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Using economics well is much easier when historical perspectives are brought to bear on the study.
Let's begin with the beginning. Stone Age conditions were clearly not conducive to economic growth - Economies, such as they were, largely supported a loose collection of hunter-gatherers and nomads. Things began to change with the onset of the Bronze Age. Indeed, one could argue that the beginning of economic growth and development date from the early Bronze Age in about 3,200 B.C.
The Bronze Age, which ended in about 1000 B.C.E., featured the first use of tin, which was melted with copper to form bronze, used initially for weapons, ornaments and utensils. (Bronze is much harder than copper).
Significant international trade dates from about 1200 B.C.E., when the Phoenicians sailed 3,000 miles to Cornwall, in the British Isles, where they first traded pottery and salt for Cornish tin.
The Phoenicians were not interested in conquest, only commerce. Later, however, the Romans were interested in both. A thousand years after the first Phoenician ship set sail for the British Isles the Romans transported tin for making bronze from the “Ding Dong” mine in Cornwall, across the English Channel and then overland back to Rome. Cornish source tin was to dominate world trade for the next two thousand years. The last Cornish tin mine was shut down only in 1998.
From the end of the Bronze Age we proceed to the reign of Alexander the Great of Macedonia in 350-320 B.C.E., and continue through the age of Heronas of Alexandria in 2nd Century C.E. and the rise of the Roman Empire.
The Dark Ages followed, at least in Europe: from 476-900 C.E. with devastating human and economic costs. The Middle Ages, from 900 C.E. to 1400 C.E., were marginally better economic times, but it took the industrial revolution (1820) to begin to make a real difference in economic growth worldwide.
This collection gives short shrift to Rome, the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, because there is so much else to cover. Instead, our focus is mainly on the 20th and 21st Centuries. This means that we will not be able to discuss in any detail some fascinating episodes in the early history of economic development. What is missed by not studying growth and development in ancient and early modern time?
We will miss the opportunity to speculate on what might have happened to civilization if one of the great inventions of Heronas of Alexandria in 93 A.D. had NOT been lost to history for nearly 1,800 years.
Heronas, a Greek mathematician, invented a steam engine nearly 1,600 years before Lycoming and Watt introduced steam into Britain. His hand-pumped engine opened and closed temple doors. Here is one of the first of many instances in history where religion retarded technological growth. Few were ever aware of Heronas’ invention because the priestly class in Egypt wanted the faithful to believe that the gods, spirits and magic powered opening and closing of the temple doors.
Alas, the secret of steam was lost for centuries after the library of Alexandria was destroyed 400 years after Heronas’ death (rediscovered on the island of Iona centuries later).
And because we focus primarily on economics in the 20th and 21st Century, we will be unable to explore some fascinating two-way interactions between economic development and biology .
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