Book Review: An Economic History of England: The 18th Century by
T. S. Ashton JULY 01, 1956 by BETTINA BIEN GREAVES New York:
Barnes & Noble, Inc. 257 pp. $4.00. Despite the romanticism of
folk tales, life was far from idyllic in the days when Jack-of-
the-Beanstalk and his young contemporaries trudged along
picturesque country lanes, leading the family cow or pigs to
market. Conditions changed slowly in those times. Before 1700
life was pretty much the same throughout the world. A long cold
winter or an exceptionally wet season made life in the quaint
cottages of fairy-tale renown so uncomfortable that mortality
rates zoomed. Thousands of ragged and homeless beggars could
find no employment in the rigidly protected industrial and
social hierarchy of that era. But in the eighteenth century,
liberal ideas began to have a marked effect on everyday life in
England. Gradually men realized that government should not be
permitted to interfere with their private lives. They came to
believe they should be free to use