We often assume that the pursuit of wealth is a major driving force of history and a significant motive of historical actors. This module explores the role played by wealth in the past. In the first semester, we examine how wealth is made, focusing on the origins of modern capitalism and the emergence of market institutions. In the second semester, the focus shifts to the uses of wealth and the many critiques addressed to materialist conceptions of history. This historical survey of wealth situates the economy in historical context by offering an introduction to several key concepts in anthropology and sociology, from Marcel Mauss’ stress on the gift as an alternative to commerce in human societies, to Max Weber’s thesis on the role of religion in economic development. Throughout the module, comparisons are made between the modern western experience and the significance of wealth in ancient or medieval Europe and in other parts of the world. At a time when capitalism remains triumphant and yet has become again the object of virulent criticisms, this thematic survey gives a historical perspective on many crucial issues of the present. Prior knowledge of economics or economic history is not required.
Inequality Topic Source List:
Core reading:
Hatcher, J., ‘English serfdom and villeinage: towards a reassessment’, Past & Present 90 (1981), pp.3-39
Herlihy, D., ‘Three Patterns of Social Mobility in Medieval History’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 3 (1973), 623–47.
Piketty, T., Capital in the twenty-first century (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 2014), ch. 10, ‘Inequality of capital ownership’.
Milanovic, B., Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System that Rules the World (Cambridge, MA, 2019), ch. 5
Recommended reading:
Bourdieu, P., Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R. Nice (London, 1984), esp. pp. 3–55.
Runciman, W. G., A Treatise on Social Theory, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1989), II, 123–71.(SEE PDF BELOW)
Scott, R. J., ‘Defining the Boundaries of Freedom in the World of Cane: Cuba, Brazil, and Louisiana after Emancipation’, American Historical Review, 99.1 (1994), 70–102.
Weinstein, B., ‘Developing Inequality’, American Historical Review, 113.1 (2008), 1–18.
Additional reading:
Atkins, M., and R. Osborne (ed.), Poverty in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2006).
Austin, G., ‘Reciprocal Comparison and African History: Tackling Conceptual Eurocentrism in the Study of Africa’s Economic Past’, African Studies Review, 50 (2007), 1–28.
Balestracci, D., The Renaissance in the Fields: Family Memoirs of a Fifteenth-Century Tuscan Peasant, trans. P. Squatriti and B. Meredith, with introduction by E. Muir (University Park, PA, 1999).
Brown, H., ‘Knights of the Ownership Society: Economic Inequality and Medievalist Film’, Studies in Medievalism, 21 (2012), 37–48.
Carocci, S., ‘Social Mobility and the Middle Ages’, Continuity and Change, 26 (2011), 367–404.
Dal Largo, E., and C. Katsari (eds), Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern (Cambridge, 2008).
Dyer, C., ‘Peasants and Coins: the Uses of Money in the Middle Ages’, British Numismatic Journal, 67 (1997), 30–47 (http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1997_BNJ_67_6.pdf).
Finley, M., Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1998).
Garnsey, P., and R. Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture, 2nd ed. (London, 2014), ch. 8. (SEE PDF BELOW)
Godden, M., ‘Money, Power and Morality in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England, 19 (1990), 41–65.
Hoffman, P. T., ‘Prices, the Military Revolution, and Europe’s Comparative Advantage in Violence’, Economic History Review, 64 (2011), 39–59.
Kolchin, P., ‘Some Thoughts on Emancipation in Comparative Perspective: Russia and the United States South’, Slavery & Abolition, 11 (1990), 352–67.
Mintz, S., ‘Models of Emancipation during the Age of Revolution’, Slavery and Abolition, 17 (1996), 1–21.
Oliver, L., The Body Legal in Barbarian Law (Toronto, 2011), pp. 203–26.
Rio, A., Slavery after Rome, 500-1100 (Oxford, 2017), pp. 42-74.
Rosivach,V. J., ‘Agricultural Slavery in the Northern Colonies and in Classical Athens: Some Comparisons’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 35.3 (1993), 551–67.
Runciman, W. G., ‘Accelerating Social Mobility: the Case of Anglo-Saxon England’, Past & Present, 104 (1984), 3–30.
Capitalism Topic Source List:
Core reading
Landes, D. S., The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some are So Poor (London, 1999), chs 3, 4 and 14 pp. 29–59 and 200–212.
O’Brien, P. K., ‘Review: Metanarratives in Global Histories of Material Progress’, The International History Review, 23.2 (2001), 345–67.
Wallerstein, I., ‘Braudel on Capitalism, or Everything Upside Down’, The Journal of Modern History, 63.2 (1991), 354–61.
Wood, E. M., ‘Capitalism, Merchants and Bourgeois Revolution: Reflections on the Brenner Debate and its Sequel’, International Social History Review, 41 (1996), 209-32.
Recommended reading
Aston, T. H., and C. H. E. Philpin (eds.), The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (Cambridge, 1985), ch. 1 (Introduction, R. H. Hilton) and 8 (J. P. Cooper), pp. 1–9 and 138–91. (SEE PDFs below)
Braudel, F., Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, 3 vols., trans. S. Reynolds (London, 1981–4), vol. III, 619–32.
Mommsen, W. J., ‘Capitalism and Socialism: Weber’s Dialogue with Marx’, in his The Political and Social Theory of Max Weber (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 53–73.
Weber, M., The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, with Other Writings on the Rise of the West, ed. S. Kalberg, 4th edn (Oxford, 2009), pp. 392–6 and 426–30 (‘The Definition of Modern Capitalism, and the Relationship of Feudalism and Patrimonialism to Capitalism’ and ‘The Impersonality of the Market and Discipline in the Modern Capitalist Factory’). (SEE PDFs BELOW; link in myreadinglists is to a different edition of The Protestant Ethic)
Additional reading
Appleby, J., The Relentless Revolution: a History of Capitalism (New York, 2010).
Brenner, R. ‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe’, Past & Present, 70 (1976), 30-75.
Britnell, R., ‘Commerce and Capitalism in Late Medieval England: Problems of Description and Theory’, in his Markets, Trade and Economic Development in England and Europe (Aldershot, 2009), ch. XXI.
Hirschman, A., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton, 2001)
Hont, I., Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2010), esp. Introduction.
Howard, M. C., ‘Fernand Braudel on Capitalism: a Theoretical Analysis’, Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques, 12.3 (1985), 469–83.
Neal, L., and J. G. Williamson (eds.), The Cambridge History of Capitalism, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2014), esp. vol. I ch. 1 (Neal), pp. 1–23.
Marx, K., Capital, vol I (London, 2001), esp Ch. 1,4, 8, 16, 26.
Marx, K., and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848), in G. Stedman Jones (ed.), The Communist Manifesto (London, 2002), pp. 218–58, esp. preamble and ch. 1.
Rigby, S. H., ‘Historical Materialism: Social Structure and Social Change in the Middle Ages’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 34.3 (2004), 473–522.
Reinert, S. A., ‘The Way to Wealth around the World: Benjamin Franklin and the Globalization of American Capitalism’, American Historical Review, 120.1 (2015),61–97.
Rothschild, E., and A. Sen, ‘Adam Smith’s Economics’, in Knud Haakonssen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge, CUP, 2006), 319–65.
Smith, A., An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1776), Book 1, chs 1, 2 and 3, and Book 3.
Swedberg, R., Max Weber and the idea of Economic Sociology (Princeton, NJ, 1998), ch. 1 (‘The Rise of Western Capitalism’), pp. 7–21.
Sweezy, P., et al., The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (London, 1978).
Weber, M., General Economic History, trans. F. H. Knight (New York, 2003), chs 29 and 30, pp. 338–69.
Winch, D., ‘Adam Smith: Scottish Moral Philosopher as Political Economist’, Historical Journal, 35.1 (1992), 91–113.
