Introduction

The Program Committee for the thirty-seventh annual meeting of the Economic History Association was formed in late November 1976, ten months before the convention. The Committee selected the participants whose papers are published in this issue after a comprehensive consultation procedure with a large and wide-ranging sample of members of the Association. The basic guidelines followed by the Program Committee may be briefly stated. First, it was felt that the session topics should pertain to past achievements in the field, as well as reflect issues relevant to the 1970s. Hence, it was decided to include a “summing up session,” in which the importance and achievements of three influential schools in economic history could be evaluated. The three other sessions, as well as the majority of workshops, dealt with issues which were felt to be of considerable interest to scholars at present and in the foreseeable future.