>Doug:
>> >There's no question in my mind that the North's rise to wealth was
>greased
>> >by theft of resources and people from the South (though when I say things
>> >like that, Bob Brenner often writes me offlist to disagree). But today,
>
>
>I think this is fundamentally untrue. Of course, European plundered the New
>World, Africa and to lesser degree Asia, but I do not think that plunder
>alone was the source of North's wealth.
Did I say "plunder alone"? I said "greased." I know this is all very controversial, and I haven't read very deeply in this literature, but I'm skeptical of both of the extreme positions - that it was either all changes in domestic European society, or it was all plunder, that caused Europe's rise to wealth.
Doug