Economic history of Britain

THE writers of this book are only too well aware that they have attempted the virtually impossible. To cover in three hundred pages the thousand years of British economic development, neglecting nothing significant at any stage, is physically impossible; to write on such a subject without political prejudice, without personal bias, without undue national insularity, is morally little less so. Readers are therefore invited to look upon what follows as no more than what it is an introductory first approxima tion; in matters of fact to make use of Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce and Lipson's The Economic History of England to correct its inadequacy; in matters of judgment and opinion to use their own experience and bias to correct those of the authors.

The aim of the latter has been to present a clear and consistent picture, the facts of which shall be in conformity with the latest academic research-a proviso which has not made their task any the easier. Many subjects appear more rather than less complicated in the light of recent work; to take only one example, the "typical manor " of the earlier text-books has dissolved itself into a variety of diverse institutions which do not lend themselves to brief, simple treatment. The idea that medieval society was static has been abandoned.

Throughout the authors have tried to emphasize the many-sidedness of English life, to insist on the importance of geographical and traditional factors in change, to avoid false simplifications and convenient but exploded legends,