[B] = Beckert, Sven, and Seth Rockman, eds. Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780812248418. [Preview with Google Books]
[P] = Palmer, R. R., Joel Colton, and Lloyd Kramer. A History of the Modern World. 9th ed. Knopf, 2002. ISBN: 9780375413988.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | McCloskey, Deirdre N. “The Formula for a Richer World? Equality, Liberty, Justice,” New York Times, September 2, 2016. |
| 2 | Perspectives on Capitalism and Financial Crisis |
Hodgson, Geoffrey M. “A Definition of Capitalism.” Chapter 10 in Conceptualizing Capitalism: Institutions, Evolution, Future. University of Chicago Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780226419695. [Preview with Google Books] Kocka, Jürgen. “What Does Capitalism Mean?” Chapter 1 in Capitalism: A Short History. Princeton University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780691165226. [Preview with Google Books] McCloskey, Deirdre N. “Exordium: The Three Volumes Show That We Are Rich Because of an Ethical and Rhetorical Change.” In Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World. University of Chicago Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780226333991. [Preview with Google Books] Minsky, Hyman P. “The Financial Instability Hypothesis.” (PDF) Working Paper No. 74, the Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, May 1992. Sewell, William H. “The Capitalist Epoch.” Social Science History 38, no. 1–2 (2014): 1–11. Optional [P] Chapter 6, Section 29: The Global Economy of the Eighteenth-Century. [P] Chapter 6, Section 30: Western Europe After the Peace of Utrecht, 1713–40. |
| 3 | The Mississippi Bubble |
Harms, Robert. “The Financiers.” Part 2 in The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave Trade. Basic Books, 2002. ISBN: 9780465028726. [Preview with Google Books] Macdonald, James. “The Chimera.” Chapter 5 in A Free Nation Deep in Debt: The Financial Roots of Democracy. Princeton University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780691126326. [Preview with Google Books] Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat. “Letter 138,” “Letter 142,” and “Letter 146.” In Persian Letters. Translated with an introduction and notes by C. J. Betts. Penguin, 1973. ISBN: 9780140442816. Murphy, Antoin E. “John Law: Innovating Theorist and Policymaker.” Chapter 13 in The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets. Edited by William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780195175714. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 4 | The South Sea Bubble |
Chancellor, Edward. “The Never-to-Be-Forgot or Forgiven South-Sea Scheme.” Chapter 3 in Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. ISBN: 9780374138585. Trenchard, John, and Thomas Gordon. “The Preface.” In Cato’s Letters: Or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects, Four Volumes in Two: Vol. 1. Edited and annotated by Ronald Hamowy. Liberty Fund, 1995. ISBN: 9780865971295. ———. “Nos. 1–11.” In Cato’s Letters: Or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects, Four Volumes in Two: Vol. 1. Edited and annotated by Ronald Hamowy. Liberty Fund, 1995. ISBN: 9780865971295. Review the South Sea Bubble Resources Collection website. Then, identify one primary source in the collection that is of particular interest to you, so that you can request it in person during our visit to the Baker Library at Harvard Business School. |
| 5 | Monopoly Capitalism and Financial Innovation |
Kaiser, Thomas E. “Money, Despotism, and Public Opinion in Early Eighteenth-Century France: John Law and the Debate on Royal Credit.” Journal of Modern History 63, no. 1 (1991): 1–28. Neal, Larry. “Venture Shares of the Dutch East India Company.” Chapter 9 in The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets. Edited by William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780195175714. [Preview with Google Books] Smith, Adam. “Book IV, Chapter VII: Of Colonies.” In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Vol. 2. Library of Economics and Liberty. Depending on whether you are more interested in political theory (Stern) or sociology and trade (Erikson), read either of the following: Stern, Philip J. “Companies: Monopoly, Sovereignty, and the East Indies.” Chapter 8 in Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire. Edited by Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind. Oxford University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780199988532. [Preview with Google Books] Erikson, Emily. “The European Trade with the East Indies.” Chapter 3 in Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company, 1600–1757. Princeton University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780691173795. |
| 6 | Plantation Capitalism |
Blackburn, Robin. “Colonial Slavery and the Eighteenth-Century Boom.” Chapter 9 in The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800. Verso, 2010. ISBN: 9781844676316. Burnard, Trevor, and John Garrigus. “A Comparative History of Jamaica and Saint-Domingue.” Chapter 1 in The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780812248296. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “The Golden Age of the Plantocracy.” Chapter 7 in The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780812248296. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 7 | The Question of Money (some Anglo-American examples) |
Desan, Christine. “Money as a Legal Institution.” Chapter 2 in Money in the Western Legal Tradition: Middle Ages to Bretton Woods. Edited by David Fox and Wolfgang Ernst. Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780198704744. [Preview with Google Books] Ferguson, E. James. “Currency Finance: An Interpretation of Colonial Money Practices.” William and Mary Quarterly 10, no. 2 (1953): 153–80. The Currency Act of 1764, the American Revolution. Mather, Cotton. “Some Considerations on the Bills of Credit Now Passing in New-England,” Evans Early American Imprint Collection. Optional [P] Chapter 6, Section 31: The Great War of the Mid-Eighteenth Century: The Peace of Paris, 1763. [P] Chapter 8, Section 39: New Stirrings: The British Reform Movement. [P] Chapter 8, Section 40: The American Revolution. |
| 8 | Tea, the American Revolution, and the British Empire |
Fichter, James R. “Death of the India Monopoly.” Chapter 9 in So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism. Harvard University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780674050570. Labaree, Benjamin W. Catalyst for Revolution: The Boston Tea Party 1773. Massachusetts Bicentennial Commission Publication, 1973. Review the Boston Tea Party page on the Massachusetts Historical Society website, and select one source for presentation to the seminar. |
| 9 | The Economic and Financial Origins of the French Revolution (I) |
Bossenga, Gail. “Financial Origins of the French Revolution.” Chapter 1 in From Deficit to Deluge: The Origins of the French Revolution. Edited by Thomas E. Kaiser and Dale K. Van Kley. Stanford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780804772815. [Preview with Google Books] Kwass, Michael. “The Global Underground: Smuggling, Rebellion, and the Origins of the French Revolution.” Chapter 1 in The French Revolution in Global Perspective. Edited by Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson. Cornell University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780801478680. [Preview with Google Books] Optional [P] Chapter 9, Section 41: Backgrounds. [P] Chapter 9, Section 42: The Revolution and the Reorganization of France. [P] Chapter 9, Section 43: The Revolution and Europe: The War and the ‘Second’ Revolution, 1792. [P] Chapter 9, Section 44: The Emergency Republic, 1792–1795: The Terror. |
| 10 | The Economic and Financial Origins of the French Revolution (II) |
Clay, Lauren R. “The Bourgeoisie, Capitalism, and the Origins of the French Revolution.” Chapter 2 in The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution. Edited by David Andress. Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780199639748. [Preview with Google Books] Darnton, Robert. “The Pursuit of Profit: Rousseauism on the Bourse.” Chapter 7 in George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century. W. W. Norton and Company, 2003. ISBN: 9780393337471. Hunt, Lynn. “The Global Financial Origins of 1789.” Chapter 2 in The French Revolution in Global Perspective. Edited by Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson. Cornell University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780801478680. [Preview with Google Books] Desan, Suzanne. “Transatlantic Spaces of Revolution: The French Revolution, Sciotomanie, and American Lands.” Journal of Early Modern History 12, no. 6 (2008): 467–505. Taylor, George V. “The Paris Bourse on the Eve of the Revolution, 1781–1789.” American Historical Review 67, no. 4 (1962): 951–77. |
| 11 | The Revolutionary Origins of American Capitalism |
Maier, Pauline. “The Revolutionary Origins of the American Corporation.” William and Mary Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1993): 51–84. Rothenberg, Winifred Barr. “The Invention of American Capitalism: The Economy of New England in the Federal Period.” Chapter 2 in Engines of Enterprise: An Economic History of New England. Edited by Peter Temin. Harvard University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780674009844. Wood, Gordon S. “The Enemy is Us: Democratic Capitalism in the Early Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 16, no. 2 (1996): 293–308. |
| 12 | Slavery and American Capitalism (I) |
[B] “Introduction.” [B] Baptist, Edward E. Chapter 1: Toward a Political Economy of Slave Labor: Hands, Whipping-Machines, and Modern Power. [B] Rothman, Joshua D. Chapter 5: The Contours of Cotton Capitalism: Speculation, Slavery, and Economic Panic in Mississippi, 1832-1841. |
| 13 | Slavery and American Capitalism (II) |
[B] Kimball, Eric. Chapter 8: “What have we to do with slavery?” - New Englanders and the Slave Economies of the West Indies. [B] Wilder, Craig Steven. Chapter 11: War and Priests: Catholic Colleges and Slavery in the Age of Revolution. [B] Brophy, Alfred L. Chapter 13: The Market, Utility, and Slavery in Southern Legal Thought. Johnson, Walter. “The Pedestal and the Veil: Rethinking the Capitalism / Slavery Question.” Journal of the Early Republic 24, no. 2 (2004): 299–308. Optional [B] Schermerhorn, Calvin. Chapter 10: The Coastwise Slave Trade and a Mercantile Community of Interest. |
| 14 | Capitalism Today |
Picketty, Thomas. “Introduction.” In Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Belknap Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780674430006. [Preview with Google Books] Rakoff, Jed S. “The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted?” New York Review of Books, January 9, 2014. Yardley, Jim, and Binyamin Applebaum. “In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism,” New York Times, July 11, 2015. |
| 15 | Final class | No readings assigned |
