(A) Qualifying courses
For formal assessment criteria and submission deadlines see individual ‘Instructions to Candidates’.
What happened and why: starting research in economic and social history
(Convenor: Professor Avner Offer and Dr Deborah Oxley)
This is a compulsory unit for all students. It covers a range of topics in the methodology of the social sciences and history, including scientific and historical explanation, deduction and induction, verification and falsification, scientific research programmes, the role of theory, methodological pluralism, objectivity and bias, rationality, narrative and analysis, social dilemmas and collective action, new institutional economics, gender and the family, social bonds and social stratification, and technological change. Lectures on these methodological topics are followed by seminar sessions which investigate their historical applications.
Quantitative methods and computer applications for economic and social history
(Convenors: Dr Nikola Köpke and Dr Victoria Bateman)
Students will be allocated to either the First or the Second Course on the basis of their previous training. It is possible to change with the agreement of the tutors concerned. More advanced students will be able to take a quantitative methods course provided as part of the M.Phil. in Economics, subject to satisfying admission criteria.
Standard course: This course is designed to provide a simple and very informal introduction to elementary quantitative methods. It will cover some of the techniques most widely used in research in the historical and social sciences, and will emphasize the relevance of the historical issues. The course will be taught at a very basic level, and will not assume any prior knowledge of mathematics or statistical theory. - Students will also be given an introduction to the statistical package SPSS for Windows, and will be shown how to use this to perform all the statistical techniques required for the course.
Advanced course: This course is intended for graduates who have already been introduced to some form of quantitative methods. Statistical procedures such as regression are assumed, although the first few sessions will serve as a refresher course in elementary quantitative methods. The course aims to ensure that students are aware of the range of quantitative techniques available for analysing problems in Economic & Social History. A second aim is that students should be able both to use and to assess applications of these methods. They will be taught how to use a number of popular statistical and econometric packages. Teaching sessions will involve computer class-work.
(B) Advanced Papers
- Assessment: Advanced Papers are usually assessed by either a three-hour examination, or by two extended essays in lieu of an examination.
(a) Economic and Business History
America in international context, 1865-1941: globalization to crisis
(Convenor: Dr Knick Harley)
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.
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Child labour in the industrial revolution: causes, consequences, cures
(Convenor: Professor Jane Humphries)
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.
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Contemporary Russian polity, society, and economy in a historical perspective
(Convenor: Dr Carol Leonard)
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.
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Was there development in Europe before the Industrial Revolution?
(Convenor: Dr Victoria Bateman)
There is a natural tendency to view the centuries before the Industrial Revolution as ones of stagnation and backwardness. This course confronts this by asking to what extent and in which ways did Europe develop in the centuries preceding 1800. It begins by tracing the general trends in market development, real wages, productivity, urbanisation, education, justice and political representation in Europe from feudal times onwards and then follows the changing economic leadership as it moves from Italy and Flanders in Medieval times to Spain, Holland and finally England. Drawing from the perspectives of the Malthusian, Institutional and Smithian schools, it also seeks to uncover the differences and similarities in the process of development before and after the Industrial Revolution.
The topics covered are as follows: (1) The general trends in market development, real wages, productivity, urbanisation, education, justice and political representation in Europe from feudal times onwards (2) Explanations of the trends: Malthus, Smith and North (3) Feudalism and the origins of the market economy (4) Pre-modern success I: Italian city states and Flanders (5) Pre-modem success II: Spain and the Dutch Golden Age (6) Pre-modern success III: The Rise of England and the decline of the Dutch (7) The Seventeenth Century Crisis (8) Origins of the Industrial Revolution
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Economic growth in history
(Convenor: Dr Knick Harley and Mr Matthias Morys)
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.
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The economic history of Europe between the wars
(Convenor: Dr Oliver Grant)
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.
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Economic history of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1900–1991
(Convenor: Dr Christopher Davis)
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 under 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.
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Economic thought in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
(Convenor: Dr Christopher Brooke)
Recent shifts in historiography have noted that the development of early ideas of political economy was intertwined with political and social themes and anxieties. For this reason, this course examines economic thought with respect to its historic interdisciplinary nature. As a result, readings draw from overlapping economic, political, and social discourses.
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Economy and society in colonial Africa, c.1880–1960
(Convenor: Dr Jan-Georg Deutsch)
How people work is one of the defining features of society. This paper examines the history of social and economic change in colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Reflecting particular regional modes of incorporation into the expanding world economy, in the period between 1880 and 1960, five major transitions in the organisation of labour, production, and commercial exchange took place in Africa. These were the decline of slavery (particularly in East and West Africa), the spread of industrial employment (particularly in southern Africa), the rise of corvee labour (particularly in central Africa), the cash crop ‘revolution’ (particularly in West Africa), and finally the emergence of large-scale ‘informal sectors’ in colonial cities. In this course it will be asked how these transitions came about and what they had meant for the societies concerned.
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From social democracy to market liberalism, c. 1970–2005
(Convenor: ProfessorAvner Offer)
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.
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Law, economy, and society in Britain
(Convenor: Dr Joshua Getzler)
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.
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Macro-economic behaviour of the British economy since 1870
(Convenor: Mr Nicholas Dimsdale)
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.
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Navies and economies: Britain and France, 1660–1815
(Convenor: Mr Robin Briggs)
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 compar-ative 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.
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The problem of labour: Coercion and freedom in Southern Lands of European Settlement
(Convenor: Dr David Meredith)
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?
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Social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire
(Convenor: Dr Eugene Rogan)
From the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries the Ottoman Empire passed from an expanding world empire spanning Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa to the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. Debates in the historiography have sought to explain these transformations in terms of decentralization or incorporation into the world economy to counter enduring explanations predicated on unilinear decline. These more structuralist debates have generated a vibrant scholarship which seeks to demonstrate the dynamism of Ottoman society and economy across the last four centuries of Ottoman rule. This course will focus on issues of demography, gender, the land regime, trade and commerce, state-society relations, popular movements and relations with Europe, and how they changed, over the last four centuries of Ottoman rule.
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(b) Social History
Aspects of social change in South Asia, c.1860 to the present
(Convenor: Professor Judith Brown)
The period since 1860 has been a time of unprecedented change in Indian society as a result of the imposition of imperial rule followed after 1947 by the operations of an interventionist, independent government. Significant themes include the inter-relationship of indigenous forces, ideals, and structures with those developing as a result of Western contact; the different strategies for social change adopted by government and by individual reformers; and the role of religion in social formation, and its response to a changing environment. The specific topics which will be covered (according to the interests of participants) include economic patterns in town and countryside; urbanization, internal migration, and population growth; education; Hindu social patterns (caste and untouchability); the role of women; and changing identities: ethnicity, region, and class.
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Crime and punishment in Britain, c. 1700-1900
(Convenor: Dr Deborah Oxley)
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.
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Environmental History of Southern Africa
(Convenor: Professor William Beinart)
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.
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Growth of a metropolis: society and economy in London, 1550–1700
(Convenor: Dr Ian Archer)
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.
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Power and government in modern Europe
(Convenor: Dr Jane Caplan)
This course examines the shaping of political power and governmental practice in the modern state, focussing mainly on the history of nineteenth-century western Europe. It investigates the new relationships between states and their subjects that emerged as government – a key concept in the course – entered into ever more areas of human behaviour and interaction in this period, creating new fields of knowledge and official expertise and new regimes of control and freedom. The course will explore government not only as a large-scale project of social organization but also through the techniques and technologies by which this was carried out in practice. As Proudhon put it in 1851, ‘To be governed is to be noted, registered, enumerated, accounted for, stamped, measured, classified, audited, patented, licensed, authorized, endorsed, reprimanded, prevented, reformed, rectified, and corrected, in every operation, every transaction, every movement.’ Following Proudhon into the history of the everyday methods of identification and classification, the course will explore a wide variety of topics, including the history of the personal name; official statistics; birth certificates, passports and other identity documents; fingerprints, tattoos and police photography; and the history of the filing cabinet.
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Social and cultural change in France, 1600–1720
(Convenor: Mr Robin Briggs)
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.
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South Africa: Apartheid, African politics, and the Transition since 1948
(Convenor: Professor William Beinart)
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?
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Understanding civil war in Africa, since 1945
(Convenor: Professor David Anderson)
Warfare and its suffering has been Africa's most potent image over the past three decades. Ending these conflicts is now viewed as the essential step in bringing political stability and economic progress to the continent. But why did the number of Africa's wars increase in these years, and what factors - local, regional and international - contributed to shape these conflicts? Are all African wars a matter of indigenous resource competition? What role have global forces, from the Cold War to the spread of arms, played in bringing war to Africa? And what about other kinds of conflict - political or criminal violence? To what extent might these conflicts also be influenced by global factors, external to Africa? This reading course explores these questions through a rigorous examination of the civil war literature for Africa, with a special focus upon a set of well-documented case studies (Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria) that are not covered in other Advanced Papers. The course will give particular attention to macro models for the analysis of the causes and consequences of armed conflict in Africa. Four sessions will be spent on the models and their implications, and four sessions will be dedicated to applying the models to selected case studies.
Pre-requisite for students to have strong background in history and politics of Africa since 1945 (ideally they should already have completed the Advanced Paper in 'Violence & Historical Memory'), and a willingness to work with and to understand quantitative models.
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Violence and historical memory in eastern Africa
(Convenor: Professor David Anderson)
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.
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Witchcraft in early modern England, Scotland, and New England, 1550–1750
(Convenor: Dr Felicity Heal and Dr Clive Holmes)
This paper will examine changes in beliefs about witches among the populace and the educated classes of early modern England and trace the changing theological and legal presumptions upon which prosecution rested, and which were increasingly challenged in the course of the seventeenth century. The complex relationship between these theoretical developments and concerns at the village level will be a major theme. Arguments relating changing levels of prosecution to tensions concerning gender roles and social polarization will be evaluated. The rich materials for Scotland and New England provide an excellent comparative framework: in the Scottish case a divergent, inquisitorial legal process; in New England a contrasting social structure.
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(c) Historical Demography
Anthropometric history
(Convenor: Dr Nikola Koepke)
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.
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Problems in European historical demography, 1560–1914
(Convenor: Dr John Landers)
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.
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