I  thank Robert Margo for what turned out  to be
a useful review of Clark's FAREWELL TO ALMS:
A BRIEF ECONOMIC HSISTORY OF THE  WORLD
.
I will order the  book.

Neither do I agree with Clark's construction of history


HOWEVER.

Big Picture history is an attempt to answer legitimate
big picture questions.  Finding the answers  to such
questions, as Margo implies, is a  reasonable motivation  
for small  picture studies, even though to pursue small 
picture studies is to travel down a path that cannot lead
to big picture answers.  The world is infinitely divisible
into smaller and smaller  pictures, and there is no
end to it.  At some point that path must be abandoned,
and an entirely different path taken, if answering big
questions is the motivation.  By their nature big questions
have to be addressed in a big picture.

Robin Neill