Angus Bylsma
@angusbylsma.bsky.social
📤 115
📥 250
📝 88
Writing about economic history at
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
pinned post!
This week’s review! — Douglass North’s Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. On changing your mind, Marxism and neoclassical economics, and, of course, institutional change.
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A Big Price
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass C. North, 1990.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/a-big-price?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
4 months ago
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reposted by
Angus Bylsma
Sam Thorpe
8 days ago
Against my better judgement, I've finally started a (free) Substack. As I explain in my first post, I see this as an avenue to write on some of the big questions that economics research isn't well-suited to: normative claims, historical work, and thinking about the roots of economic analysis.
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Kicking things off
About me, about this blog
https://thestockexchangeandtheholygrail.substack.com/p/kicking-things-off
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This week's review! - Martin Daunton's The Economic Government of the World. Explaining why Bretton Woods was what it was, and wasn't what it wasn't.
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Narrowed Vision
The Economic Government of the World, Martin Daunton, 2023.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/narrowed-vision?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
12 days ago
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This week’s review! - Robert Yee's The City’s Defence. On economic knowledge, governance, empire, and the making of the postwar world.
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In Control
The City's Defence: The Bank of England and the Remaking of Economic Governance 1919-1939, Robert Yee, 2025.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/in-control?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
27 days ago
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This week’s (not) review! - a very short discussion of, and excerpt from, Vasily Grossman’s Everything Flows. For those who prefer their novels unabashedly world-historical…
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History's Decree
Everything Flows, Vasily Grossman, 1994 (2011)
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/historys-decree?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
about 1 month ago
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This week’s review! - Michael Albertus’ Land Power. A book as filled with interesting vignettes as it is devoid of interesting ideas.
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Reshuffled, Reframed?
Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies, Michael Albertus, 2025.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/reshuffled-reframed?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
about 2 months ago
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This week's review! - Claudia Goldin's Career and Family. History, the Pill, and the Pay Gap. Check it out!
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Ticking Clocks
Career and Family: Women's Century Long Journey Towards Equity, Claudia Goldin, 2021.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/ticking-clocks?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
2 months ago
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Something a little different this week: my thoughts about (Ashley Kahn’s book on) Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, and when Eric Hobsbawm was really, really wrong.
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On a Tightrope
Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and the Making of a Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn, 2000.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/on-a-tightrope?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
3 months ago
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This week’s review! — Peter Temin’s Lessons from the Great Depression. It’s all expectations, baby! (and history, and politics)
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Expecting Worse
Lessons from the Great Depression, Peter Temin, 1991.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/expecting-worse?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
3 months ago
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This week's review! - C. B. Schedvin's Australia and the Great Depression. Because I know that what excites your minds most of all are old monographs about the economic history of insignificant countries (seriously though, I promise it is interesting).
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Paying Up
Australia and the Great Depression, C. B. Schedvin, 1970.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/paying-up?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
4 months ago
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This week’s review! — Douglass North’s Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. On changing your mind, Marxism and neoclassical economics, and, of course, institutional change.
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A Big Price
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass C. North, 1990.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/a-big-price?r=rfxq8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
4 months ago
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Fact of the day: the first steam engine was brought to Australia in 1813 by a guy named John Dickson. But no-one knew how to assemble, let alone use it, and so it didn’t begin operating until a mechanic could be brought over from the UK two years later.
4 months ago
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This week's review! -
@brankomilan.bsky.social
's The Great Global Transformation. On political economy of our moment.
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Within and Between
The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World, Branko Milanovic, 2025.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/within-and-between
5 months ago
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Can’t believe no-one has yet written a history of Germany in the 19th/20th century called “Guns, Germans, and Steel”.
5 months ago
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I’m not convinced this ‘historyLLM’ business is anything other than an amusing toy. Great fun for sure, but let’s not pretend we can actually learn anything of historical interest from an LLM trained on pre-1913.
5 months ago
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This week’s review! — Joel Mokyr’s The Enlightened Economy. A big book with a lot to say on what did, and did not, cause the British Industrial Revolution.
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Cutting Through
The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution 1700-1850, Joel Mokyr, 2011.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/cutting-through
5 months ago
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This week’s review! — seizing the moment to start a belated Joel Mokyr journey with The Lever of Riches. While the book’s title reminds one of a second-rate fantasy novel, it is actually anything but. In fact, Mokyr surprised (almost) all my expectations.
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Catching Sparks
The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, Joel Mokyr, 1992
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/catching-sparks
6 months ago
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This week’s review! — my no doubt highly unoriginal take on an old classic, Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms. Malthus, wages, and the question of whether everything is downstream of demography.
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Downstream
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Gregory Clark, 2007
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/downstream
6 months ago
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This week’s review! — Jessica Goldberg on Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean. A book which leaves Avner Greif’s thesis in the same place as the French fleet in 1798: lying at the bottom of the Nile.
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Postmen & Police
Trade and Institutions in the Mediaeval Mediterranean: Evidence From the Genizia, Jessica Goldberg, 2012.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/postmen-and-police?r=rfxq8
7 months ago
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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…
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Cultivating Seeds
Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy, Avner Greif, 2006.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/cultivating-seeds
8 months ago
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This week’s review — THE FINAL WICKHAM POST. Sizing up the mediaeval Italian city-states properly.
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Sharks and Remoras
The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180, Chris Wickham, 2023.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/sharks-and-remoras
8 months ago
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This week’s review! — more Chris Wickham, this time about the mediaeval commercial revolution. What, where, why and whether it was even a thing.
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Out of Italy
The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180, Chris Wickham, 2023.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/out-of-italy
9 months ago
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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.
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Downsizing
The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000, Chris Wickham, 2009.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/downsizing
9 months ago
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This week’s review! — pt. 2 on Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages. Peasants, Pots, and Pirenne!
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Peasants and Pots
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800, Chris Wickham, 2004.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/peasants-and-pots
10 months ago
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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.
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The Heights of Darkness
Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800, Chris Wickham, 2004.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/the-heights-of-darkness
10 months ago
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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).
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Surprising Persistence
The Decline of Sterling: Managing the Retreat of an International Currency, 1945-1992, Catherine R. Schenk, 2010.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/surprising-persistence
11 months ago
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reposted by
Angus Bylsma
David Edgerton
11 months ago
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.
add a skeleton here at some point
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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!
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Out of Empire
The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History, David Edgerton, 2018.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/out-of-empire
11 months ago
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Final maths exam next week… here we go!
12 months ago
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Some absolutely fantastic Grossberg paintings here
add a skeleton here at some point
12 months ago
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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!
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Reglued, Unstuck
British Imperialism 1688-2015, P. J. Cain and A.G Hopkins, 2016.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/reglued-unstuck
12 months ago
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Economic historians getting creative
about 1 year ago
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The Apple Music Classical app has no right being as good as it is
about 1 year ago
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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)…
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The City and the Mill
British Imperialism 1688-2015, P. J. Cain and A.G Hopkins, 2016 (1993).
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/the-city-and-the-mill
about 1 year ago
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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!
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Development and Diplomacy
In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan, James Lin, 2025.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/development-and-diplomacy
about 1 year ago
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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!
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The Helmsmen
Lords of Finance: The Bankers who Broke the World, Liaquat Ahamed, 2009.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/the-helmsmen
about 1 year ago
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The right to watch television should be conditional on first having seen Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation. The Peano axioms of culture.
about 1 year ago
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More brilliant Minard flow-maps — here we have the impact of the American Civil War on European Cotton Imports! I can’t get enough…
about 1 year ago
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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
)
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Couldn't, Wouldn't
The World in Depression 1929-1939, Charles P Kindleberger, 1973 (2012).
https://open.substack.com/pub/unevenandcombinedthoughts/p/couldnt-wouldnt?r=rfxq8&utm_medium=ios
about 1 year ago
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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!
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 year ago
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You can’t help but fall in love with Charles Joseph Minard’s flow maps! The godfather of data visualisation.
about 1 year ago
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This week’s review! - on Charles Kindleberger’s unrealised vision for the dollar system, according to Perry Mehrling.
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Crime and Responsibility
Money and Empire: Charles P Kindleberger and the Dollar System, Perry Mehrling, 2022.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/crime-and-responsibility
about 1 year ago
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This week’s review! - on how a changing money market changed central banking, according to Perry Mehrling. Check it out!
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Pipes and Pipemakers
The New Lombard Street: How the Fed Became the Dealer of Last Resort, Perry Mehrling, 2011.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/pipes-and-pipemakers
about 1 year ago
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Central bankers need to bring back the pointy beards! Adds mystique befitting a bearer of arcane knowledge… how could anyone believe in CBI if they don’t look a little bit like wizards? (Pictured: Montagu Norman and Rudolf Havenstein)
about 1 year ago
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Alright I thought no one could match Braudel in retro-chart game but Kindleberger gives it a red hot crack…
about 1 year ago
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Does this debate exist online? I can’t seem to find it, but if it does, it is surely the econ version of Chomsky-Foucault!
about 1 year ago
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Bretton Woods, capital controls, and collective action…. my thoughts on Eric Helleiner’s States and the Reemergence of Global Finance!
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Out of the Woods
States and the Reemergence of Global Finance, Eric Helleiner, 1994.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/out-of-the-woods
over 1 year ago
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Time for urgently reading Eric Monnet — or at least, the review of his book I wrote about a month ago ;)
add a skeleton here at some point
over 1 year ago
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Likely the most scattered review I’ve written of late, but hopefully interesting nonetheless! On the spread of the central bank and what the BIS might have been.
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Untimely Births
The Spread of the Modern Central Bank and Global Cooperation, Ed. Barry Eichengreen and Andreas Kakridis, 2024.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/untimely-births
over 1 year ago
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My review of Barry Eichengreen’s Globalizing Capital — well, the first third of it, but with an eye to reading international monetary history on the most abstract level. On why the gold standard could never be replicated…
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Tarnished Gold
Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Barry Eichengreen, 2018.
https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/tarnished-gold
over 1 year ago
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