Wittenberg To Westphalia: The Wars of the Reformation
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Episode 50, The Economy Part 1, Decline and Fall of Whiggish Historical Practices

2/28/2019

4 Comments

 
Here it is at last: The new hottness all the kids crave, the phenomenon that is taking the mass media by storm, your peers will respect you, your parents will be confused and slightly afraid, W2W's treatment of the medieval economy. Well the first part anyway. 

This episode flows nicely from the last one, despite the seemingly different topics, because advances in methodology have had a huge impact on economic history. One might think that this was particularly true of the middle ages, but really economics were not a preoccupation until fairly recently. This means that historians of the ancient world are as in the dark as medieval historians in this area. Given the vital place the economy has in understanding how a society works, i wouldn't be surprised if all of the things you all think you know about the Greeks and Romans was flipped on its head in the next few decades. 

In any case, as I say in the episode intro, I am going to be adding a way to help me buy sources soon, so check back for that. I should also say something about the outro music. Future Kings of Nowhere were on the cusp of a huge breakthrough with this song in 2009, but then the lead singer and songwriter got cancer and by the time it went into remission it had been a number of years and priorities had changed. They still get together down in Durham every year or so to play some shows, but they seem like they will always be in the might have been camp. Which is a huge shame because their songs are totally my kind of thing. Energetic, melodic, and whitty as heck. Anyway, check them out, maybe buy an album. I didn't bother asking permission under the circumstances, so make up for my laziness with some dollaz. 
4 Comments
Brian Tieskoetter
5/3/2019 08:25:41 pm

Thank you, Ben!

I was feeling run down by a few hard weeks, but your podcast completely cheered and rejuvenated me. I really enjoy your content and presentation, and I always get laughs from your humor. Thanks!

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Viktor
5/9/2021 01:05:15 pm

Thank you for the podcast.

I cannot quite understand the substance what is so bad about the subsidies to certain trade. Wouldn't these subsidies also have a positive effect facilitating a long distance trade?

Nowadays the governments are spending huge amounts on infrastructure like roads and bridges. From this episode it is not clear why spending on roads and subsidizing long distance trade was bad for Roman economy.

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Viktor
5/9/2021 01:08:25 pm

The first sentence should read:

From this episode I could not quite understand what is so bad about subsidies that make it viable to move goods over long distances.

Reply
Ben
5/20/2021 09:22:44 am

Hey Viktor!

Great question. To clarify, nothing is bad about it per se. As you said, some level of government subsidy is necessary to keeping the lights on in any complex society. The only problem in this case was that when the government collapsed, the subsidies went away, and the trade died almost immediately. In other words, the economic system was not self sustaining. Which isn't really a judgement, it's sort of just what happened.

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    Benjamin JAcobs

    Urban Planner by day. History Podcaster by night.

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