Through the mailbox today, a great Christmas present courtesy of the publicity department at Yale University Press – Joel Mokyr's The Enlightened Economy. How could I not love it, with that title? I've been looking forward to reading it properly, and with a few days' holiday now, the timing couldn't be better.

The blurb says:

“Mokyr goes beyond the standard explanations
that credit  geographical factors, the role of markets, politics, and
society to show that the beginnings of modern economic growth in
Britain depended a great deal on what key players knew and believed,
and how those beliefs affected their economic behavior. He argues that
Britain led the rest of Europe into the Industrial Revolution because
it was there that the optimal intersection of ideas, culture,
institutions, and technology existed to make rapid economic growth
achievable. His wide-ranging evidence covers sectors of the British
economy often neglected, such as the service industries.”

A review will follow in due course.

Meanwhile, Season's Greetings to all readers of this blog.