Right now I am reading The Black Death in Egypt and England: a comparative study by Stuart Borsch. It compares the macroeconomic effects of the black death in E

Right now I am reading The Black Death in Egypt and England: a comparative study by Stuart Borsch. It compares the macroeconomic effects of the black death in England in Egypt. The relative power of the aristocracy to control or fail to control the supply and price of labor not only affected wages in the short term but agricultural productivity and eventually the foundation for industrialization and entrepreneurship. I am only a third of the way through, but it so far seems thoroughly researched, without the dodgy understanding of economics in many (most?) historical nonfiction books. The only potential problem is that I want to believe that the dystopian sounding world ruled by mamluks was an economic disaster waiting to happen, so I am wary of my reading being overly credulous. It could be that irrigation dependent agriculture was more brittle infrastructure, but I haven't yet had time to finish or digest the book yet. From the introduction England: > In spite of the disputes over many significant issues, scholars agree about certain aspects of the outcome in Western Europe, particularly northwestern Europe. In many areas, urban and rural wages rose, land rents declined, grain prices dropped, agricultural output became more diversified, and unemployment levels decreased. Furthermore, the percentage decrease of agrarian and total output was less than that of the population, and per capita incomes rose. Overall economic recovery was largely completed by the year 1500. Landholding systems were transformed, and the manorial system, which was on the wane in some areas, collapsed in many parts of Western Europe, and was replaced by tenant farming or small peasant landholdings. Where these conclusions are accepted, they are often accepted as an axiomatic response to the relative scarcity of labor and the abundance of land that accompanied depopulation. The concessions that landlords made to peasants also seem to be an obvious consequence of the relative scarcity of rural labor. Egypt: > Wages dropped precipitously, land rents increased, grain prices rose, agricultural output became less diversified, and unemployment levels increased. The percentage decrease in agrarian and total output was greater than that of the population, and per capita incomes plummeted. The landholding system did not undergo a radical transformation, and the aristocracy was able to successfully contest the demands of scarce rural labor. Furthermore, economic recovery was nowhere in sight by 1500; the agrarian system lay in ruins, and agricultural output had declined by approximately sixty-eight percent. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Black-Death-Egypt-England-Comparative-dp-0292706170/dp/0292706170 https://smile.amazon.com/Black-Death-Egypt-England-Comparati...