay Record Society, 1958Google Scholar).

4 Co-ordination Assumptions and Multiple Equilibria. Institute for Quantitative Research in Economics and Management. Institute Paper No. 3. School of Industrial Management, Purdue University, 1960.

5 “Information, Resource Use, and Economic Growth,” Conference on Natural Resources and Economic Growth. Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 7–9, 1960 (Preliminary: not to be quoted.)

6 North, Douglas C., “International Capital Flows and the Development of the American West.” The Journal of Economic History, XVI (Dec. 1956), 493–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar.