Primitive Accumulation and Early Industrialization in Britain

Abstract

It was the late T. S. Ashton, with his comment in the preface to his volume on the eighteenth century, published in 1955, that no word ending in 'ism' would be found in it, who encouraged an already growing practice among economic historians of referring to change and development by neutral sounding phrases. The implication was, and evidently still is, that specific references to historical or sociological categories-to the concept in particular of capitalism-was somehow not respectable, and if respectable, then not useful. It was an especially silly comment to come from the man who succeeded Tawney at the London School of Economics, not least because Tawney had already commented rather tartly on the attitude that Ashton was later to take up.