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A discussion fifty years ago of comparative economic history would have taken a broader view and would probably have been concerned very largely with exploring along the trails blazed by Max Weber and Marc Bloch. They were interested in many other aspects of economic history besides economic growth and I hope that similar broader interests will shortly show signs of reanimation. In spite of the present popularity of quantitative studies of changes in production, I hope some discussions at this meeting will examine comparative studies of forms of economic organization and the human qualities those structures reflected or generated. But my remarks here accord with the present preoccupation with that kind of economic history in which the all-important questions relate to the causes of economic growth. And I limit myself to one aspect only, the influence of governments.

AS Hugh Aitken explained in our September issue, the editorship of this, the spring number of THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, which in memory of Edwin F. Gay is entitled also THE TASKS OF ECONOMIC HISTORY, falls now on someone involved in preparing the program for our annual meeting. Except in our business meeting and in the session devoted to discussing doctoral dissertations, we met last fall with the International Economic History Association. Accordingly we are presenting here, in addition to the summaries of dissertations, a few of the papers which were prepared for the Fourth Congress of the International Economic History Association and which were discussed at its meeting at the University of Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana, September 10–14, 1968. This issue of THE JOURNAL may be considered a kind of supplement to the volume containing the proceedings of the Congress, a volume which is in the process of publication by the University of Indiana Press. In order to minimize delays in the publication of those proceedings, the Executive Committee of the International Economic History Association approved restricting its content to the rapports and brief summaries of the communications. Other outlets are being found for the full texts of the many valuable communications presented for discussion at Bloomington.

While it is inevitable that the word "capitalism" will be used by various participants at the Congress in various senses, some mutual understandings concerning the different meanings likely to be intended may help to clarify the discussions. The following is an attempt (a) to indicate the different usages which will probably occur, (b) to suggest modifying adjectives or substitute terms by which the different meanings may be distinguished, and (c) to indicate relevant historical questions.

The opinion that spice prices rose in Europe in the century before 1492 and that that had something to do with Europe's oceanic expansion is remarkably persistent, in spite of the blow delivered to it by A. H. Lybyer more than a half-century ago. A distinct drop, however, in the price of spices, and particularly of pepper, between the decades 1420-1430 and 1440-1450 is indicated by a recent study of Antwerp prices, which thus reinforces the suggestion of older scattered figures from Navarre, England, and Klosterneuburg (Vienna). Pepper fell about 50 percent in that interval and did not return to its former high level until after 1498. In view of Venice's preeminent position in the trade in those decades, Venice is the obvious place to look for the source of a decline of prices generally in the West. Wholesale prices of pepper at Venice, 1363-1510, drawn mainly from diaries, merchants' account books, and letters, are shown in the accompanying Table 1. This explains the fall in prices in northern and western Europe. After selling at between 83 and 157 ducats percargoin 1411-1426, pepper prices at Venice fell to 50 in 1432 and drifted lower in the 1440's and 1470's, occasionally even going below 40. Rarely did the price rise above 55 ducats acargountil the interruption of Venetian voyages by the war with the Ottoman Turks in 1499.

The economic development of Venice claims attention for several reasons. As the birthplace of capitalism, Venice has been assigned a leading role in a semi-Marxist scheme of world history. Within a more specifically historical and geographical framework, it presents a classic case of maturity and decay. After being for centuries a leader among world markets it was so placed as to register the effects of the oceanic shift in the world's trade during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

When requested in the spring of 1961 to review the overdue third volume of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, I read eagerly the proof copy sent me and then wrote this review, fearing that if I delayed until the volume was actually out the lapse of time would dull my reactions. Time had already blunted the impact of some of the contributions, for example, the opening essay, "The Rise of Towns," by H. van Werveke. No wonder, since he finished writing it, as he tells us in a footnote, in 1940 (sic), and retouched it in 1953 and 1956 Such long-suffering contributors deserve to be reviewed before 1963, but only in this year has the Cambridge University Press finally released the last of the three volumes planned as an authoritative and balanced account of the economic life of Medieval Europe.