It's a Long, Long Road to Tipperary, or Reflections on Organized Violence, Protection Rates, and Related Topics: The New Political History

Twenty years ago Professor Frederic C. Lane recognized the close connection between economics and political history and suggested that it is impossible to understand fully the first without some understanding of the second. Relatively little work has been done in that area over the ensuing two decades. In that period both social and political historians have become more quantitative, and although their work has permitted us to discuss some alleged explanations of social and political development, it has not really produced viable alternatives. This failure is linked with the theoretical nature of the analysis. Although there does not appear to be a useful body of theory in sociology, positive political science offers such a structure for our understanding of political history.