Global History of Capitalism, c. 1850-Present

This course surveys capitalism beginning. It asks students to think about comparative responses to global economic integration. Topics include: European free trade and the "opening" of Asia and Africa, the gold standard and international finance, and commodity chains. We examine the economic consequences of world war and the Great Depression, the reconstruction and the experiment in multilateralism with the Bretton Woods system and its breakdown in the 1970s and origins of recent globalization. There are three running themes: the history of commodities, the changes in global finance, and the role of institutions.