All students should read the articles (or in a few cases designated selections from longer books) assigned for each week. Graduate students should further supplement that reading with an additional book selected from the book suggestions. Any undergraduate who wishes to read one of the suggested books is of course welcome to do so. Moreover, book review subjects (see the Assignments section) should be drawn primarily from the readings listed in this table.
| WEEK # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Deep History and Big Data: Understanding Long-term Global Processes |
Davidson, Adam. “The Economy’s Missing Metrics.” New York Times Magazine, July 1, 2015.
Steckel, Richard H. “Big Social Science History: Presidential Address.” Social Science History 31, no. 1 (2007): 1–34. View for Discussion New Economic Thinking. “Is Technology Killing Capitalism?” August 17, 2016. YouTube. Serious Science. “Explaining Modern Economic Growth – Deirdre McCloskey.” June 15, 2016. YouTube. |
| 2 | Energy, the Standard of Living, and Measuring Economic Growth |
Cherlin, Andrew J. “Why Are White Death Rates Rising?” New York Times, February 22, 2016. Harper, Kyle. “Civilization, Climate, and Malthus: The Rough Course of Global History.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 45, no. 4 (2015): 549–66. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen. “Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World.” (PDF) ———. “It Was Ideas and Ideologies, Not Interests or Institutions Which Changed in Northwestern Europe, 1600–1848.” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 25, no. 1 (2015): 57–68. Book Suggestions Allen, Robert C. Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780199596652. [Preview with Google Books] Morris, Ian. The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations. Princeton University Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780691155685. [Preview with Google Books] ———. Why the West Rules-For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future. Picador, 2011. ISBN: 9780312611699. Sen, Amartya. The Standard of Living. Edited by Geoffrey Hawthorn. Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780521368407. [Preview with Google Books] Wrigley, Edward Anthony. The Path to Sustained Growth: England’s Transition from an Organic Economy to an Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9781316504284. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 3 | The Tech Boom of the Middle Ages |
Prak, Maarten. “Mega-Structures of the Middle Ages: The Construction of Religious Buildings in Europe and Asia, c. 1000–1500.” Journal of Global History 6, no. 3 (2011): 381–406. Roland, Alex. “Once More into the Stirrups: Lynn White Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change.” Technology and Culture 44, no. 3 (2003): 574–85. Book Suggestions Allsen, Thomas T. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles. Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780521893145. Mokyr, Joel. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780195074772. [Preview with Google Books] Prak, Maarten, and Jan Luiten Van Zanden. Technology, Skills and the Pre-Modern Economy in the East and the West. Brill, 2013. ISBN: 9789004245358. [Preview with Google Books] White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology & Social Change. Oxford University Press, 1966. ISBN: 9780195002669. |
| 4 | Was Malthus Right?—Plague and the Post-Plague Economy |
Cook, Eli. “For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls.” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 12, 2014. Erdkamp, Paul. “Economic Growth in the Roman Mediterranean World: An Early Goodbye to Malthus?” Explorations in Economic History 60 (2016): 1–20. Grantham, George. “Explaining the Industrial Transition: A Non-Malthusian Perspective.” European Review of Economic History 12, no. 2 (2008): 155–65. Hatcher, John. “Understanding the Population History of England: 1450–1750.” Past & Present 180 (2003): 83–130. Lee, Ronald. “Population Homeostasis and English Demographic History.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15, no. 4 (1985): 635–60. McCants, Anne E. C. “Historical Demography and the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 40, no. 2 (2009): 195–214. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen. “You Know, Ernest, the Rich Are Different from You and Me’: A Comment on Clark’s A Farewell to Alms.” European Review of Economic History 12, no. 2 (2008): 138–48. Persson, Karl Gunnar. “The Malthus Delusion.” European Review of Economic History 12, no. 2 (2008): 165–73. Wrigley, E. A., and R. S. Schofield. “Figure 11.6: England in the Late Sixteenth Century,” “Figure 11.7: England in the Seventeenth Century,” “Figure 11.8: England in the Early Nineteenth Century,” and “Figure 11.9: England Towards the End of the Nineteenth Century.” In The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction (Studies in Social and Democratic History). Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN: 9780674690073. Book Suggestions
Drixler, Fabian. Mabiki: Infanticide and Population Growth in Eastern Japan, 1660–1950. University of California Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780520272439. [Preview with Google Books] Wrigley, E. A., and R. S. Schofield. The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction. Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN: 9780674690073. |
| 5 | The Global Crisis of the 17th Century |
Goldstone, Jack A. “East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political Crises in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 1 (1988): 103–42. Hobsbawm, E. J. “The General Crisis of the European Economy in the 17th Century.” Past & Present Society 5, no. 1 (1954): 33–53. Book Suggestions Goldstone, Jack A. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520082670. Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. Yale University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780300208634. |
| 6 | Consumers Everywhere |
de Vries, Jan. “The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution.” Journal of Economic History 54, no. 2 (1994): 249–70. Lemire, Beverley, and Giorgio Riello. “East & West: Textiles and Fashion in Early Modern Europe.” Journal of Social History 41, no. 4 (2008): 887–916. McCants, Anne E. C. “Poor Consumers as Global Consumers: The Diffusion of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century.” Economic History Review 61, no. 1 (2008): 172–200. ———. “Exotic Goods, Popular Consumption, and the Standard of Living: Thinking About Globalization in the Early Modern World.” Journal of World History 18, no. 4 (2007): 433–62. Book Suggestions Brook, Timothy. Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. Bloomsbury Press, 2009. ISBN: 9781596915992. de Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780521719254. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 7 | The Industrial Revolution |
Crafts, Nicholas. “Productivity Growth in the Industrial Revolution: A New Growth Accounting Perspective.” Journal of Economic History 64, no. 2 (2004): 521–35. de Vries, Jan. “Economic Growth Before and After the Industrial Revolution: A Modest Proposal.” Chapter 10 in Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe 1400–1800. Edited by Maarten Prak. Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 9781138007451. Indiviglio, Daniel. “What Does Productivity Mean For Unemployment?” The Atlantic, November 5, 2009. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen. “Bourgeois Virtue and the History of P and S.” Journal of Economic History 58, no. 2 (1998): 297–317. ———. “The Industrial Revolution.” Prudentia, 2008. Mokyr, Joel. “Demand vs. Supply in the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Economic History 37, no. 4 (1977): 981–1008. ———. “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth.” Journal of Economic History 65, no. 2 (2005): 285–351. Book Suggestions Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective (New Approaches to Economic and Social History). Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780521687850. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen. The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce. University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780226556642. Mokyr, Joel. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700–1850. Yale University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780300189513. |
| 8 | Empire Building: East and West |
Go, Julian. “Capital, Containment, and Competition: The Dynamics of British Imperialism, 1730–1939.” Social Science History 38, no. 1–2 (2014): 43–69. Hoffman, Phillip T. “Why Was it Europeans Who Conquered the World?” Journal of Economic History 72, no. 3 (2012): 601–33. Perdue, Peter C. “Empire and Nation in Comparative Perspective: Frontier Administration in Eighteenth-Century China.” Journal of Early Modern History 5, no. 4 (2001): 282–304. Book Suggestions Bose, Sugata. A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire. 2nd ed. Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780674032194. [Preview with Google Books] Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Capital: 1848–1875. Vintage, 1996. ISBN: 9780679772545. or ———. The Age of Empire: 1875–1914. Vintage, 1989. ISBN: 9780679721758. Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Contrast of Central Eurasia. Belknap Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780674057432. |
| 9 |
Slavery, the ‘Resource Curse’ and Inequality in the Contemporary World? Guest speaker: Professor Johan Fourie, Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University, South Africa |
Hopkins, A. G. “The New Economic History of Africa.” Journal of African History 50, no. 2 (2009): 155–77. Nunn, Nathan. “The Long-term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, no. 1 (2008): 139–76. Africa: Population Density, Open Data for Africa. Population Density - Asia, index mundi. Book Suggestions Armitage, David, and Jo Guldi. The History Manifesto. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781107432437. [Preview with Google Books] Nordhaus, William. The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World. Yale University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780300212648. Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Belknap Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780674430006. [Preview with Google Books] Van Reybrouck, David. Congo: The Epic History of a People. Ecco, 2015. ISBN: 9780062200129. Wrigley, E. A. Energy and the English Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780521131858. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 10 | Divergence: When and Why? |
Allen, Robert C. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to World War I.” Explorations in Economic History 38, no. 4 (2001): 411–47. Allen, Robert C., Jean‐Pascal Bassino, et al. “Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, 1738–1925: In Comparison with Europe, Japan, and India.” (PDF) Economic History Review 64, no. 1 (2011): 8–38. Becker, Sascha O., Steven Pfaff, et al. “Causes and Consequences of the Protestant Reformation.” Explorations in Economic History 62 (2016): 1–25. Buringh, Eltjo, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. “Charting the ‘Rise of the West’: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries.” Journal of Economic History 69, no. 2 (2009): 409–45. Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, and R. Bin Wong. “Introduction: Miracles, Myths, and Explanations in Economic History.” In Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Harvard University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780674057913. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Space and Politics.” Chapter 1 in Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Harvard University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780674057913. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Population, Resources, and Economic Growth.” Chapter 2 in Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Harvard University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780674057913. [Preview with Google Books] Vries, P. H. H. “Review: Are Coal and Colonies Really Crucial? Kenneth Pomeranz and the Great Divergence.” Journal of World History 12, no. 2 (2001): 407–46. Lecture slides from Professor Gregory Clark’s teaching site at the University of California, Davis. [The Great Divergence: Kenneth Pomeranz (PDF)](http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/Farewell to Alms/Pomeranz - abad.pdf). Book Suggestions Kuran, Timur. The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. Princeton University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780691147567. Parthasarathi, Prasannan. “Introduction.” In Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780521168243. [Preview with Google Books] Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691090108. Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, and R. Bin Wong. Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe. Harvard University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780674057913. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 11 | No class – Individual meetings to work on projects | No readings assigned |
| 12 | Class presentations of individual final projects | No readings assigned |
