There’s an interesting VoxEU column by Coen Teulings about the economic history economics students ought to know. The list is terrific for learning about economic growth and development, including for example Jared Diamond’s classic [amazon_link id=”0141024488″ target=”_blank” ]Guns, Germs and Steel [/amazon_link]and Paul Bairoch’s [amazon_link id=”B009NO0MH0″ target=”_blank” ]Cities and Economic Development[/amazon_link], as well as more recent entries like Acemoglu and Robinson’s [amazon_link id=”1846684307″ target=”_blank” ]Why Nations Fail[/amazon_link]. However, there are some obvious omissions – David Landes’ [amazon_link id=”0349111669″ target=”_blank” ]Wealth and Poverty of Nations[/amazon_link], Joel Mokyr’s [amazon_link id=”0691120137″ target=”_blank” ]Gifts of Athena[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0691090106″ target=”_blank” ]The Great Divergence[/amazon_link] by Kenneth Pomeranz, not to mention some straightforward histories of the Industrial Revolution such as Bob Allen’s [amazon_link id=”0521687853″ target=”_blank” ]The Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective[/amazon_link]. There are some less obvious omissions too – James Scott’s [amazon_link id=”0300078153″ target=”_blank” ]Seeing Like A State[/amazon_link], maybe?
[amazon_image id=”1846684307″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty[/amazon_image]
Economics students certainly need to have more history included in their courses – I would favour weaving it in as well as offering separate courses, because much as students claim to want to study economic history, I’m not at all sure they walk the talk in large numbers. However, the list in the VoxEU column is only one strand of economic history. For industrial organisation courses, for example, what’s needed is business history. The Mokyr book might feature, but so also Alfred Chandler’s [amazon_link id=”B00BR5MIXY” target=”_blank” ]The Visible Hand[/amazon_link], or his [amazon_link id=”B00L6K91RG” target=”_blank” ]book about DuPont[/amazon_link], say, or a terrific book I read recently about Bell Labs, Jon Gertner’s [amazon_link id=”1594203288″ target=”_blank” ]The Idea Factory[/amazon_link].
[amazon_image id=”1594203288″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation[/amazon_image]
I’m sure there are lots of other good suggestions out there – both books, and how to weave economic history into economic teaching. This summer I’m finalising my Public Policy Economics course to teach at the University of Manchester in the autumn so econ history suggestions for that are especially welcome.
Anything and everything by Ha-Joon Chang (from Kicking Away the Ladder onwards) and Dani Rodrik (eg One Economics, Many Recipes)
Veronica Aokia Santarosa wrote an important paper about how, in the eighteenth century, a law ansuring the transferability of bills of exchange enabled the private sector to change these bills into de facto money http://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/colloquium/law-economics/documents/Santarosa%20-%20Financing%20Long%20Distance%20Trade%20wo%20Banks.pdf
‘Money, the unauthorized biography’ might be nice.
And it’s important for students to understand that Athens was financed by a silver mine, at Laurium (miners were slaves, of course). http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/silvermines.htm
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I’d recommend considering Prophet of Innovation – Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction by Thomas McCraw and Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez.
Economic history from Within Economics tends to take the old testament form, A begat B begat C… In a constant progression towards the nearly perfect present. The history of economics scene from within general history is that it is more of a problem and a conundrum, leaving society in many ways weakened. Climate, wars, quality-of-life issues. The fruit is Economics from general history might include increasing population, environmental degradation, loss of meaning. Also general history would be interested in alternative systems. Economic history from within economics is only interested in the emergence of the current system. The whole discussion of history could be much more interesting and challenging. What is the history economist need to go to grapple with contemporary society and its political and environmental and justice issues? What history do economists need to know to understand the current political dilemmas and the difficulties of governance?
Hold on – has no-one mentioned Karl Polanyi’s classic The Great Transformation – the relatively recent reprint has a forward from Joe Stiglitz setting out how and why it still needs ot be read.
How about A. Chandler, Strategy and Structure, A. Sloan, My Years at General Motors.
‘Manias, Panics, and. Crashes. A History of Financial Crises’ by Charles Kindleberger
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I’m currently reading David Landes ‘The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present’ and would thoroughly recommend it.
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One area which has been totally disregarded by mainstream economics, and even to a large extent by Heterodox Economics is Social Credit. Its ideas are way ahead of Keynes, and others. My own project of Transfinancial Economics (TFE)was initially developed independently of Social Credit, and it was only later that I discovered the self-evident similiarities with it, and TFE. Tragically, Social Credit, though a growing movement largely “disappeared” after World War II from the public radar, probably because of its association with anti-semitism.
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