One of the very first things you will learn in History at undergraduate level is that there are many different sub-disciplines within the discipline of analysing History, and you will at some point need to focus and zoom in to certain topics in order to have a better argument. Therefore I will explain to you the different categories of historiography in multiple posts.
In this post, I will be focusing on Economic History. So what actually is economic history, what are some key historians within this sub-discipline, and what are the criticisms associated with it?
Economic history is the study of:
- Past economies
- The impact of economic factors on society, politics and the environment
- Business, including advertising and marketing
- Work, technologies and commodities
Economic History Society, 1926:
- Strong connections with social and political history
- Industrial revolution and its social effects
Historians:
Labour history/the history of work:
- When computers were human – David Alan Grier
- Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984-85 – Robert Gildea
- Behind the screen – Sarah T. Roberts
- Race on the line – Venus Green
Technology/capitalism:
- Devices and Desires – Andrea Tone
- Empire of Cotton: A Global History – Sven Beckert
Criticisms:
Been accused of seeing statistics as important – we need to consider the source of evidence, where do the numbers come from?