A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

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A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

by Gregory Clark

3.59 · rating details · 184 ratings · 50 reviews

Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer? In "A Farewell

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Paperback, 420 pages

Published January 18th 2009 by Princeton University Press (first published July 24th 2007)

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Dec 11, 2007

ba rated it

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Phew finally! I've been reading this exclusively on the train for a few weeks now. I picked up this book because the reviews made it sound like Mr. Clark would be making a case that the Industrial Revolution occurred when and where it did for strictly Darwinian reasons of breeding. I wanted to see how he would navigate those dangerous waters which have taken out even the likes of Jimmy the Greek.

I began to get angry at the book during the introduction, when the author mentioned th...morePhew finally! I've been reading this exclusively on the train for a few weeks now. I picked up this book because the reviews made it sound like Mr. Clark would be making a case that the Industrial Revolution occurred when and where it did for strictly Darwinian reasons of breeding. I wanted to see how he would navigate those dangerous waters which have taken out even the likes of Jimmy the Greek.

I began to get angry at the book during the introduction, when the author mentioned that he was trying to write a big history, in the tradition of The Wealth of Nations, Das Kapital, [and] The Rise of the Western World..." Then followed a 16-page summery of the economic history of the world. The first figure in that chapter "proved" that there was a "great divergence" between rich and poor starting in 1880 by showing a single line indicating average wealth which split into two lines indicating the average wealth of rich and poor people respectively. This split occurred at 1880 on the timeline. I settled in for a long, painful read.

For the record, let me state that I have virtually no background in economics. So although the author's explanation of Malthusian theory seemed highly counter-intuitive to me, I assume that it's the accepted theory of classical economics. I felt like some elaborate house of cards was being built in the early chapters, but I began ignoring the graphs and formulas (which were beyond my level), and concentrated on the narrative.

There's some great stuff in there about the filthiness of living conditions in 18th century England, to include the fact that the Globe theater had no bathroom facilities, and patrons generally relieved themselves in the stairwells between acts.

But back to the central question of why the Industrial revolution occurred in England when it did,and not somewhere else some other time.

Mr. Clark makes the case that England at the time, more than anywhere else, was becoming a downwardly mobile society, where the gentry and middle class were so fertile that their offspring were destined to move down a rung on the ladder of wealth, and that the spread of middle-class values is what energized the workforce in a time when capital investment did no necessarily benefit from incremental gains in efficiency. After slogging through this, I can almost accept some of it, but then at the end of each point, he mumbles something about changes in culture...or possibly genetic predisposition towards delayed rewards to the worker.

For all that has been made of the Darwinian claims, I don't even find a lot of those claims in the book. When the claim was made, it was tacked on as an afterthought, without much explanation. In fact, the dustcover may be the biggest proponent of that particular argument.

All that aside, it was an interesting first look at economics for me, and I found the irony of the Malthusian model (at least as presented here) quite astounding (ie: England was so fertile due to a high death rate which was in turn due to the disgusting lack of hygiene compared to, say Asia).(less)

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Sep 12, 2007

Mowry rated it

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This is a fantastic book that uses some pretty interesting (and thorough) historical data to set a few economic assumptions about the Industrial Revolution on their heads. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in economics and serious scholarship.

My only criticism: Clark spends a lot of time developing his theory on why the Industrial Revolution happened where and when it happened, but does very little to make suggestions to current economic policy. I'm very inter...more

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Dec 07, 2011

Leigh rated it

Shelves: economics, history, international, development, england, industrial, revolution

Fantastic book. It has a nice density to it, similar to the directly referenced Guns Germs and Steel. The book has helped to renew my pride in the prosperity of the United States, and the virtues which make that prosperity possible (which I thought I'd lost permanently after reading The Shock Doctrine). [return][return]I'm only halfway through, but the thesis appears to be this: Contrary to popular economic wisdom (in the author's opinion, I'm no expert here), strong institutions alone are not s...more

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Feb 06, 2012

Parag Waknis rated it

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I came across this interesting book on world economic history titled, “A Farewell to Alms” by Gregory Clark. Whenever, I open such a book my first impulse is to flip through pages and see what the author has to say about India. Most of the times, unfortunately, I am not surprised. A book that displays brilliance in its analysis and coverage otherwise, usually completely breaks down when talking about societies like India. It is almost always a typical representation of the Anglo-Saxon view of hi...moreI came across this interesting book on world economic history titled, “A Farewell to Alms” by Gregory Clark. Whenever, I open such a book my first impulse is to flip through pages and see what the author has to say about India. Most of the times, unfortunately, I am not surprised. A book that displays brilliance in its analysis and coverage otherwise, usually completely breaks down when talking about societies like India. It is almost always a typical representation of the Anglo-Saxon view of history and evolution of societies, invariably betraying the “winners write the history” syndrome. So while Clark talks about how England compares in different aspects of social sophistication to India on the eve of industrial revolution, he shows that India lagged behind England in terms of its data availability on real wages. This lack is somehow to constitute a judgment on England being a better candidate for industrial revolution than India.

Unfortunately, one of the aspects of being a poor country is that it is pretty difficult to have a sophisticated database system to meet your current needs, let alone historical ones. I am sure there is data available in scattered sources but is not yet compiled. I was told of a huge collection of manuscripts in now extinct modi script which has not been even touched by any historian till date.

In arguing that average English worker around 1800 ACE was relatively well off and hence well, he uses the Engles’s law to show how food consumption behaves with income. Obviously, as income increases people eat more meat and this is indeed true for the English workers. How does an average Indian compare to this? Based on a 1950 Government of India survey, he shows that an average Indian did not consume as much meat as an English worker in 1800 ACE for comparable income levels. A thing to note about this is that he does not control for cultural influences while talking about nature of food consumption and its relation to income. Unless you control for that, especially in case of India, an average Indian even today can be shown to consume less meat compared to its counterpart in China or United States. This is because India has a strong historical bias towards vegetarianism that has its origins in the rise of Buddhism. I am sure there is similar explanation for lack of milk consumption in China. But I will let the Chinese speak for themselves. The point is that if you do not put historical data in proper context you are bound to be lead astray. Unfortunately Clark engages in such out of context quantitative economic history.

Clark’s analysis also has some examples of selective empiricism. The case in point is that of the architecture of the Vijayanagar empire. He accepts that it is grand but concedes that it is no way closer in terms of engineering feat to the Roman pantheon and hence that reflects the technological backwardness of India and probably its ill-preparedness for industrial revolution compared to England. I am invariably always baffled by this insatiable urge of measuring every civilization against the Roman without considering the fact that most aspects of civilization respond to necessitates of time, availability of resources, political needs and even compulsions of weather conditions! For example, would it be correct to say that Romans were backward because they could only carve on a soft stone like marble or because they could never even imagine carving a monolithic stone marvel like the Kailas temple? This will sound plain simple absurd even to Greg Clark and yet he does not even take a step back and think before making this comparison.

Indian architecture varies across time and space so much that it is difficult to pick any one example and deem it representative of backwardness or advancement and that too only against achievements of one civilization. We have examples of sophisticated planned cities with water ways and drainage systems dating back to 3000 BCE ( Mohen jo Daro & Harappa for example) to brilliant temple complexes displaying grandiose stone carvings and advanced design implementations. If only for once Clark and likes care to look at the world without the condescending Anglo-Saxon glasses!

As an aside, I would like to point out that India ranks pretty high in terms of intellectual achievements in philosophy, logic and mathematics. Please refer to my earlier post on Indians and Maths to get a glimpse of the impressive work Indians did on this front. Same is the story about logic. These all achievements were realized well before England had anything close to a civilization!

How will these kinds of factors play out in Greg Clark’s story? Talking about context, how does caste system factor in the dissemination of such knowledge contributing to a general rise in human capital? A pure quantitative approach to economic history is lost on such puzzling specificities and Clark’s book is no exception to this.

So is there anything right in Clark’s book? Fortunately the answer is yes. His take on fertility being a defining factor for preconditions of industrial revolution has a substantial grain of truth. For example, until recently India experienced stagnation because of increase in life expectancy along with little change in fertility and little or no technological progress. His exposition of Malthusian model is superb and would serve as a good antidote to anyone who pines to reclaim the past material glory for his country as such a thing did not ever exist in the Malthusian economies of the world.

By making this review of Clark’s book on world economic history India centric, I don’t want to sound jingoist and imply that India had all the potential for industrial revolution or India had achieved everything West claims its own. However, I do object to conclusions based on half baked and ill-informed theories, especially from otherwise first rate academics.(less)

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May 14, 2011

Fred rated it

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This is 21st Century Social Darwinism. Everything seems quite powerfully argued until one realizes that Clark simply has not thought seriously about what accounts for differences in the traits of a population. "Genes or culture" he says, at his most precise. There is plenty of work being done on this issue, and it's almost irresponsible of him to not even dip his toe in the water. Even a discussion of Max Weber's theory would have been a big step up.

I don't think his at...more

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Jan 28, 2009

Martha Mcmorran rated it

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I liked this book, but will have to reread after taking some basic economic courses or reading other supplement books. I'm not at a level to tackle what he was saying.

What I really remember is that now we have the richest countries and the poorest, which all changed because of the industrial revolution. Before the IR, societies would be stuck in the Malthusian trap (named after a philosopher called Malthus), where they would get too populated, then war or famine would kill a bunch of...more

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Apr 14, 2010

Brian rated it

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Didn't take an economics course in college. Thought this might help make me less stupid. Barely worked.

The author states that virtually all societies, stone age or "developed", operated at the same level of personal wealth (as measured by the amount of labor needed to purchase a given commodity) for centuries until the Industrial Revolution. Then he attempts to explain why only some societies subsequently experienced increasing personal wealth and standard of living. floods h...more

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Jun 01, 2009

Joe Malicki rated it

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Good book on economic history of how technology developed, and why some regions are poorer than others.

Most interesting things I took away from this book were:
1) The virtuous spiral of the industrial revolution is largely a result of free time and high real wages due to the black plague in Europe.
2) Third-world countries are still poor because they're stuck in a Malthusian system where technology and aid reduce the cost of living, thus increase the population that can liv...more

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Jul 26, 2011

Julian Haigh rated it

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This book was certainly not the brief economic history of the world its title purports. It was however (and I must excuse myself for my elemental understanding of economics), a nice catalog of differing opinions of the reasons for numerous economic realities.

His round-about conclusion suggests the importance of sociological differences as being the basis of current global inequalities as being related to beneficial Darwinian mating habits of the English. He shies away from his conclusion, but a...more

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Jul 03, 2011

Bryce rated it

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Farewell to Alms is the first book I read in my research project on economic growth after the industrial revolution. In order to understand the amazing and scary pace of economic growth in the last 200 years, it is important to know how economies worked in the prior 100,000 years.

This is a really strongly researched an emphatically written book book that attempts to sort out why the industrial revolution occurred when and where it did. Although it left a lot of questions, and I have ...moreFarewell to Alms is the first book I read in my research project on economic growth after the industrial revolution. In order to understand the amazing and scary pace of economic growth in the last 200 years, it is important to know how economies worked in the prior 100,000 years.

This is a really strongly researched an emphatically written book book that attempts to sort out why the industrial revolution occurred when and where it did. Although it left a lot of questions, and I have a hard time swallowing some of the conclusions, it was a fantastic read.

The best thing about the book is the treatment of the so-called "Malthusian trap." Prior to the industrial revolution, there was no sustained period in any prior human civilization in which technological progress was able to outpace population growth. Increased productivity would increase total output (primarily food), allowing more people to survive and temporarily increasing the population growth rate, until the rate of population growth surpassed the rate of productivity growth, which was the upper bound. Without sustained productivity, the increased population would once again be "trapped" at the point of subsistence.

The first major transition in human civilizations was the neolithic revolution, maybe 8,000 years ago, which lead to the mass cultivation of cereals. Amazingly, prior to this point, humans probably lived healthier and more interesting (albeit more tenuous) lives, on average. They were considerably taller and better nourished on a forager's diet than on a diet heavy in starches. Roaming the territory in search of food was probably more exciting than ploughing and sowing and harvesting.

On the other hand, author Gregory Clark argues that the repeated and boring toil of farming provided a different incentive system than hunting and gathering. It rewarded patience, drudgery, and punished violence and theft. In England between 1200 and 1800 AD, where Clark gathers most of his data, he makes a convincing argument that higher birth rates and lower child mortality among the small wealthy and landed class resulted in an unavoidable "downward mobility." Clark suggests the diffusion of values, and perhaps even hereditary traits, from the small cadre of the rich via this downward mobility cumulatively transformed society until it was capable of sustaining the systems of organization and knowledge necessary for the industrial revolution.

Clark also notes that despite the incredible transformation of human civilization in the last 200 years, many of the societies that have not been a part of this transformation are living at levels of poverty unknown in the past. Basically, modern medicine makes it possible to survive at an astonishingly miserable level of income.

I have two main qualms with this book. First, Clark makes virtually no mention of the role of hydrocarbons (coal, then oil and gas) in sustaining the sudden and sustained burst in productivity growth. Second, based on his research in England, he basically suggests that the reason the majority of the people on earth still live in relative poverty is because they are too lazy and/or violent, as a result of not having lived through the slow cultural transformation that he describes in England. In coming tho this conclusion, he either poo-poos or ignores things like conquest and political oppression, exploitation of resources and terms of trade (backed by force), and the massive appropriation of land. Since much of the world was colonized by European powers prior to the start of the industrial revolution (around 1800), and since today's most developed societies are those which had been able maintain political and economic independence, I have a hard time going along for a ride with Clark here. The data he presents to backup his contention here is mostly related to productivity figures in India over the past 200 years. This is an example of Clark's weakness, which crops up in a number of places throughout the book, of drawing strong conclusion from relatively isolated sets of data. By positing this lazy/violent hypothesis without a bulletproof argument to back it up, Clark sullies an otherwise fine piece of research.(less)

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Apr 17, 2009

Manussawee rated it

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Shelves: recently-read

This book is among one of the best books I've read. It's well written and very informative, but not boring like a textbook can be. It's a book about economic development from pre-Industrial Revolution to now. The book focuses on answering three "interconnected" questions: "Why did the Malthusian Trap persist for so long? Why did the initial escape from that trap in the Industrial Revolution occur on one tiny island, England, in 1800? Why was there the consequent Great Diverg...more

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Jan 21, 2008

John rated it

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Not as controversial as the reputation that precedes it. The link to genetic adaptation is only casually and scarcely thrown out in the prose as a possible explanation, but is discussed as mere conjecture. To sum up in a cynical short way, we are no closer to understanding a link, if there is one, between genetic adaptions and a propensity to succeed at innovation, advances and social stability than we were before Clark undertook this project. Clark spends the vast majority of the book highli...more

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Aug 10, 2007

Bruce rated it

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Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights (2007)
Gregory Clark, A farewell to Alms (2007)
Hunt, a UCLA historian, tries in this book to explain why 18th century western Europe was the first society in history to develop a concept of “human rights,” as opposed to the earlier idea of political and other rights enjoyed by certain individuals, such as Roman senators or King John’s barons. Her answer is that the concept developed in large part because of the invention of the novel as a literary for...moreLynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights (2007)
Gregory Clark, A farewell to Alms (2007)
Hunt, a UCLA historian, tries in this book to explain why 18th century western Europe was the first society in history to develop a concept of “human rights,” as opposed to the earlier idea of political and other rights enjoyed by certain individuals, such as Roman senators or King John’s barons. Her answer is that the concept developed in large part because of the invention of the novel as a literary form, earlier in the century. The novel was important because of its focus on feelings and empathy, particularly the empathy that is stimulated by a first-person narrative. Rousseau himself, in the year prior to his Social Contract, wrote an immensely popular novel, Julie. This, together with Richardson’s Clarissa and others, permitted the enlarging literate classes to identify with the suffering of those deprived of human rights. The result was a growing indignation at such social institutions as judicial torture.
Like all searches for patterns in history, this makes a good read but a story so implausible in the range of its claim as to be a fiction in its own right—one requiring a “suspension of disbelief” by the reader. It makes little sense to claim that the novel or any other innovation of the 18th century liberated for the first time an emotion, such as empathy, that clearly evolved over millennia as a component of the successful strategy of a population under Darwinian stress. Other things equal, a population of primates that develops the ability to feel empathy is more likely to cooperate and therefore to survive than otherwise. The novel cannot have triggered the first expression of this empathetic capacity, because self-sacrificing cooperation among humans was not new in the 18th century. Furthermore, Rousseau, Jefferson, and the other “philosophes” certainly did not invent the explicit concept of human rights. Jesus of Nazereth, for example, was bent on reminding people of preexisting duties already familiar to them, duties grounded in empathy.
Hunt’s story of human rights makes an interesting contrast with another book just out this year: Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms. Clark is an economic historian trying to explain, not the struggle for human rights, but its necessary underpinning: having enough to eat while leaving time to read novels. Why did western Europe, alone among societies in human history, escape the Malthusian trap, generating a persistent surplus above subsistence for the great mass of its people? Clark’s answer: Darwin again, on a shockingly short timetable. It seems that economically successful Europeans had more children than poorer ones, eventually creating a mutated population of capitalist entrepreneurs, passing on to their heirs both a cultural and a genetic disposition toward hard work, saving, and judicious risk taking. For my money, Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy makes a better read.
(less)

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Nov 24, 2010

Letitia rated it

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Really interesting and readable, if somewhat contradictory and elitist. Clark seems to want to make a case for biological superiority being a main factor in developed countries, but doesn't quite spit it out...perhaps because his editor wouldn't allow him to actually say something so ridiculous. He does present very interesting data and pushes the reader to explore and justify Euro/American intervention in developing countries.

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Feb 02, 2010

Ernie.tedeschi rated it

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"A Farewell to Alms" is an audacious attempt to narrate human economic history. Clark tackles questions like, "How much better off were human beings in 1800 than they were in Roman times?" (his answer: on average, not at all better off) and "Why did the Industrial Revolution arise in England in 1800 rather than another society at another time?" (his answer: it's complicated). His conclusions are not all equally convincing -- I thought his analysis of the pre-industr...more

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Jun 08, 2010

Peter Gehred rated it

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A fascinating and provocative read. The book is dogged, heavy on evidence, and conceptually challenging. I am not sure about the Clark's conclusions are right, but they are certainly worth wrestling with. In particular, the outline of history into a pre and post-Malthusian era, the emphasis on the startling revolution of the Industrial Revolution, and the exploration of the cause of that revolution, and, indeed, his thesis that it has been largely mislabeled all are difficult yet worthwhile subj...more

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Dec 03, 2009

David rated it

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Shelves: books-for-me

You probably shouldn't read this book--you won't get it. At some point I began to wonder: is the industrial revolution a bubble? Further, I wonder if I would have asked the same question despite the current economy (2008/2009)!

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Aug 07, 2011

Mikecook2158 added it · review of another edition

A fascinating albeit highly technical monograph. Hard to tell where the author comes out at the end of the day. I learned a great deal about some very important and basic concepts of economics.

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Oct 25, 2007

Nick rated it

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Shelves: international

Greg Clark has an interesting take on the origins of the Industrial Revolution and what he calls the Great Divergence in the development of various nations, the divergence between the rich and poor nations. He also offers some interesting and controversial speculations. Clark's basic point seems to be that the Industrial Revolution was an evolutionary process and only appears to be a discontinuity with all previous economic history. To say more would perhaps undermine his argument, but I will...more

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Jan 04, 2008

Ben rated it

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Recommends it for: Nerds with Big Ideas

The anti-Guns Germs and Steel. This book is a doozy. Culture as the determinant of wealth and poverty, life and death! Not just culture - BRITISH CULTURE! And culture spread by the cold calculus of population dynamics. Many, many empirically true but completely counterintuitive ideas.

There is way too much to write here about this book, other than if I were in college right now I probably would have to read it for a sociology class, and therefore it probably would not get read. ...more

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Jul 14, 2009

Jason Benson rated it

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learned alot about Malthusian ideas...very controversial opinion at the very end of the book regarding a supposed unproductivity of non western textile workers (Indians)

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Jan 13, 2008

Greg rated it

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So far it is quite interesting and certainly challenges some of the mainstream, politically-correct approaches to the questions regarding why Western civilization leaped so far ahead economically after 1800, and large swaths of the rest of the world--mostly in Africa--have stagnated. One dubious proposition is the social-darwinist theme the author continues to refer to. The author does not point to hard evidence of genetic changes in the population (England) that brought us the Industrial Revolu...more

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Jun 25, 2009

Seligne rated it

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What is amazing about this book is that it purports to explain the industrial revolution happened, but its index has virtually nothing under "energy" and no listing at all for "petroleum". I find it perplexing that the author can largely ignore fossil fuels.

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Sep 23, 2008

Scott Sargent rated it

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Professor Clark: like John Kenneth Galbraith, Kevin Phillips, and George Orwell, he's a truth teller. Moreover - and this, to me, is very important - he's a writer who breaks down concepts into language that the layman can understand.

I'll come back and write more, but I think that a very important component of this book is the discussion about the reproduction and population dynamics of the group which eventually constituted the most important element in the Industrial Revolution. ...more

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Apr 08, 2009

Lsho added it · review of another edition

easy reading and interesting, providing a good overview of human history and questioning the meaning of progress

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Aug 04, 2011

Rosemary added it · review of another edition

This would have to be the best-written textbook I've ever read. Original and controversial.

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Jan 18, 2010

David Robins rated it

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Good material, good conclusions even, but conclusions weakly presented.

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Feb 01, 2008

Dave rated it

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If you like books that make you reconsider much of what you "think you know" about history and the world we live in, then pick up this book and give it some thought. Not sayin' you'll come away with changed opinions. But like Guns, Germs and Steel, A Farewll to Alms is a gutsy thesis that attempts nothing less than to answer one of the greatest riddles of human history: why are some of us rich and some us poor? This book raises more probing questions than it provides answers. That, to ...more

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Feb 14, 2008

Patrick Gallagher added it · review of another edition

This is a really original book that looks at crude statistical economic data to debunk myths about why societies are prosperous. I think of it as a rebuttal to books like Collapse or Guns Germs and Steel that point to the existence of institutions or technology in certain societies. The Author of Farewell to Alms makes a strong case that everything boils down to cultural norms.

This book will bore you after a while if you don't have an understanding of statistical regression.

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Jul 18, 2010

Patrick rated it

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I couldn't get through this. I'm finishing up an MA in Economics and one of my courses was in Economic History, so perhaps I feel the ending was spoiled for me. There are countless figures and trivia packed into this book and after 286 pages (which I've slowly read through while studying for my exams over the past 6 months), I just can't get motivated to read any more.

An interesting thesis, but one which I find unconvincing. I quit.

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Clark, whose grandfathers were migrants to Scotland from Ireland, earned his B.A. in economics and philosophy at King's College, Cambridge in 1979 and his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1985. He has also taught as an Assistant Professor at Stanford and the University of Michigan.
Clark is now a professor of economics and department chair until 2013 at the University of California, Davis. His areas of re...more

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