Technology and the Global Economy, 1000-2000
Examines the global history of the last millennium, including technological change, commodity exchange, systems of production, and economic growth. Students engage with economic history, medieval and early modern origins of modern systems of production, consumption and global exchange. Topics include the long pre-history of modern economic development; medieval world systems; the age of discovery, the global crisis of the 17th century; demographic systems, global population movements; the industrial revolution, the rise of the modern consumer; colonialism and empire building; patterns of inequality, within and across states; resources and development; and the threat of climate change to modern economic systems. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Fall 2016
Topics
- Deep History and Big Data: Understanding Long-term Global Processes
- Energy, the Standard of Living, and Measuring Economic Growth
- The Tech Boom of the Middle Ages
- Was Malthus Right?—Plague and the Post-Plague Economy
- The Global Crisis of the 17 th Century
- Consumers Everywhere
- The Industrial Revolution
- Empire Building: East and West
- Divergence: When and Why?
- Class presentations of individual final projects
Readings
- View for Discussion
- Book Suggestions
- ———. Why the West Rules-For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future . Picador, 2011. ISBN: 9780312611699.
- Allsen, Thomas T. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles . Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780521893145.
- White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology & Social Change . Oxford University Press, 1966. ISBN: 9780195002669.
- Wrigley, E. A., and R. S. Schofield. “Figure 11.6: England in the Late Sixteenth Century,” “Figure 11.7: England in the Seventeenth Century,” “Figure 11.8: England in the Early Nineteenth Century,” and “Figure 11.9: England Towards the End of the Nineteenth Century.” In The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction (Studies in Social and Democratic History) . Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN: 9780674690073.
- Wrigley, E. A., and R. S. Schofield. The Population History of England, 1541–1871: A Reconstruction . Harvard University Press, 1981. ISBN: 9780674690073.
- Goldstone, Jack A. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World . University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520082670.
- Parker, Geoffrey. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century . Yale University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780300208634.
- Brook, Timothy. Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World . Bloomsbury Press, 2009. ISBN: 9781596915992.
- de Vries, Jan. “Economic Growth Before and After the Industrial Revolution: A Modest Proposal.” Chapter 10 in Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe 1400–1800 . Edited by Maarten Prak. Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 9781138007451.
- Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective (New Approaches to Economic and Social History) . Cambridge University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780521687850.
- McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen. The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce . University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780226556642.
- Mokyr, Joel. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700–1850 . Yale University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780300189513.
- Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 . Vintage, 1996. ISBN: 9780679772545.
- ———. The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 . Vintage, 1989. ISBN: 9780679721758.
- Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Contrast of Central Eurasia . Belknap Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780674057432.
- Nordhaus, William. The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics for a Warming World . Yale University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780300212648.
- Van Reybrouck, David. Congo: The Epic History of a People . Ecco, 2015. ISBN: 9780062200129.
- Kuran, Timur. The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East . Princeton University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780691147567.
- Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy . Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691090108.
- WEEK #: 11 · TOPICS: No class – Individual meetings to work on projects · READINGS: No readings assigned
- WEEK #: 12 · TOPICS: Class presentations of individual final projects · READINGS: No readings assigned
Prerequisites & course information
Subject meets with 21H.383[J] , STS.061[J] Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: Not offered Acad Year 2028-2029: G (Spring) 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2016
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.