Agenda for European Economic History in the 1970s

Economists and historians have raked over the economic experience of Europe like a family ransacking the town dump for a diamond ring inadvertently dropped into the trash. Now and then they run hurriedly over the whole field. Most of the time they are digging deep in one corner or rushing anxiously from one spot to another, picking up the objects they find there, examining them closely and then discarding them. The results are a junk collector's delight. But they do not necessarily include any diamonds.