Global Economic History Seminar


2019-04-30 17:00: Why Was the Manila Galleon Only One-Ship Trade? (Alejandra Irigoin (London School of Economics))

2019-05-07 17:00: Community Origins of Industrial Development in Pre-Independence India (Bishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick))

2019-05-14 17:00: Just Commerce: Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition (Bronwen Everill (Gonville & Caius, University of Cambridge))

2019-05-21 17:00: History of Cooperatives beyond Europe: Developmental Capitalism in India and Ghana, 1920 to 1960 (Nikolay Kamenov (Graduate Institute, Geneva))

2021-05-04 17:00: Democracy, Autocracy and Sovereign Debt: How Polity Influenced Country Risk in the First Financial Globalisation (Leonardo Weller (Escola de Economia de São Paulo da Fundação Getulio Varga) and Coşkun Tuncer (University College London))

2021-05-11 17:00: Capital and labour: Theoretical foundations of the economics of slavery (Erik Green and Igor Martins (both Lund University))

2021-05-18 17:00: Understanding Japan’s competitiveness in the global cotton market in the early 20th century’  (Janet Hunter (Dept of Economic History, London School of Economics))

2021-05-25 17:00: Mao's Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Making of Chinese Socialism (Koji Hirata (Emmanuel College, Cambridge))

2022-05-03 17:00: ‘The Rothschild tobacco business in the nineteenth century: the interplay between finance and commodities’ (William Gervase Clarence-Smith, SOAS University of London)

2022-05-10 17:00: ‘In Search of the Roots of the East Asian Miracle: The role of colonialism and extraction’ (Montserrat Lopez Jerez (University of St Andrews))

2022-05-17 17:00: ‘The decolonisation of African states. Taxation and expenditure in former French Africa, 1900-2020’ (Denis Cogneau (Paris School of Economics, IRD, EHESS))

2022-05-24 17:00: ‘Cross-Cultural Trade and the Slave Ship the Bonne Société: Baskets of Goods, Diverse Sellers, and Time Pressure on the African Coast’ (Anne Ruderman (London School of Economics))

2023-04-25 17:15: Native Authorities and Infrastructural Investments in Colonial Africa: The Electrification of Nigerian Towns, 1910-1950 (Damilola Adebayo)

2023-05-02 17:15: The tax haven that wasn't: state, capital, and the politics of corporate taxation in the French colonial empire, 1920s-1950s (Madeline Woker (Cambridge))

2023-05-09 17:15: Ideology and Economic Change: The Contrasting Paths to the Modern Economy in late 19th Century China and Japan (Debin Ma (All Souls, Oxford))

2023-05-16 17:15: The Greatest Divergence of World History: Elite violence and elite numeracy in the Middle East from 500 CE to 1900 CE” (Speaker to be confirmed)

2023-06-06 17:15: Fifty Years of 'An Economic History of West Africa' (Speakers to be confirmed)

2024-04-23 17:15: 	‘Imperial Regulation, Commercial Practices, and the Pan-European Genesis of the Trade in Enslaved Africans to Spanish America’ (Regina Grafe (University of Cambridge))

2024-04-30 17:15: ‘Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World’ (Marc-William Palen (University of Exeter))

2024-05-07 17:15: ‘A Taste for Mocha: Competing for the Coffee Trade in the Eighteenth Century’ (Guillemette Aline Crouzet (European University Institute))

2024-05-21 17:15: ‘The Glorious Revolution that Wasn’t: Rural Elite Conflict and Demand for Democratization in Khedival Egypt’  (Co-authored with Allison Spencer Hartnett) (Mohamed Saleh (London School of Economics))

2025-03-03 17:15: Structural Adjustment in Africa: Ghana and Kenya Compared, 1981-1990 (Professor Gareth Austin (University of Cambridge))

2025-03-17 17:15: Gold, Coins and Conflict: Currency Tensions and the Minting of the Anglo-Boer War, 1891-1899 (Dr Tinashe Nyamunda (University of Glasgow))

2025-05-19 17:15: Beyond almsgiving: The financial role of charitable institutions in early modern Portugal and its empire (Lisbeth Rodrigues (CITCEM & Faculty of Arts, University of Porto))

2025-05-27 17:00: From “Green Revolution” to “Economic Liberalization” in 1970s-80s' India: Impacts of Oil Crises in a Global Perspective (Shigeru Akita (Osaka University))

2025-06-09 17:15: Superstition, fertility, and modernization: evidence from Japan (John Tang (Utrecht University))

2026-01-26 17:00: ‘Farmers-Herders Conflicts, the Shadow Economy, and Nigeria's National Question’ (Professor Olutayo Adesina (University of Manchester/University of Ibadan))

2026-02-23 17:00: ‘The Evolution of State Capacity in Early Modern Empires: The Mughal South Asian case 1556-1707’ (Dr Safya Morshed (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid))

2026-03-09 17:00: Smith Goes to Sokoto: How Close was Precolonial Northern Nigeria to Modern Economic Growth?’ (Dr Tom Westland (Wageningen University))

2026-03-16 17:00: ‘The Guggenheims and the Collapse of the Chilean Nitrate Industry, 1925-33’ (Rory Miller (University of Liverpool))