EH101      One Unit
The Internationalisation of Economic Growth, 1870 to the present day

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

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The course examines the inter-relationships between the development of the international economy and the growth of national economies since the late nineteenth century. The course is designed to introduce students not only to a wide variety of topics and issues, but also to the wide variety of approaches used by historians. The course includes analyses of the original leading nation, Britain, and its replacement, the United States, as well as the catch-up of areas such as continental Europe, and the failure to catch-up of earlier well-placed areas such as Latin America. The effects of major events - such as wars and debt crises - are investigated, and we also consider the implications of changing global economic institutions, such as the Gold Standard and IMF, as well as the effects of sometimes rapid changes in product and process technology.

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

Students are expected to write an annotated bibliography, three very short essays and two longer essays during the year.

The following are particularly useful:

• R C Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (2011).
• R Floud, J Humphries & P Johnson (Eds), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol 2 (2014).
• B Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System (2008).
• K H O’Rourke and J G Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy (1999).
• E Jones, L Frost & C White, Coming Full Circle. An Economic History of the Pacific Rim (1993).
• M S Blackford, The Rise of Modern Business in the USA, Britain and Japan (1998).

(A complete reading list and class topics will be given out at the first meeting.)

Exam (100%), duration: 180 Minutes in the Spring exam period