Empire, Capitalism, and Global Economic Development

Harvard FAS

This course introduces students to the historical study of the world economy by tracing the emergence of a global capitalist economy from the early modern period to the present. It looks at how capitalism first emerged, how it expanded globally, and how it has been transformed over the last six centuries. It does so by looking at the history of international trade, finance and banking, labor and slavery, industrialization, and agriculture. It considers how global capitalism developed in…