Commerce, Rights and Empire in European Thought, 500-2000 (M)

3 cr · Undergraduate

This course will scrutinize the intersection of commerce and governance in Europe from c.500 to the present, paying particular attention to the way that debates about commerce, war and peace have generated notions of human rights over the past three centuries. We will explore whether and how debates about the proper way to govern trade played important roles not only in the creation of the modern categories of the "state" and the "economy," but also in understandings of the person as a rational actor of politics with substantial rights.