The Cambridge History of Capitalism. Edited by Larry Neal and Jeffrey Williamson.Cambridge University Press; 1,400 pages; £150. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

ECONOMICS publishing has recently undergone a great democratisation. High-quality academic writing was once confined to a handful of journals, mostly accessible in academic libraries. The journals still exist, but mostly serve to influence university hiring decisions. Writing has overwhelmingly gone online, where ambitious academics release free working papers, plug them on Twitter, and watch the discussion unfold. Though this democratisation has critics, it has vastly expanded the audience for economics writing.

This, in turn, may prime the market for another throwback: the authoritative collection of essays. For readers whose interest has been piqued online, the anthology provides an appealing way to learn about a range of subjects. “The Cambridge History of Capitalism” is an excellent example of the genre. In two volumes edited by two eminent economic historians, Larry Neal and Jeffrey Williamson, the collection provides a wide-ranging tour of capitalism.

The editors define capitalist systems as having secure contracts, property rights and markets with flexible prices, and surviving long enough to make big investments worthwhile. The story of such systems begins early. Through most of pre-industrial history Malthusian logic reigned; workers laboured in subsistence agriculture and productivity gains quickly led to unsustainable population growth. Yet now and again civilisations broke this mould and developed economic features that were recognisably capitalist.

Michael Jursa of the University of Vienna examines the mercantile spirit of Babylonians in the first millennium BC. Peace and good governance (including investment in things such as irrigation systems) enabled a sustained rise in agricultural productivity to take place. This in turn boosted population growth and freed workers from the land, allowing for the development of specialised urban trades.

Ancient capitalism was a distant varietal. In ancient Greece income grew at between 0.07% and 0.14% per year—outstanding by the standards of all but the past three centuries. Manufacturing took place on a small scale. Though capital occasionally meant machinery—waterwheels, for example—technology was not systematically applied to production. Most capital was held in the form of land and slaves.

When Malthusian dynamics do reassert themselves, shifting political conditions are typically to blame. Persia’s control of Babylon weakened those who depended upon commercial activity for their wealth, eventually contributing to a long decline. And the destruction of the western Roman Empire led to a political and economic fragmentation that made western Europe an economic backwater for half a millennium.

Trade may be instinctive, but the institutions of capitalism are a product of social evolution. The rise of the West seems to have had little to do with local smarts or work ethic. Indeed, some of the earliest capitalist innovations in Italy—like rules on issuing credit—were imported from the Abbasid caliphate, which ruled much of the Middle East from the eighth century to the tenth, reckons Sevket Pamuk of the London School of Economics.

But as the second volume shows, it was in the West that capitalist institutions flourished, especially from the late 17th century. Government intervention went hand-in-hand with growth. Robert Allen of Oxford University credits Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father of America, with sowing the seeds of prosperity by supporting public investment in infrastructure. Prussia established universal primary education by 1763, thereby creating a workforce capable of boosting economic development.

Non-Western economies struggled, by contrast, often because of Western influence. Mr Allen argues that colonisers saddled Africa with corrupt governments that hindered growth. Farsighted investments were typically neglected in favour of projects dedicated to resource extraction.

This history emphasises that the capitalism upon which Western wealth was built was not particularly laissez-faire. Without the cheap cotton produced by African slaves, reckons Gareth Austin of the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the industrial revolution would have been less revolutionary. Western businesses benefited from conquest: during the mid-19th-century Opium Wars with China, governments supported the drug-smuggling activities of firms like Jardine Matheson.

Messrs Neal and Williamson have compiled a thoughtful account of capitalism. Rarely is economic history so accessible. Yet it is unclear who is meant to read it. University libraries will buy a copy, but the material is not especially rigorous by academic standards and is better suited to the ordinary reader. The price, however, is not. At £150, the work may not appeal to the casual economics readers who have benefited most from the online revolution. The publishers will have their reasons: large margins may be earned on limited sales to libraries and rich bankers. There is talk of a paperback version. But the upshot, for the moment at least, is that most readers will turn elsewhere for their economic history. That’s capitalism for you.