iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

This week's review!--H.J. Habakkuk's 1962 American and British Technology. On why Britain fell behind America, technologically, in the 19th century (and why the answer isn't a lack of entrepreneurial spirit). For those craving yet more 1960s economic history classics.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Frost and Sunshine

American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labour-Saving Inventions, H. J. Habakkuk, 1962.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This week’s review!—Lynn White Jr’s infamous Medieval Technology and Social Change. Because they don’t make historians of technology like they used to.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Horsing Around

Medieval Technology and Social Change, Lynn White Jr, 1962.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

With a short supplemental on Hobsbawm and culture.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

This weeks' review! On Emile Chabal's new biography of Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Hobsbawm. My attempt to have a poke at the surprisingly topical question: was Hobsbawm Great? unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com/p/past-and-p...

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Past & Present

The Age of Hobsbawm: The Life of a Revolutionary Historian, Emile Chabal, 2026.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

This week’s review! - wrapping up Sven Beckert’s Capitalism: A Global History. The non-Eurocentric historian doth protest too much, methinks.

open.substack.com

Beyond the Shadow

Capitalism: A Global History, Sven Beckert, 2025 (pt.II).

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

This week's review! - My attempt to tackle Sven Beckert's monstrous Capitalism: A Global History. The good, the bad, and the ugly of (trying to) imitate Fernand Braudel.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Cut Adrift

Capitalism: A Global History, Sven Beckert, 2025 (pt.I).

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Johannes Boehm @johannesmboehm.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

It's been great fun talking to @angusbylsma.bsky.social about coins, trade, the 'end of antiquity', and even a little bit about methods and questions in economics and economic history.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

This one is a longer read than my usual reviews. So maybe sit down with a beer or a coffee. Here’s a taste—as you can see, I’ve got questions for historians, for economists, and for methodological navel-gazers!

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

This week’s post!—an interview with Johannes Boehm about his spectacular new paper with Thomas Chaney, ‘Trade and the End of Antiquity’. Whether your interests are early medieval history, trade theory, or just coins, this one is worth your time.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Trade and the End of Antiquity

An Interview with Johannes Boehm

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Sam Thorpe @samthorpe.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

New from me, on the wonderful @angusbylsma.bsky.social's blog: an essay about the collapse of Bretton Woods and the possibility of building such a system anew today, and a review of Martin Daunton’s comprehensive history of The Economic Government of the World.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Slouching Towards Liberalization

The Economic Government of the World, Martin Daunton, 2023 (Pt.II).

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

This week’s review!—back to Daunton, this time on the demolition of Bretton Woods and the potential lessons within. A guest post by the brilliant @samthorpe.bsky.social.

open.substack.com

Slouching Towards Liberalization

The Economic Government of the World, Martin Daunton, 2023 (Pt.II).

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Sam Thorpe @samthorpe.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Against my better judgement, I've finally started a (free) Substack. As I explain in my first post, I see this as an avenue to write on some of the big questions that economics research isn't well-suited to: normative claims, historical work, and thinking about the roots of economic analysis.

thestockexchangeandtheholygrail.substack.com

Kicking things off

About me, about this blog

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

This week's review! - Martin Daunton's The Economic Government of the World. Explaining why Bretton Woods was what it was, and wasn't what it wasn't.

open.substack.com

Narrowed Vision

The Economic Government of the World, Martin Daunton, 2023.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

This week’s review! - Robert Yee's The City’s Defence. On economic knowledge, governance, empire, and the making of the postwar world.

open.substack.com

In Control

The City's Defence: The Bank of England and the Remaking of Economic Governance 1919-1939, Robert Yee, 2025.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

This week’s (not) review! - a very short discussion of, and excerpt from, Vasily Grossman’s Everything Flows. For those who prefer their novels unabashedly world-historical…

open.substack.com

History's Decree

Everything Flows, Vasily Grossman, 1994 (2011)

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

This week’s review! - Michael Albertus’ Land Power. A book as filled with interesting vignettes as it is devoid of interesting ideas.

open.substack.com

Reshuffled, Reframed?

Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies, Michael Albertus, 2025.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

This week's review! - Claudia Goldin's Career and Family. History, the Pill, and the Pay Gap. Check it out!

open.substack.com

Ticking Clocks

Career and Family: Women's Century Long Journey Towards Equity, Claudia Goldin, 2021.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Something a little different this week: my thoughts about (Ashley Kahn’s book on) Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, and when Eric Hobsbawm was really, really wrong.

open.substack.com

On a Tightrope

Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and the Making of a Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn, 2000.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

This week’s review! — Peter Temin’s Lessons from the Great Depression. It’s all expectations, baby! (and history, and politics)

open.substack.com

Expecting Worse

Lessons from the Great Depression, Peter Temin, 1991.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

This week's review! - C. B. Schedvin's Australia and the Great Depression. Because I know that what excites your minds most of all are old monographs about the economic history of insignificant countries (seriously though, I promise it is interesting).

open.substack.com

Paying Up

Australia and the Great Depression, C. B. Schedvin, 1970.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

This week’s review! — Douglass North’s Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. On changing your mind, Marxism and neoclassical economics, and, of course, institutional change.

open.substack.com

A Big Price

Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass C. North, 1990.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Fact of the day: the first steam engine was brought to Australia in 1813 by a guy named John Dickson. But no-one knew how to assemble, let alone use it, and so it didn’t begin operating until a mechanic could be brought over from the UK two years later.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Can’t believe no-one has yet written a history of Germany in the 19th/20th century called “Guns, Germans, and Steel”.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

I’m not convinced this ‘historyLLM’ business is anything other than an amusing toy. Great fun for sure, but let’s not pretend we can actually learn anything of historical interest from an LLM trained on pre-1913.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

This week’s review! — Joel Mokyr’s The Enlightened Economy. A big book with a lot to say on what did, and did not, cause the British Industrial Revolution.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Cutting Through

The Enlightened Economy: Britain and the Industrial Revolution 1700-1850, Joel Mokyr, 2011.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

This week’s review! — seizing the moment to start a belated Joel Mokyr journey with The Lever of Riches. While the book’s title reminds one of a second-rate fantasy novel, it is actually anything but. In fact, Mokyr surprised (almost) all my expectations.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Catching Sparks

The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, Joel Mokyr, 1992

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

This week’s review! — my no doubt highly unoriginal take on an old classic, Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms. Malthus, wages, and the question of whether everything is downstream of demography.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Downstream

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Gregory Clark, 2007

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

This week’s review! — Jessica Goldberg on Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean. A book which leaves Avner Greif’s thesis in the same place as the French fleet in 1798: lying at the bottom of the Nile.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Postmen & Police

Trade and Institutions in the Mediaeval Mediterranean: Evidence From the Genizia, Jessica Goldberg, 2012.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

This week’s review! — on Avner Greif’s Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy. Games, institutions, and mediaeval Jewish-Egyptian merchants. Also the closest I’ve ever come to reviewing a work of fiction…

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Cultivating Seeds

Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy, Avner Greif, 2006.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

This week’s review! — more Chris Wickham, this time about the mediaeval commercial revolution. What, where, why and whether it was even a thing.

open.substack.com

Out of Italy

The Donkey and the Boat: Reinterpreting the Mediterranean Economy, 950-1180, Chris Wickham, 2023.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

This week’s review — on central bank independence and… wait no, not that! Actually a much more relevant topic: Chris Wickham’s Inheritance of Rome. On the Byzantine economy, mediaeval Egypt, and the Arab conquest.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Downsizing

The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000, Chris Wickham, 2009.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

This week’s review! — beginning a medieval odyssey with Chris Wickham’s mammoth book, Framing the Early Middle Ages. Taxes, demesnes, slaves, and why Britain really dropped the ball in the 5th century.

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

The Heights of Darkness

Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800, Chris Wickham, 2004.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

This week’s review! — on Catherine Schenk’s superb The Decline of Sterling, and how sterling can and can not help us think about the dollar today (plus some personal news).

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Surprising Persistence

The Decline of Sterling: Managing the Retreat of an International Currency, 1945-1992, Catherine R. Schenk, 2010.

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David Edgerton @davidedgerton.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

This is a wonderful discussion of my Rise and Fall of the British Nation, and the first to note the importance to it of my critique of Cain and Hopkins, which I took, along with that of Anderson and Nairn, to be richest existing analyses of the twentieth century British nation and empire.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

This week’s review! — on @davidedgerton.bsky.social’s The Rise and Fall of the British Nation. Well, less of a review than a discussion of how Edgerton sheds light on the pitfalls of gentlemanly capitalism. Plus a bit about Hobsbawm the nationalist at the end!

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Out of Empire

The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth Century History, David Edgerton, 2018.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Final maths exam next week… here we go!

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Some absolutely fantastic Grossberg paintings here

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

This week’s review! - finishing up my look at Cain and Hopkins’ British Imperialism, on the 20th century. There’s something for everyone - expansion, decline, Sterling, and Eurodollars!

unevenandcombinedthoughts.substack.com

Reglued, Unstuck

British Imperialism 1688-2015, P. J. Cain and A.G Hopkins, 2016.

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Economic historians getting creative

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Angus Bylsma @angusbylsma.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

The Apple Music Classical app has no right being as good as it is

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