Economic History Old or New

Economic History Old or New JOSEPH A. ERNST George D. Green. Finance and Economic Development in the Old South, Louisiana Banking, 1804-1861. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. $8.75. 268 pp. How are we to read a book like George D. Green's Finance and Economic Development in the Old South? According to its subtitle (which, of course, in the curious fashion of all recent works of history is its true title), the study is about "Louisiana Banking, 1804-1861." Yet by actual count of the 182 pages of text less than a quarter offer anything more than the sketchiest historical description or analysis of banking and financial practices and economic changes in Louisiana during the half-century before the Civil War. The remainder of the work, which is to say the bulk of the book, is taken up by a kind of textbook discussion of recent theories of banking, credit and economic development that may be applied to the general economic situation in antebellum Louisiana. What is happening here? Clearly, this is not a detailed historical monograph in any traditional sense. But what is it exactly, and how are we to understand it? * * * For more than a decade, a group of younger scholars has been obsessed with the problems and promises of the so-called "new 0 economic history, or "cliometrics." Underlying this concern is the belief that historical explanations of economic events are in some general way derivative. Even in the past, the argument goes, economic historians have depended for their interpretations on some body of acceptable economic theory, however disguised, deficient or anticipated. But now the time has come, it is said, for scholars to make clear what it is they have been doing and to discard their outmoded and outworn methodologies in favour of those explicit models or paradigms of explanation that have been employed with such apparent success by the modern economic community. Specifically, under the new dispensation economic historians are to make explicit use of the mathematical and statistical models that econometricians have created to describe and explain contemporary events. Some adjustments will prove necessary, of course, in the continuing effort to test the validity of these theories for the past. But however difficult the THE CANADIAN REVIEW OF AMERICAN STUDIES VOL. III, NO. 2 1 FALL 1972 process, the results of this endeavour are to be nothing less than a "revolution in historical re-appraisal and a restructuring of historical inquiry." Whether or not the revolution is upon us, cliometrics, as one of its leading practitioners has recently pointed out, currently occupies "the centre of the stage in American economic history." The reasons for this pre-eminence seem clear. In revolt against what they see as the ambiguities of the subjective history and methodology of the past, cliometricians have demonstrated a zeal to substitute a "scientific" methodology of the present whereby problems may be quantified, methematical models employed, question and assumptions made explicit, and theories verified. In short, cliometrics offers the possibility of writing true "scientific " history, a captivating vision that has always fascinated historians. This is not the place to attempt an assessment of the problems and potentials of the new economic history. The difficulties facing cliometricians are formidable and have been discussed at length by Fritz Redlich and others. As for the potentials, they are considerable. The quest for a "science of history" is not an unworthy goal after all, nor would it be wise of any scholar to ignore the advances in an important area of methodology. Nonetheless the new economic history does present certain obstacles that bring us around to a major theme of Professor Green's study of banking in antebellum Louisiana. To begin with there is the obvious fact that one of the major problems with the new cliometric models is that they are not easily comprehended. They assume a degree of conceptual sophistication and mathematical literacy that is beyond the grasp of all but a very few historians, including many economic historians - and this reviewer. In addition, it seems impossible to make many concessions to the ignorance of ordinary historians in these matters. Mathematical models cannot be translated into the foggy and categorical language of...