Greetings from Houghton Street, where we are in the midst of the organised chaos affectionately known as Welcome Week.
With restrictions, for now, in abeyance, it has been a delight to be able to hold our induction meetings in-person. We were even able to take our new cohorts on an evening boat trip along the Thames. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Oli Harrison, our new MSc Programmes Officer, nearly 200 Economic Historians enjoyed a four-hour trip with barbecue and even (for the more agile) dancing.
The new academic year is bringing some exciting changes to the Department. We have several new faculty and Fellows joining us, giving a source of new energy and expertise, and adding more expertise in macro-economic trends - surely the topic of the moment for us all - and the Middle East which will help expand our teaching and research expertise.
Our new MSc programme in Financial History has proved highly popular with enrolment twice the level we expected for the first year, giving us a new group of students with a focus that matches one of our research clusters. And across the board, we will be offering new courses for students to fill gaps in our previous offerings: a new MSc course covering Women in Economic History (profiled elsewhere in this edition) and other new courses focussing on North Africa, the macroeconomic history of the modern world, and disease, health and history at undergraduate level. Indications so far suggest that students are keen to learn!
We are pleased to announce that former Head of Department and current President of the Royal Economic Society, Nick Crafts, will join us for our first public event of the year. His lecture ‘Play it again Clem?’ will look at the perceived success of the post-War Attlee Government and ask whether there are any lessons we can learn from the 1940s. You can find out more about this, and other events here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Events
I do hope you’ve been enjoying catching up with us. We’d love to hear from you, whether on our LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12551482/ or Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/LSEEconomicHistoryDepartment, or just follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lseechist?lang=en
Best wishes, Patrick