|
Each advanced paper will normally be taught in eight sessions over
one or two terms. The precise timing will be determined at the beginning
of each year.
Not all of these courses will be available every year.
Part I: Economic and Social History
- Adam Smith
- America in international context,
1865-1941: globalization to crisis
- Anthropometric history
- Business and Financial Institutions in the Twentieth Century
- Challenge of Affluence
- Child labour in the industrial revolution:
causes, consequences, cures
- Collective Protest and Social Structure
- Crime and punishment in Britain, c.1700-1900
- Death of a dream? Social democracy and the political economy of the English working class, 1945-1985
- Economic growth in history (Offered in partnership with another degree course, and subject to the partner's assessment procedures)
- Economic history of Europe between the wars
- Economy and society in colonial Africa, c.1880-1960
- From social democracy to market liberalism, c.1968–2015
- Growth of a metropolis: society
and economy in London, 1550–1700
- History of Economic Thought
- History of the Welfare State 1880-1980
- India and the World Economy
- Indian entrepreneurship, past and present
- Industrial and Business History of Britain since 1870
- Industrialization in Europe, North America, and East Asia since 1700
- Issues in Russian social and economic history from a contemporary perspective
- Law, Economy and Society in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Britain
- Lessons from Financial History
- Macro-economic behaviour of the British
economy since 1870
- Navies and economies: Britain and France,
1660–1815
- Peasant economies, societies and polities: Western Europe, c.1750-c.1950
- Philosophy and Methodology of Economics
- Polite Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain
- Power and Government in Modern Europe
- Problems in European historical demography, 1560-1914
- Social and cultural change in France,
1600–1720
- Social and Economic History of the Ottoman Empire
- The Industrialization of Germany, 1850-1914
- The international economy and economic development in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century south-east Asia
- The problem of labour: coercion and freedom in southern lands of European settlement
- The State and its Subjects: Governmentality and Micropolitics in Modern Europe
- Themes and debates in modern British agrarian history
- Was there Development in Europe before the Industrial Revolution?
- Witchcraft in Early Modern England, Scotland and New England, 1550-1750
- Women and Social Policy
- Work, Family and Old Age
Part II: History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Papers may also be selected from those offered for the M.Sc. and M.Phil. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology:
ADVANCED PAPERS: SHORT DESCRIPTIONS
Part I: Economic and Social History
In the globalizing international economy of the late nineteenth
century, the United States developed into the world's leading
manufacturing power by the First World War. This development was
somewhat paradoxical since a notable effect of the transportation
improvements that underlay globalization was effectively to increase
America's relative resource abundance, which simple trade theory
would predict would increase specialization on raw material exports.
At the same time, however, transportation improvements created
a continental economy. The resource abundance and the continental
scope of America, combined with a protective tariff on manufactured
imports, in turn shaped American technological development. By
the twentieth century it was apparent that the special conditions
of America had led American firms to develop new and exceptionally
productive technologies. In this process, Americans developed
mass production factories and the managerial firm which dominate
advanced manufacturing through the twentieth century. Globalization
also dominated monetary economics, the principal feature of macroeconomics
until the end of our period. Before the First World War, money
essentially meant the gold standard, although the first years
of our period involved America's return to gold after the inflationary
greenback financing of the Civil War. The First World War, with
its accompanying explosion of government debt and inflation, severely
disrupted the international gold standard, although the effect
on America appeared to be small. However, the currently prevailing
view of the Great Depression attributes it primarily to monetary
contraction. In the view of many blame for this contractions lies
with the gold standard.
Syllabus
In
human physical stature economic historians found an indicator of
nutrition and health, which is readily available in historical records.
Heights (and weights) reflect how well the human organism thrived in
its socioeconomic environment. This approach is highly valuable for
those, who acknowledge that there are other important dimensions of
well-being than just income. Anthropometric history makes it possible
to study the long-term development of living standards and the
well-being of different social or occupational classes. The course will
examine how anthropometric history generated new insights and
contributed to the understanding of the past.
Syllabus
The child worker stands pitifully at the heart of contemporary
perceptions of the British industrial revolution. But her experience
and her contribution have been relatively neglected by modern
economic historians. To what extent and where did children work
in early industrial Britain? Was their labour in the early mills
and manufactories a continuation of their deployment in domestic
manufacturing and in agriculture or did it represent a novel feature
of the changing economy? How did child labour fit into the family
economy of working people? Did parents as well as employers exploit
children, or was child labour the best outcome for everyone including
the children themselves? What caused child labour to decline in
the nineteenth century, shifts in technology, the Factory Acts,
compulsory schooling? Or was the withdrawal of children from the
labour force the natural corollary of a rise in male wages and
a demand for higher "quality" children? Answers to these questions
will be sought using a variety of primary and secondary sources.
Students will be encouraged to think of child labour in historical
perspective and to read some material on child labour today.
Syllabus
What
is crime? How should society punish deviants and offenders? What is the
nature of criminal justice and its supporting institutions? These are
enduring questions, faced by all societies across time. This course
traces the British experience over the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, when the key institutions and practices of modern law,
enforcement and punishment were forged. It was a period of revolution
in penal thought. The course examines the definition of crime and
deviance and its enactment in law, the development of crime control
institutions and practices, and the role of discretion in the
application of British justice. Particular attention is paid to
punishment: the functioning of capital punishment, the search for
alternatives, the battle over what mode of secondary punishment to
adopt — transportation or incarceration — and the rise of the modern
prison. The course also considers issues around who was caught within
the net of criminal justice, including the creation of juvenile
delinquency, women as criminals and as victims, and the rise of
professional criminals and gangs. Students will undertake original
research into court cases at the Old Bailey, London, using www.oldbaileyonline.org.
The course ranges from microhistories to macro topics as it traces the
rise and fall of the Bloody Code and the emergence of the modern system
that we know today.
In 1945, the new Labour government set about creating what it hoped would be a revolution
in social conditions in the English cities; later Conservative governments continued down the same track, at
least until 1979. City governments controlled education, urban regeneration, and housing; the central state
provided health, and social security.
This paper examines the progress, and consequences, of that attempt at
large-scale, planned, social change. The Welfare State in 1945 was rooted in an industrially-based, working-class
world, dominated by poverty and poor physical conditions. Over the next forty years, the values of this world
were challenged by affluence, by social mobility, by de-industrialisation, by the effects of immigration and
of ethnic rivalries, and by the pursuit of individual (rather than collective) solutions to social problems,
while (reflexively) welfare-state institutions themselves affected the political impact of social change
(for example, by amplifying ethnic rivalries around access to state-provided housing).
This paper examines
the consequences of these changes in social structure and values, both for the Welfare State itself, and
for the Labour Party. No simple social determinism explains the political outcomes; rather, policy and
social change interacted to produce outcomes which were unexpected and unpredictable. Studying these changes
provides unique insights into the social and the political history of England in the forty years after the
end of the War.
Syllabus
Economic
growth is the central problem of economic historians and growth
theorists. This paper aims to bridge these literatures. How can growth
theories help us understand the histories of Europe and Asia? What
challenges do those histories pose to theorists? These questions will
be pursed by analyzing the rise of the western world, the first
industrial revolution, the emergence of a world economy, and the
origins of underdevelopment. Particular attention will be given to the
histories of England and China. The perspective will be broad and
include mainstream neoclassical theories as well as cultural,
political, and world systems explanations. The course also seeks to
develop practical skills by providing data sets so that students can
get first-hand experience in cost-benefit analysis, productivity
measurement, and econometric investigations of historical issues.
Economic history is central to the history of the interwar period. The
main issues and the main problems were economic ones. The failure of
European states to achieve prosperity and stability had a devastating
effect on European politics and society, bringing about the collapse of
the world trading system and the extinction of democracy in many
countries. In this course we will seek to understand the nature of
these problems and to analyse the policy mistakes which contributed to
this lamentable record. The issues addressed will include the effects
of the First World War, the causes and consequences of the great
depression and recovery policies in the 1930’s. The central focus will
be on the economic history of Britain, France, Germany and Italy,
although other European countries (excluding the USSR) will also be
included.
Syllabus
This paper covers the history of the economies in Tsarist Russia
during 1900–1917 and in the Soviet Union during 1917–1991.
The Tsarist economy section, which accounts for about one-quarter
of the paper, examines issues such as the emancipation of the
serfs, industrialization, fiscal and monetary policy, foreign
economic relations, and the war economy during 1914–17. Candidates
will be expected to be familiar with the evolution of the command
economy in the USSR (War Communism, New Economic Policy, Stalinist
central planning, regionalization during the Khrushchev period,
the mature command economy un-der Brezhnev). But emphasis is placed
on knowledge of the features and policies of the Soviet command
system (e.g. central planning, performance of state enterprises,
fiscal and monetary policies, foreign trade), rather than on the
details of economic history. The final section of the paper examines
the economic reforms during the perestroika, economic collapse,
and the break-up of the Soviet Union.
This
paper explores some of the major themes in the economic and social
history of sub-Saharan Africa in the colonial period. The ‘colonial
moment’ in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa was comparatively brief,
but is generally thought to have profoundly and to a large extent
irreversibly transformed the continent. The paper focuses on the
articulation of social identities, in particular with regard to race,
class, ethnicity, and gender in the process of social and economic
change.
Syllabus
This
eight-seminar option explores environmental issues in the context of
social and economic change in twentieth century southern and central
Africa. Settler colonialism, imperial rule, the commercialisation of
agriculture and the growth of industry have had profound effects both
on the societies and the natural world of the region. Resource
management and conservationist strategies were also intensely debated
from the late nineteenth century by both colonial and African
societies.
The
postwar ‘golden age’ of economic growth also built up American and
European welfare states. This settlement was successfully challenged in
the 1970s by the ‘losers’, a coalition of business, taxpayers,
consumers, ideologists and social scientists. From this core of
discontent, market liberalism has retrieved the intellectual and
political hegemony it had previously lost, and continues to advance
across the globe. The course investigates the origins, attributes, and
drivers of this movement, its successes, failures, and prospects. In
particular, it considers the role of human capital, technological
change, economic fundamentals, social disruption and cognitive
constraints in explaining the New Right, The Washington Consensus, the
fall of communism, de-regulation, privatisation, and globalisation.
Syllabus
This course is intended to explore the causes, and consequences
for London, of its rise to dominance. It will begin with some
consideration of European urban development more generally in
the period, and the growth of other capital cities and ports,
and then concentrate on London: its demographic and spatial
growth; their roots in the city's role as commercial entrepôt
and as social and political capital; their consequences for
social structure, balance of occupations, social problems, and
mechanisms of government and social regulation. Particular attention
will be paid throughout to the growing social and economic contrasts
between City, West End, and eastern suburbs.
Syllabus
This
paper examines contemporary Russian social and economic developments
from a historical perspective. It looks at transition developments as
emerging both from macroeconomic policies and initial, or historically
evolved, conditions. The paper will emphasise readings for the Soviet
and tsarist periods to help explain the shaping of post-Communist
economy and society. The continuities examined range from economic and
social structures and perceptions to patterns of economic reform.
Although these continuities are explored broadly, initially, much of
the paper will be concerned with particular areas of interest, where
the historical determinants of modern behaviour have particular impact.
These topics may include (and are not limited to) rural collectivism;
rural markets; poverty; the role of the state in economic development,
interest groups and social/economic reform; corporate structure and
enterprise development; patterns of trade; the state and economic
growth; competitiveness; gender and the work force; migration; and
social benefits in a planned and post-planning regime.
Syllabus
The role of law in economic development has been discussed
from the time of the classical social scientists and political
economists of the late eighteenth century until the present
day. This course examines how far English law was functional,
instrumental, or perhaps dysfunctional in promoting economic
growth, rationalization of institutions, and fair distributions
in modern Britain.
Syllabus
This course will examine growth and cycles in the British economy
and will include a discussion of the debates over economic policy.
The topics to be covered will include capital accumulation,
the growth of the labour force and technical progress during
each of the three major periods: pre-1914, the interwar years,
and post-Second World War. Trends in the price level and money
supply will be discussed; and exchange-rate regimes, including
the gold standard, flexible exchange rates, and the Bretton
Woods system of fixed exchange rates. The behaviour of the labour
market and real wages will be covered, together with the operation
of fiscal policy and the theoretical controversies associated
with them.
Syllabus
Over
this period a great navy was the most expensive, elaborate, and
technically advanced expression of national power. Anglo-French rivalry
helped to generate the largest industrial complexes in the Western
world, and spurred major developments in ship design. These immensely
costly activities had massive implication for public finance, colonial
and trading policy, and administrative practices. This course will
concentrate on the economic and technological aspects of the subject,
at both theoretical and practical levels, including contemporary
perceptions of maritime strategy. Attention will also be given to
timber supply, gun-founding, problems of manpower and recruitment,
promotion structures, food and health. While a comparative approach is
a vital part of the course, a degree of concentration on one country
will be allowed. A good knowledge of French, while desirable, is not
essential.
Syllabus
Peasants,
although probably the largest social group in most West European
countries before 1900, more often appear as the objects of historical
forces than as actors in the processes of economic, social and
political change. They were defined by their unequal relationship
to the landlord, the priest, and the state. Under the seigneurial
regime they supported the landed elite, but no sooner had this been
undone than they were being doomed to extinction by both socialists and
free-marketeers, who believed they would be swept away by unstoppable
economic and political modernisation (mechanisation, concentration,
urbanisation, class and state formation…). More recently, social
scientists have even doubted whether peasants, by some definitions,
ever existed. Yet by other measures, European peasantries have
been surprisingly resilient. This course follows peasant
communities from seigneurialism through the revolutionary period, the
impact of industrialisation and the development of a national and
global agricultural markets in the late nineteenth century, to the
protectionist reaction of the early twentieth century, to see how they
have managed these changes. We will make use of the sources left
to us by peasants (not nearly as rare as is alleged, if we extend our
corpus beyond memoirs and letters to include oral literature and
material culture) to investigate the ways that peasants were complicit
in, perhaps even initiators of, historical change.
Syllabus
Using a comparative historical approach, this paper examines the problem of labour supply
and utilisation in several 'lands of recent European settlement' (LRES) in the southern
hemisphere, namely Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in the 17th-19th
centuries. In these southern hemisphere LRES, labour was sought from both indigenous and
imported sources. Much of the labour supply was coerced: slaves, indentured servants,
convicts, serfs. The course begins by examining the foundations of unfree labour in the New
World, and considers how this might have been extended into the lands invaded and settled
by Europeans in the southern hemisphere. 'Free' immigrant labour was also sought from
Europe, with varying degrees of success. Labour supply policies and practices were
developed within a political context of imperial expansion, independence and anti-slavery,
and within an economic context of the rise of First Global Economy. In land-extensive,
resource-rich, export-oriented economies such as these economic development could only be
achieved if the labour supply problem was overcome. How successfully, at what cost and
with what consequences?
Syllabus
The
paper aims to provide an introduction, at an intermediate level, to
issues in European historical demography over the period. The primary
focus will be on English evidence, but this will be placed in the
comparative context of western Europe and, where appropriate, Europe as
a whole. Topics will include: sources and methods of historical
demography, family reconstitution, aggregative analysis and
back-projection techniques; patterns of marriage and household
formation; ‘high’ and ‘low’ pressure demographic regimes; marital
fertility, birth intervals, and the concept of ‘natural fertility’;
temporal variations in mortality and the problem of ‘exogenous’
mortality change; ecological influences on mortality and the problem of
‘urban penalty’; long-term population growth and the concept of
‘demographic transition’; the secular decline of fertility and
mortality.
Syllabus
This course will concentrate on the major changes in French
society over the 'long' seventeenth century which saw the establishment
of distinctive ancien regime structures in many areas.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the relationship between
state, church, and various elite groups, through which a set
of overlapping hierarchies was strengthened. Attention will
also be given to: popular culture and religiosity; the Catholic
reform movement which sought to modify them; local solidarities
and conflicts, including revolts; economic and demographic factors;
the impact of royal policy on the localities; the development
of a distinct elite culture.
Syllabus
This option explores the historiography of apartheid and the
transition. Many of the central problems echo wider historiographical
debates: how should scholars balance, and interweave, material
and ideological factors in explaining apartheid and its demise;
in which ways did race and ethnicity become such central organising
concepts in a modern society and how were they challenged;
should we see this late twentieth century revolution as stemming
primarily from global forces, or from internal opposition; what
is the character of the transition, and how has social transformation
been constrained; how do we understand the newly emerging African
ruling group and the patterns of cultural change in South Africa?
How are understandings of South African history changing in
the post-apartheid era?
Syllabus
This course will offer historical, theoretical and empirical
perspectives on the impact of conflict on social and economic
development in eastern Africa over the past century. The region
will be defined broadly to include Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and eastern CDR (Zaire)
- the Kasai and Kivu provinces. The purpose of the course is
to give a comprehensive explanation of the historical origins
of violence and war, focusing upon a wider theoretical and comparative
literature in relation to case studies from the region.
Syllabus
|
