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.

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