Economic and Social History

ECHS BC2590 MEASURING HISTORY. 4.00 points.

This course examines big themes in economic and social history-population history and human well-being, inequality and poverty, and gender differences. Using these themes, it adopts a hands-on data-driven approach to introduce tools and concepts of empirical reasoning. Datasets related to each theme create opportunities for learning by doing

ECHS BC3056 HISTORY OF WOMEN'S WORK. 3.00 points.

ECHS BC3066 RESEARCH SEM ECONOMIC HISTRY I. 4.00 points.

Must be supervised by a faculty member approved by the program adviser. This is the 1st semester of a two-semester course sequence

ECHS BC3067 RESEARCH SEM ECONOMIC HIST II. 4.00 points.

Must be supervised by a faculty member approved by te program adviser. This is the 2nd semester of a two-semester course sequence

ECON BC1003 INTRO TO ECONOMIC REASONING. 4.00 points.

Covers basic elements of microeconomic and marcoeconomic reasoning at an introductory level. Topics include Individual Constraints and Preferences, Production by Firms, Market Transactions, Competition, The Distribution of Income, Technological Progress and Growth, Unemployment and Inflation, the Role of Government in the Economy. Note: Students cannot get credit for ECON BC1003 if they have taken the Columbia introductory course ECON W1105 Principles of Economics

ECON BC2012 Economic History of Western Europe. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

The course is an introduction to the transformative economic developments that began in Western Europe and spread globally. It applies economic and empirical reasoning to analyze the underlying forces of modern economic development from pre-modern Europe to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of a global economy.

ECON BC3013 Economic History of the United States. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).

Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 or ECON BC3033, or permission of the instructor.

Economic transformation of the United States from a small, open agrarian society in the late colonial era to the leading industrial economy of the 20th century. Emphasis is given to the quantitative, institutional, and spatial dimensions of economic growth, and the relationship between the changing structures of the economy and state.

ECON BC3023 Topics in Economic History. 3 points.

Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

Prerequisites: ECON BC3035 or ECON BC3033, or permission of the instructor

Topics vary in content.  Fall 2011 topic: The American Century.

ECON BC3033 INTERMEDTE MACROECONOMC THEORY. 4.00 points.

(Description for summer and semester course) This course introduces macroeconomic theory for the analysis of aggregate variables such as income, employment, prices, and the interest rate. The first part of the course is devoted to studying the determination of the aggregate demand in the goods markets and the equilibrium of monetary markets, using an IS-LM model extended with elements of the banking sector and the open-economy framework. Next, the supply-side of the economy is examined with special attention to the labor market, wage setting and price setting behavior. The Phillips Curve (PC) introduces the tradeoffs between inflation and unemployment, and the role of expectations for inflation dynamics. The integrated IS-LM-PC model is then used to evaluate macroeconomic policies that aim at stabilizing the economy with output produced at its potential level and the inflation rate at the central bank target. The recent episode of high inflation is simulated with a proper numerical calibration of the IS-LM-PC model

ECON BC3035 INTERMEDTE MICROECONOMC THEORY. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: An introductory course in microeconomics or a combined macro/micro principles course (ECON BC1003 or ECON W1105, or the equivalent) and one semester of calculus or ECON BC1007, or permission of the instructor. Preferences and demand; production, cost, and supply; behavior of markets in partial equilibrium; resource allocation in general equilibrium; pricing of goods and services under alternative market structures; implications of individual decision-making for labor supply; income distribution, welfare, and public policy. Emphasis on problem solving

ECON BC3041 THEORETICL FOUNDTNS-POLIT ECON. 3.00 points.

Prerequisites: An introductory course in economics or permission of the instructor. Intellectual origins of the main schools of thought in political economy. Study of the founding texts in classical political economy, Marxian economics, neoclassicism, and Keynesianism

HIST BC1062 INTRO TO LATER MIDDLE AGES. 4.00 points.

Social environment, political, and religious institutions, and the main intellectual currents of the Latin West studied through primary sources and modern historical writings

HIST BC1101 EUROPEAN HISTORY 1500-1789. 4.00 points.

Political, economic, social, religious, and intellectual history of early modern Europe, including the Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, absolutism, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment

HIST BC1302 EUROPEAN HISTORY SINCE 1789. 4.00 points.

Emergence of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary mass political movements; European industrialization, nationalism, and imperialism; 20th-century world wars, the Great Depression, and Fascism

HIST BC1401 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN HISTORY TO 1865. 4.00 points.

Themes include Native and colonial cultures and politics, the evolution of American political and economic institutions, relationships between religious and social movements, and connecting ideologies of race and gender with larger processes such as enslavement, dispossession, and industrialization

HIST BC1402 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE 1865. 4.00 points.

Examines the major social, political, economic, and intellectual transformations from the 1860s until the present, including industrialization and urbanization, federal and state power, immigration, the welfare state, global relations, and social movements

HIST BC1760 INTRO AFRICAN HIST:1700-PRESNT. 4.00 points.

Survey of African history from the 18th century to the contemporary period. We will explore six major themes in African History: Africa and the Making of the Atlantic World, Colonialism in Africa, the 1940s, Nationalism and Independence Movements, Post-Colonialism in Africa, and Issues in the Making of Contemporary Africa

HIST BC1801 Colonialism and Nationalism in South Asia. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

Introduction to South Asian history (17-20 c.) that explores the colonial economy and state formation; constitution of religious and cultural identities; ideologies of nationalism and communalism, caste and gender politics; visual culture; and the South Asian diaspora.

HIST BC2116 The History of Money. 3 points.

Examining the history of money and the history of ways of thinking about money. We investigate how different monetary forms developed and how they have shaped and been shaped by culture, society, and politics. Tracing money from gift-giving societies to the European Monetary Union, the focus is on early modern Europe.

HIST BC2180 Merchants, Pirates, and Slaves in the Making of Atlantic Capitalism. 3 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).

Examines how the Atlantic Ocean and its boundaries were tied together through the flow of people, goods, and ideas. Studies the cultures of the communities formed by merchants, pirates, and slaves; investigates how their interactions and frictions combined to shape the unique combination of liberty and oppression that characterizes early modern capitalism.

HIST BC2321 COLONIAL ENCOUNTERS. 3.00 points.

Examines the shaping of European cultural identity through encounters with non-European cultures from 1500 to the post-colonial era. Novels, paintings, and films will be among the sources used to examine such topics as exoticism in the Enlightenment, slavery and European capitalism, Orientalism in art, ethnographic writings on the primitive, and tourism

HIST BC3062 Medieval Economic Life and Thought ca 1000 to 1500. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.

Traces the development of economic enterprises and techniques in their cultural context: agricultural markets, industry, commercial partnerships, credit, large-scale banking, insurance, and merchant culture. Examines usury and just price theory, the scholastic analysis of price and value, and the recognition of the market as a self-regulating system, centuries before Adam Smith.

HIST BC3119 Capitalism and Enlightenment. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.

Traces the lively debates amongst the major European Enlightenment figures about the formation of capitalism. Was the new market society ushering in an era of wealth and civilization or was it promoting corruption and exploitation? Particular emphasis on debates about commerce, luxury, greed, poverty, empire, slavery, and liberty.

HIST BC3332 The Politics of Leisure in Modern Europe. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.

Transformations in the culture of leisure from the onset of industrialization to the present day. Relations between elite and popular culture and the changing relationship between the work world and the world of leisure will be among the topics considered in such settings as the department store, the pub, the cinema, and the tourist resort.

HIST W3411 The Rise of American Capitalism. 3 points.

E-Commerce & Internet Technologies Track, Managing Emerging Technologies Track, Project Management Track, Discussion Section Required, Lab Required

Examines the social conflicts that accompanied the transformation of the United States from an agrarian republic and slave society to one of the most powerful industrial nations in the world. Particular attention will be paid to the building of new social and economic institutions and to cultural and visual representations of the nation and its people. Readings include major secondary works and primary documents. Formerly: American Society in the age of Capital, 1819-1897. Field(s): US

HIST W3503 Workers in Industrial and Post-Industrial America. 3 points.

Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

The history of work, workers, and unions during the 20th century.  Topics include scientific management, automation, immigrant workers, the rise of industrial unionism, labor politics, occupational discrimination, and working-class community life. Field(s): US

HIST BC3886 Fashion. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

Prerequisites: At least one course in a Non-U.S. Area in History, Literature, Anthropology, Film Studies or Art History. Permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.

Investigates the cultural, material and technological conditions that facilitated the development of "fashion systems" in early modern Europe, Japan and contemporary Asian diasporic communities. In the global framework, "fashion" serves as a window into the politics of self-presentation, community formation, structure of desires, and struggles over representation.

HIST BC3905 Capitalism, Colonialism, and Culture: A Global History. 4 points.

BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS).
Not offered during 2023-2024 academic year.

Prerequisites: Permission of Instructor. Enrollment limited to 15. Preregistration required.

From Indian Ocean worlds of the seventeenth century, to Atlantic world slavery, to the establishment of colonies in Asia and Africa during the nineteenth century, colonization was critical to the development of metropolitan ideas regarding politics and personhood. This seminar will examine these histories, along with emerging constructions of race and gender, as precursors to debates about human rights and humanitarianism in the twentieth century.

HSEA W4884 Merchants, Markets, Modernity - China. 4 points.

From Marx's Asiatic Mode of Production to contemporary notions of Confucian capitalism, theories abound to explain China's divergence from Western patterns of political and economic development. This course critiques these theories and looks at the Chinese economy starting with its own internal logic to explore the social, cultural, institutional and political forces that underlay Chinese economic practice, the role of markets, merchants, labor, and the state in the making of modern China. No prerequisite.

HIST W4434 The Atlantic Slave Trade. 4 points.

This seminar provides an intensive introduction to the history of the Atlantic slave trade. The course will consider the impact of the traffic on Western Europe and the Americas, as well as on Africa, and will give special attention to the experiences of both captives and captors. Assignments include three short papers and a longer research paper of 20 to 25 pages. Field(s): INTL 

HIST W4569 American Consumer Capitalism: 1800-Present. 4 points.

This seminar studies the history of consumer capitalism in America from the early 19th century to the present. It will establish when capitalism emerged, what it meant, and how it challenged and transformed American Civilization