New Introductory Courses in History (200-0-20)
Topic
Business Disasters in Modern History
Instructors
Holly E. D. Swenson
Holly E.D. Swenson is a historian of modern Britain and the British empire, with particular interests in media and business history. Her research explores how the export of British media shaped cultural life and political economy on a transnational scale in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Meeting Info
Parkes Hall 214: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
This class explores the history of the Western market economy through instances of its failure—times when businesses, markets, or financial structures collapsed from the 1600s to the present. We will explore the context and cause of crises such as Dutch Tulipomania in the 1630s, the Australian gold rush in the 1850s, and the global Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition, we will explore how contemporaries understood these crises as symptomatic of the social failings of their time. We will compare both the nature of the failures and the social responses to the failure over time, and develop critical contrasts as well as comparisons to crises in our contemporary moment. Themes we will explore throughout the course include the relationship between morality/religion and the economy, the role of the state as regulator, imperialism and distance, and the role of emotions in the market economy.
Learning Objectives
To understand what caused major commercial and financial crises from the 1600s to the present and the differences between them (commercial/business history); To explain how historical individuals responded to these crises, and how those responses differed over space and time (social history); To explain how social forces such as religion, imperialism, and anti-imperialism have informed the way individuals perceive what commercial life ought to look like (intellectual/social history); To articulate the differences between these three approaches to history—business, social, and intellectual; to evaluate and analyze primary source materials and use them to formulate an argument about historical events, people, and themes.
Evaluation Method
Attendance and Participation: 25% Paper 1, Week 4: 20% Paper 2, Week 7: 20% Final Project: 35%
Class Notes
Applicable to Economics and Labor Minor Concetration
Class Attributes
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area