Angus Bylsma
@angusbylsma.bsky.social
Writing about economic history at https://unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
Pinned
Angus Bylsma
@angusbylsma.bsky.social
· Jan 20
A Big Price
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass C. North, 1990.
open.substack.com
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.
This week’s review! — Peter Temin’s Lessons from the Great Depression.
It’s all expectations, baby! (and history, and politics)
It’s all expectations, baby! (and history, and politics)
Expecting Worse
Lessons from the Great Depression, Peter Temin, 1991.
open.substack.com
February 17, 2026 at 4:41 PM
This week’s review! — Peter Temin’s Lessons from the Great Depression.
It’s all expectations, baby! (and history, and politics)
It’s all expectations, baby! (and history, and politics)
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).
Paying Up
Australia and the Great Depression, C. B. Schedvin, 1970.
open.substack.com
February 3, 2026 at 5:13 PM
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).
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.
A Big Price
Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass C. North, 1990.
open.substack.com
January 20, 2026 at 5:40 PM
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.
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.
January 14, 2026 at 4:45 PM
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.
This week's review! - @brankomilan.bsky.social's The Great Global Transformation. On political economy of our moment.
Within and Between
The Great Global Transformation: National Market Liberalism in a Multipolar World, Branko Milanovic, 2025.
unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
January 6, 2026 at 5:48 PM
This week's review! - @brankomilan.bsky.social's The Great Global Transformation. On political economy of our moment.
Can’t believe no-one has yet written a history of Germany in the 19th/20th century called “Guns, Germans, and Steel”.
January 5, 2026 at 4:16 PM
Can’t believe no-one has yet written a history of Germany in the 19th/20th century called “Guns, Germans, and Steel”.
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.
December 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
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.
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.
Cutting Through
The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution 1700-1850, Joel Mokyr, 2011.
unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
December 17, 2025 at 4:56 PM
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.
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.
Catching Sparks
The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, Joel Mokyr, 1992
unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:42 PM
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.
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.
Downstream
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Gregory Clark, 2007
unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:39 PM
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.
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.
Postmen & Police
Trade and Institutions in the Mediaeval Mediterranean: Evidence From the Genizia, Jessica Goldberg, 2012.
unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com
October 21, 2025 at 4:50 PM
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.
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
October 7, 2025 at 3:57 PM
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…
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
September 23, 2025 at 4:03 PM
This week’s review — THE FINAL WICKHAM POST. Sizing up the mediaeval Italian city-states properly.
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
September 10, 2025 at 8:38 PM
This week’s review! — more Chris Wickham, this time about the mediaeval commercial revolution. What, where, why and whether it was even a thing.
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
August 26, 2025 at 3:19 PM
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.
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
August 12, 2025 at 10:55 AM
This week’s review! — pt. 2 on Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages. Peasants, Pots, and Pirenne!
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
July 29, 2025 at 12:32 PM
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.
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
July 2, 2025 at 11:15 AM
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).
Reposted by Angus Bylsma
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.
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
June 17, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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.
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
June 17, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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!
Final maths exam next week… here we go!
June 5, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Final maths exam next week… here we go!
Some absolutely fantastic Grossberg paintings here
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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
June 5, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Some absolutely fantastic Grossberg paintings here
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
June 2, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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!
Economic historians getting creative
May 20, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Economic historians getting creative
The Apple Music Classical app has no right being as good as it is
May 20, 2025 at 11:16 AM
The Apple Music Classical app has no right being as good as it is