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Rondo Cameron, A Concise Economic History of the World: From Paleolithic Times to the Present

Course Content: This course covers the development of Europe and the European economies from ancient times to the recent past. Europe has been in recent centuries the dynamo of global economic change. The commercial and trade revolutions of the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries were overwhelming and then came the industrial revolution that still has the world reeling. Even in the classical times of Greece and the Roman Empire Mediterranean Europe was a major center of world economic development, although there were other major centers in China and India at that time.

The course begins with a brief overview of human history, particularly as it relates to Europe. The roots of European civilization are not in Europe but in the Middle East in Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent where the agricultural revolution (at least one of them) occurred. There is a strong case that civilization as we know it can be traced back to Sumeria. But Sumeria had its origins as well. The immediate origin of Sumerian civilization was the trading city of Dilmun on the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and Dilmun probably had its origins in the Indus River Valley civilization (known from excavations at Mohenjo-daro and at Harappa).

A major topic of the course is the explanation of why Europe declined into centuries of poverty known as the Dark Ages. The Belgian economic historian, Henri Pirenne, has one thesis. There are other hypotheses such as that of the British economic historian Postan which will also be considered.

The course will trace the emergence of commercial development in Renaissance Italy and its later transfer to northwestern Europe, particularly the Low Countries and later Britain. This is followed by the Industrial Revolution, first in Britain, then Belgium and later the rest of Europe and ultimately the rest of the world.

The course will end with material on the economies of Eastern Europe making the transition from centrally planned socialism to market economies and finally the economic development of the European Union.