In the half century before the First World War Britain simultaneously expanded its empire and globalized its economy. This book uses the case of Dundee to analyse the impact of these issues of empire and globalization, covering the 'expansionary' period before 1914 and the much more difficult era from the First to the Second War. Dundee is especially well-suited for this purpose given both the strength of its imperial connections (especially with India) and the intensity of its globalization. How did the people of Dundee respond to the challenges of being arguably the most economically globalized city in the world? The answer is complicated by the fact that the aspect of globalization which impacted most directly on the ordinary inhabitants of the city was competition in the jute industry from Calcutta--a city within the British Empire. So Dundee had to cope not only with powerful low-wage competition in jute, its staple industry, but the political reality that for decision-makers in London the fate of the British Empire in India was far more important than the economic well-being of a small Scottish city. This history of Dundee's responses to these challenges combines global economic history with analysis of imperial relations, and examines how these issues were understood by ordinary Dundonians as well as politicians and policy-makers.
Jim Tomlinson's previous book of short stories, Things Kept, Things Left Behind, won the prestigious Iowa Short Fiction Award and received enthusiastic reviews. The New York Times compared the strong sense of place in Tomlinson's writing to that found in the works of Flannery O'Connor and Alice Munro. The stories in his new collection, Nothing Like An Ocean, also reflect Tomlinson's awareness of place, revisiting the fictional town of Spivey, a community in rural Appalachia wh
Most historical accounts of economic policy set out to describe the way in which governments have attempted to solve their economic problems and to achieve their economic objectives. Jim Tomlinson, however, focuses on the problems themselves, arguing that the way in which areas of economic policy become 'problems' for policy makers is always problematic itself, that it is never obvious and never happens 'naturally'.
This approach is quite distinct from the Marxist, the Keynesian or the neo-classical accounts of economic policy, the schools of thought which are described and criticized in the introduction. Subsequent chapters use the issues of unemployment, the gold standard and problems of trade and Empire to demonstrate that these competing accounts all obscure the true complexities of the process. Because they adhere to simple assumptions about the role of economic theory or of 'vested interests' previous histories have been unable adequately to explain the dramatic change after the First World War in attitudes to unemployment, for instance, or the decision to return to gold in 1925. Jim Tomlinson surveys the institutional circumstances, the conflicting political pressures and the theories offered at the time in an attempt to discover the conditions which characterized the questions as economic problems and contributed to the choice of 'solutions'.
The result is a sophisticated and intellectually compelling account of matters which have remained at the forefront of political debate since its first publication in 1981.
As the Victorian era drew to a close, Dundee was the world's jute manufacturing capital - 'Juteopolis'. But behind that success was a harsh working environment and low wages, especially for the predominantly female workforce. There was appalling social distress, resulting in part from abysmal living conditions.
As the present century dawned, a new Dundee was in the making. 'Juteopolis' no more; in the later twentieth century Dundee had pro claimed itself Scotland's 'City of Discovery'. Biosciences and computer games are what many people now associate with Dundee - although journalism is still flourishing. In what has become a university city, students abound where mill workers formerly promenaded.
This book traces the process of industrial decline and its social and political reverberations. But it is also a remarkable story of urban transformation, and how this impacted on jobs, the physical environment, social life, culture and politics.
Jute No More is richly illustrated with over 60 images, most of them published for the first time.