Prologue: Herbert Kisch, the Man and His Work; 1 Introductory Comments; Why Study Rhenish Economic History?; The Textile Trades: An Engine of Protoindustrialization; Methodological Excuses; 2 Variations upon an Eighteenth-Century Theme: Prussian Mercantilism and the Rise of the Krefeld Silk Industry; Enlightenment Limited: The Plan That Failed; From Persecution to Profit; Tight Little Families; Ambience for Success; Apologia Borussica; 3 From Monopoly to Laissez-Faire: The Early Growth of the Wupper Valley Textile Trades; A ""Frontier"" in Medieval Days
Rural Industrialization: The Toddler StagePrimitive Accumulation Succeeds; Early Eighteenth-Century Progress; Halcyon Days of l'Ancien Régime; Social Consequences; 4 Growth Deterrents of a Medieval Heritage: The Aachen Area Woolen Trades Before 1790; The Rise and Decline of Guild Industry; Religious Strife: Symptom of Corporate Stagnation; Rural Dynamic: The Expansion of Domestic Manufacture; Capitalism Comes to Town; 5 The Impact of the French Revolution on the Lower Rhine Textile Districts; The Setting; War, Occupation, and Inflation; The Profits of Collaboration; The End of an Era; Outlook
