Eric Jones (economic historian)
Eric Lionel Jones was a British-Australian economist and historian, known for his 1981 book The European Miracle.
Jones received a doctorate in economic history from the Oxford University. From 1970 to 1975, he was professor of economics at Northwestern University in United States. From 1975 to 1994 he was a professor of economics and economics history at La Trobe University, in Australia. Jones has also had visiting appointments at Yale, Manchester, Princeton, University of Berlin and the Center for Economic Studies at Munich.
As of the early 2000s, he was Emeritus Professor of Economic Systems and Ideas at La Trobe University, and he held a half-time Professorial Fellow position at the Melbourne Business School of the University of Melbourne in Australia and the part-time Professor of Economics position at the Graduate Center of International Business of the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.
Jones has also acted as a consultant for businesses and international organizations such as the World Bank.
Eric Lionel Jones died on March 1, 2024 aged 87.
Work
Eric Jones specialized in economic history, global economics, international affairs and economic systems, particularly in those of the Asian-Pacific region.Eric Jones is the author of numerous articles and several books.
His most notable work is The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia book. The work popularized the term European miracle, but it also proved controversial, with some scholars describing his interpretation as 'Eurocentric'.
In Growth Recurring Jones focused on the states system theory as the decisive factor in the development of the West.
Books
- Seasons & Prices: the role of the weather in English agricultural history
- Agriculture and the Industrial Revolution
- The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia
- A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters 1500-1900
- Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History
- Coming Full Circle: An Economic History of the Pacific Rim
- The Record of Global Economic Development
- Cultures Merging: a historical and economic critique of culture
- Locating the Industrial Revolution: inducement and response
- The Fabric of Society and how it creates wealth
- Revealed Biodiversity: an economic history of the human impact
- The Middle Ridgeway and its environment .
- Small Earthquake in Wiltshire: Seventeenth-century conflict and its resolution
- Landed Estates and Rural Inequality in England: From the mid-seventeenth century to the present
- Barriers to Growth: English economic development from the Norman Conquest to Industrialisation
- ''A History of Livestock and Wildlife: animal wealth and human usage''