070631 VO Global Economic History in Early Modern Times (2008S)

This series of lectures is meant to give a synopsis of the current 'state of the art' in global economic history of the early modern period. The following topics will be discussed:

- The main characteristics of the economies of a couple of advanced organic societies in the early modern era. The focus will be on Western Europe and its overseas off-shoots, East Asia (China and Japan), India and the Ottoman Empire, less on Africa and Latin America. In that synopsis, following Braudel, a distinction will be made between material life, market economy and (sprouts of different varieties of) capitalism. The approach will be comparative.
- The history of intercontinental economic contacts. Can one already speak of a global economy in the early modern era? The extent and characteristics of intercontinental trade as well as the exchange of people, flora and fauna will be discussed, plus various points of view with regard to the importance of all these exchanges for the societies involved. Special attention will be paid to the question whether and to what extent in this process of exchange one can distinguish centres and peripheries, winners and losers.
- The Great Divergence, i.e., the emerging of a huge difference in wealth between richer and poorer countries in the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What explanations have been given for this gap and why did it no get smaller during the nineteenth century?

The exam will consist of a written examination about the contents of the lecture and of a reader provided by the lecturer.