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The Western Experience, 8/e

Mortimer Chambers, University of California - Los Angeles
Barbara Hanawalt, Ohio State University
Theodore Rabb, Princeton University
Isser Woloch, Columbia University
Raymond Grew, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The Wealth of Nations

Problems for Analysis

I. Demographic and Economic Growth


1		1. How might the substantial population growth that occurred during the eighteenth century be explained? What factors do you think were most crucial? Why? 2. What was the significance of rising prices during the eighteenth century? In what ways were different groups affected? 3. What were the consequences of protoindustrialization?

II. The New Shape of Industry


2		1. Compare the conditions prior to industrialization in England and in France. Which conditions do you think are particularly crucial in explaining England's early industrial lead? Why? 2. Using the manufacture of cotton cloth as an example, explain the process whereby a new invention in an industry would create a demand for further innovations in that same industry.

III. Innovation and Tradition in Agriculture


3		1. Why were enclosures so important? Compare the social situation of areas that experienced enclosures with those that did not. What role did innovations in agricultural techniques play in the enclosure movement? 2. Compare the condition of serfs and peasants in Eastern and Western Europe.

IV. Eighteenth-Century Empires


4		1. Why was colonial trade so important? How did policies related to colonial trade reflect the theory of mercantilism? 2. Explain how the different patterns of French and British colonization influenced the Great War for Empire and the strategy used by Britain to gain victories. Did the Treaty of Paris prove to be a great blessing for Britain? Why?

2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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