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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 1d

This week’s review! — on Avner Greif’s Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy. Games, institutions, and mediaeval Jewish-Egyptian merchants. Also the closest I’ve ever come to reviewing a work of fiction…

Cultivating Seeds

Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy, Avner Greif, 2006.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 14d

Thank you, Sam!

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 15d

This week’s review — THE FINAL WICKHAM POST. Sizing up the mediaeval Italian city-states properly.

Sharks and Remoras

The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180, Chris Wickham, 2023.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 28d

This week’s review! — more Chris Wickham, this time about the mediaeval commercial revolution. What, where, why and whether it was even a thing.

Out of Italy

The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180, Chris Wickham, 2023.

open.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Aug 26

This week’s review — on central bank independence and… wait no, not that! Actually a much more relevant topic: Chris Wickham’s Inheritance of Rome. On the Byzantine economy, mediaeval Egypt, and the Arab conquest.

Downsizing

The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000, Chris Wickham, 2009.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Aug 12

This week’s review! — pt. 2 on Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages. Peasants, Pots, and Pirenne!

Peasants and Pots

Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800, Chris Wickham, 2004.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jul 29

This week’s review! — beginning a medieval odyssey with Chris Wickham’s mammoth book, Framing the Early Middle Ages. Taxes, demesnes, slaves, and why Britain really dropped the ball in the 5th century.

The Heights of Darkness

Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800, Chris Wickham, 2004.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jul 2

This week’s review! — on Catherine Schenk’s superb The Decline of Sterling, and how sterling can and can not help us think about the dollar today (plus some personal news).

Surprising Persistence

The Decline of Sterling: Managing the Retreat of an International Currency, 1945-1992, Catherine R. Schenk, 2010.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jun 17

Thank you, David!

Reposted by Angus Bylsma

David Edgerton @davidedgerton.bsky.social · Jun 17

This is a wonderful discussion of my Rise and Fall of the British Nation, and the first to note the importance to it of my critique of Cain and Hopkins, which I took, along with that of Anderson and Nairn, to be richest existing analyses of the twentieth century British nation and empire.

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jun 17

This week’s review! — on @davidedgerton.bsky.social’s The Rise and Fall of the British Nation. Well, less of a review than a discussion of how Edgerton sheds light on the pitfalls of gentlemanly capitalism. Plus a bit about Hobsbawm the nationalist at the end!

Out of Empire

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History, David Edgerton, 2018.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jun 17

This week’s review! — on @davidedgerton.bsky.social’s The Rise and Fall of the British Nation. Well, less of a review than a discussion of how Edgerton sheds light on the pitfalls of gentlemanly capitalism. Plus a bit about Hobsbawm the nationalist at the end!

Out of Empire

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History, David Edgerton, 2018.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jun 5

Final maths exam next week… here we go!

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jun 5

Some absolutely fantastic Grossberg paintings here

Adam Tooze @adamtooze.bsky.social · Jun 4

For new daily content, subscribe to Chartbook Top Link below.

The privatization of ICE detention. The monsoon comes early. Mogadishu under pressure & an African road.

Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze

adamtooze.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Jun 2

This week’s review! - finishing up my look at Cain and Hopkins’ British Imperialism, on the 20th century. There’s something for everyone - expansion, decline, Sterling, and Eurodollars!

Reglued, Unstuck

British Imperialism 1688-2015, P. J. Cain and A.G Hopkins, 2016.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · May 20

Economic historians getting creative

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · May 20

The Apple Music Classical app has no right being as good as it is

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · May 19

This week’s review! — part one of my look into Cain and Hopkin’s monumental book, British Imperialism 1688-2015. Gentlemanly capitalism, services, and who ran the British Empire (supposedly)…

The City and the Mill

British Imperialism 1688-2015, P. J. Cain and A.G Hopkins, 2016 (1993).

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · May 5

For this week’s review, I read @jamestwotree.bsky.social’s new history of Taiwanese agrarian development at home and abroad, In the Global Vanguard. Land reform, Africa, and Straw Hat Diplomats!

Development and Diplomacy

In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan, James Lin, 2025.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Apr 22

This week’s review! — something a little bit different (and more light-hearted) to wrap up my focus on interwar monetary history, for now. Liaquat Ahamed’s very entertaining if dubious Lords of Finance!

The Helmsmen

Lords of Finance: The Bankers who Broke the World, Liaquat Ahamed, 2009.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Apr 14

The right to watch television should be conditional on first having seen Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation. The Peano axioms of culture.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Apr 8

More brilliant Minard flow-maps — here we have the impact of the American Civil War on European Cotton Imports! I can’t get enough…

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Apr 7

This week’s review — my brief reflections on Charles Kindleberger’s World in Depression 1929-1939. I couldn’t resist thinking about our present moment… a very timely read!

(With unavoidable reference to @adamtooze.bsky.social and @delong.social)

Couldn't, Wouldn't

The World in Depression 1929-1939, Charles P Kindleberger, 1973 (2012).

open.substack.com

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Mar 26

Fantastic paintings from an artist I had never heard from before. The art is what keeps bringing me back to chartbook - helps break me out of my futurism/expressionism shell!

Adam Tooze @adamtooze.bsky.social · Mar 26

This morning’s Chartbook features art from American painter Deborah Remington. One the most influential abstract painters, Remington is most known for her hard-edge paintings (characterized by areas of flat colour with sharp or “hard” edges). Read today’s Chartbook for more on the legendary artist!

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · Mar 26

The first shows British coal exports (1864), while the second is a representation of Napoleon’s Russia campaign, where the thickness of the line shows the number of men alive, yellow for advance and black for the retreat! (From 1869).