HIST 123 Economic History of Europe
Taught as schedule allows (consult the Course Directory)
PRE-1800
This course concentrates on the economy of Europe in the Early Modern Period, 1450-1750. It was a time of great transition. Europe developed from an agriculturally-based to an industrially-based economy, with attendant changes in society and culture. From a subsistence-level productivity, the European economy expanded to create great surfeits of good, with attendant changes in consumption and expectation. Europe grew from a regional economic system to become part—some would day the heart—of a global economy, with attendant changes in worldview and identity. Economic intensification, expansion, globalization and industrialization are our topics, therefore. Beginning with economic organizations and practices, we will consider how these changed over time and influenced society and culture. The course takes take as its point of departure the experience of individual, working men and women: peasants and artisans, merchants and landlords, entrepreneurs and financiers. Yet, it argues outward: from the particular to the general, from the individual to the social, from the local to the global. It will suggests ways in which the economy influenced developments or changes that were not in themselves economic, and it will seek the ways in which non-material, transcendant beliefs, systems or values shaped and deflected economic life and practice.
