BIBLIOGRAPHIES: for essays in undergraduate economic history courses

The bibliography lists and the individual bibliographies, in both short and long versions, are accessible in both html and pdf formats; but in order to retrieve the individual bibliographies you must click on the highlighted "List" in the html format only. Only the bibliographies in the long-format contain statistical and other appendices; and they are best read in the pdf format. Bibliographies in the short-format, usually in two pages, contain the key readings and a few questions to guide you in formulating your essays. The second-term bibliographies will updated and revised in December 2013.

Formats and Other General Observations. Also in pdf format.

Recommended Readings for A and B List Essays in ECO 301Y. The Economic History of Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe, to 1750.

Bibliographies for ECO 301Y1: The Economic History of Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1250-1750.

• "A" List Topics, Short-Format.

• "A" List Topics, Long-Format.

• "B" List Topics, Short-Format

• "B" List Topics, Long Format.

MORE RELEVANT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS COURSE: and why you should take it:

The major purpose and goal of this course, to elaborate on the introduction, is to analyse and explain five inter-related economic phenomena, so important for global economic history: in elaboration of the goals stated above.

This course is largely theme-based and regional in scope (rather than national): and it involves the following major themes:

• - (1) Macro-economic trends: involving demography (population changes), money, and prices;

• - (2) An analysis of European economic development by following major sectors: agriculture, commerce, banking & finance, industry. Indeed, the course will end with the industrial origins of the modern Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.

• - (3) Socio-political economic structures: feudalism, manorialism, and serfdom; the Church; town governments and urban guilds: chiefly in the first term

• - (4) Economic philosophies: e.g., the Church, especially the usury doctrine; bullionism and other monetary policies; the state and Mercantilism; colonialism and imperialism.

• - (5) The most important and overriding general theme of both of my courses concerns, in a specifically European context, the struggle for both freedom -- personal, political, social, and economic freedoms -- and the struggle for control over personal property rights. A major question: does the acquisition of such freedoms and control over property rights lead to a competitive 'rent-seeking' struggle (to capture economic rents), at the expense of the freedoms and property rights of other people. That is especially relevant in the study of European overseas expansion and Imperialism, from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries. Surely these are not trivial and 'boring' considerations!

Geographic coverage of this course

• Although the major focus is therefore on medieval western Europe, nevertheless eastern Europe (Prussia, the eastern Baltic, Poland, Ukraine, Russia) will also be considered, in the first term. The major European regional focus in the first term is Italy; in the second term, on England and the Low Countries.

• This course is not, however, Eurocentric and is not totally restricted to Europe. I also inlcude most of the Islamic world, especially in the Mediterranean basin and western and southern Asia, and the non-Islamic portions of southern and eastern Asia. Indeed one major aim is to demonstrate that the economic development of Europe from the 8th, but especially from the 12th century, took place only because its growing trade and other economic relations with the Islamic world. In the second term, for the early modern era (1500 -1750) we will see how even more economically dependent Europe became in its relations with the now vast Ottoman Empire (Asia and Africa), with India, China, and the East Indies (modern day Indonesia) – and then the Americas, North and South.

IMPORTANT WEB LINKS FOR THIS COURSE:

These themes are elaborated in two related web documents, designed to convince students of the real utility of economic history:

• - (1) Why Study Economic History: as a general topic? My Views. A PDF file that is also available in an MS-Word file.

• - (2) Why Study European Economic History in Particular? The Major Themes Offered in My European Economic History Courses. Also available as a PDF file.

This course is closely related to my own research and publications. There are significant costs as well as benefits in basing the course so much on my own research -- and having it differ so much from a traditonal textbook course. Economics is all about costs and benefits -- and thus about trade-offs. I hope that the tradeoffs will prove to be profitable to students.

See also Time Chart of European Economic History, 1300-1750, for a one-page summary of the course, relating topics with 50-year time periods. This is also available as a pdf file: i.e., portable document file. You may find it easier to download and print the file in this format.

PORTAL'S BLACKBOARD AND MY HOME PAGE: important other links

• The University of Toronto's on-line inter-active web pages for this and my other course: on Portal's Blackboard:

• To gain access to the Blackboard site, you must first log-in: with your UTORid and password.

• See also Current Notices, for any new or recent announcements concerning this course or my other course in European economic history. This page is updated frequently. These announcements will also be found on both the Portal Blackboard site and my Home Page.

• Please read carefully, via the indicated web-links, my policies concerning: e-mails; letters of recommendation; and office hours.

The lectures for this course: are given on Wednesday afternoons (from Wednesday, 11 September 2013): from 3:00 to 5:00 pm, or sometimes to 5:30 pm

• Note: our classroom has been booked for three hours, from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m, but

• The actual lecture is normally only two hours. For four of the 12 weeks each semester, however, the lecture will be two and a half hours: i.e., to 5:30 pm.

• In the past (in the past 45 years (since 1968), in fact, here at the University of Toronto), I had lectured each time, each week, for only two hours; and the extra hour was reserved for any make-up lectures on the rare occasions that I had to go to Europe for conferences.

• Now, however, the Faculty of Arts and Science has unwisely decided to reduce each semester by one week: i.e., with 12 rather than the traditional 13 weeks of lectures. I am not prepared to cut yet another four hours from my teaching schedule -- especially not when we differ so radically from the world-wide university norm: in offering lectures to only two rather than three hours a week.

• Therefore (and despite university advice to the contrary) I will make up those four missing lecture hours by lecturing for an extra half hour each week, at least eight times in the course of the year. I could of course, take the easy route, and cut out four one-hour lectures, and save myself the effort. But my goal in teaching is to give you a proper, full, and legitimate course of lectures. I am not willing to compromise my academic standards; and I think that it is morally very wrong to cheat students in this fashion. On the other hand, students are not compelled to stay for the extra half hour -- or even to come to class (though they risk failing the final exam by not coming to class).