PREFATORY NOTE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

HE first edition of these selections was published

THE

as a text-book of required reading to accompany a course of lectures on economic history given at Harvard College. It was also adopted for a similar purpose by other American Universities. A continued demand for the work has led to the preparation of the present revised and enlarged edition. The design of the book has been to exhibit in a series of articles of permanent value different phases of economic thought, and to present in chronological order a narrative of some of the more important events and influences of modern economic history.

In this edition one chapter contained in the former edition has been omitted and five new selections have been introduced. Appendices have also been added as the most convenient form in which to place laws, purely statistical material, and

very recent economical data. A bibliography has likewise been inserted, which it is hoped may be of service in the formation of special libraries of economic history. The present edition moreover contains an index.

The names of publishers, to whose courtesy is due the permission to reprint a number of the selections, will be found at the beginning of the respective chapters.

CAMBRIDGE, December, 1891.

B. R.

PREFATORY NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

Five new selections have been added to the present edition of the Economic History, thereby bringing it down to the end of the nineteenth century. More recent material also has been substituted for the fifth Appendix. The Select Bibliography of Economics, which appeared in the third edition, has been omitted, as it has been reprinted in a separate volume. The names of the authors and publishers, through whose kindness the reprints have been allowed to be made, are placed, as in former editions, at the opening of the several chapters.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., September, 1903.

B. R.