Dr Eric Schneider SAR.5.18 and Prof Christopher Minns SAR.5.12

This course is available to General Course ‘Spring Semester’ students.

The course examines the inter-relationships between the development of the international economy and the growth of national economies since the late nineteenth century. The general course spring semester focusses on the second half of the twentieth century. The course begins with a general overview of the causes of economic growth in history. It then analyses the causes of the relative success and failure of countries in various parts of the world in the post-war period including Europe, Latin America, the Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, China and Africa. The course concludes with two thematic topics, deindustrialisation and inequality, which consider the consequences of economic growth in the post-war period.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 20 hours across Lent Term. This year, some or all of this teaching may be delivered through a combination of virtual classes and flipped-lectures delivered as short online videos.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of  LT.

Students are expected to write two long essays during the term.

The following are particularly useful:

R C Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (2011).

R Floud, J Humphries & P Johnson (Eds), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol 2 (2014).

B Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (2008).

K H O’Rourke and J G Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy (1999).

E Jones, L Frost & C White, Coming Full Circle. An Economic History of the Pacific Rim (1993).

M S Blackford, The Rise of Modern Business in the USA, Britain and Japan.

(A complete reading list and class topics will be given out at the first meeting.)

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the summer exam period.