Douglass North once emphasized that development takes centuries, but he did not have a theory of how and why change occurs. This groundbreaking book advances such a theory by examining in detail why England and Spain developed so slowly from 1000 to 1800. A colonial legacy must go back centuries...

Silver, mercantilism, and the impulse for colonization -- The first decades of English American settlement, 1607- -- Monetary upheaval, recovery and the Dutch infiltration, 1640- -- Mercantilism, mints, clipping, smuggling, and piracy, 1660- -- Empire in crisis and flux, 1670- -- Showdown in...