ECON HISTORY ESSAY

Coursework for SSES0024 – Economic History & Ideas

The coursework for this module is to be an essay written in continuous prose, containing up to a maximum of 2500 words. It is due on 12th December. The content of the coursework will be a critical review of two books selected from a list (see below). The list contains books of various authors that have divergent views on economic history, although broadly speaking they can be split into three broad groups depending on which aspect takes primacy in their explanations of economic history: geography, culture and institutions. The books on our list could be thus split as follows:

Geography

Culture/Ideas

Institutions

Diamond (1998)

Pomeranz (2000)

Clark (2008)

Landes (1998)

Mokyr (2002)

Acemoglu & Robinson (2011)

Allen (2009)

Kuran (2011)

Please choose two books from the eight below. You can choose any two books under the one rule that they must not both belong in the same column in the table above. Listed under each book title are a few book reviews that you can and should use in writing your essay. These are reviews written by academics and they should give you an idea about how a critique is done and what to criticize. You should definitely read them and cite them in your coursework. You may also find some more academic reviews on your own (please stick to academic journals and if you are unsure whether a particular review is fair game, email me). You will also note that some of the book authors also appear elsewhere as book reviewers. That makes for another interesting aspect of the whole exercise. It may be a good idea to read some of the (shortest) book reviews before you pick your two titles.

Now, what exactly am I looking for, what am I expecting in your coursework? What will earn you a 70+/100 on this assignment? Here are a few tips:

· Your coursework should contain a brief overview of what’s in each book. Notice how some of the reviews summarize the content even chapter by chapter.

· Make sure you capture the underlying logic of each book’s argument correctly and honestly. You want to capture the essence of the argument but also say something about the nuance the author is capable of. You must be able to read between the lines and tease out some of the unspoken assumptions on which the author relies. Your coursework should say a few things about what kind of evidence the authors use and what inferences they draw from them.

· Once you are done describing the books, say something about the book’s reception by the academic profession. This is where the book reviews come in. What do the reviewers criticize? Do they have a point? Sometimes, you can look up the reviewers themselves (through Google Scholar) and see where they themselves stand in their own research on some of these issues discussed in the books.

· It would be great if, by the end of your coursework, you could spell out which of the authors you side with (or whether you reject both of them). This is where you can make your own case, having reviewed the evidence in both books as well as the critique presented by other scholars.

Good luck and have fun.

6. Landes, David S. The wealth and poverty of nations: why some are so rich and some so poor. London: Abacus, 1998

· Cameron, Rondo. “A review of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor by David S. Landes” The Business History Review 72 (2), pp. 326 – 328

· Chirot, Daniel. “A review of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor by David S. Landes” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 564, 1999, pp. 229 – 230

· Mokyr, Joel. “Eurocentricity Triumphant.” American Historical Review 104 (4), 1999, pp. 1241 – 1246

8. Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton University Press, 2001

· Bin Wong, Roy. “Economic History in the Decade after the Great Divergence.” Historically Speaking 12 (4), 2011, pp. 17 – 19

· Coclanis, Peter A. “Ten Years After: Reflections on Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence.” Historically Speaking 12, 2011, pp. 10 – 12

· Hoffman, Philip T. “Comment on Ken Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence”, Historically Speaking 12, 2011, pp. 16 – 17

· Huang, Philip C.C. “Review: Development or Involution in Eighteenth-Century Britain and China? A Review of Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy.” Journal of Asian Studies 61 (2), 2002, pp. 501 – 538

· Jones, Eric. “Review of The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy.” Journal of Economic History 60, 2000, pp. 856 – 859

· Pomeranz, Kenneth. “Ten Years After: Responses and Reconsiderations.” Historically Speaking 12, 2011, pp. 20 – 25

· de Vries, Jan. “The Great Divergence after Ten Years: Justly Celebrated yet Hard to Believe.” Historically Speaking 12, 2011, pp. 13 – 15