BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Plagues &\; Economic Collapse - Professor Ian Morris\, Stanford University DTSTART:20140228T173000Z DTEND:20140228T183000Z UID:TALK46749@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Janet Gibson DESCRIPTION:Abstract\n\nBetween the 1330s and the 1360s\, the Black Death killed between a third and a half of all the people in Europe\, China\, an d the Middle East. To many contemporaries\, it seemed like the end of the world\; but in the last thirty years\, economists have suggested that its consequences were anything but catastrophic. Instead of leading to economi c collapse\, they argue\, the plague launched Europe’s takeoff by improv ing its land: labor ratio\, doubling ordinary people’s incomes by 1450. In this talk I want to put Europe into perspective\, comparing its experie nce of plague and economics between 1350 and 1750 not what happened in Chi na and the Middle East in the same years and also with the economic conseq uences of plagues in the 2nd and 6th centuries. I try to show why some pla gues lead to collapse while others do not\, and ask what that tells us abo ut the likely consequences of plagues in the 21st century.\n\nBiography\n\ nIan Morris is Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics and Archaeol ogy at Stanford University. He received his PhD from Cambridge in 1986 and taught at the University of Chicago before moving to Stanford. His most r ecent books are Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future (Profile\, 2010)\, The Measure of Civili zation: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations (Profile\, 2013 )\, and War! What is it Good For? Violence and the Progress of Civilizatio n\, from Primates to Robots (Profile\, 2014). He has directed archaeologic al excavations in Italy and Greece and is a Corresponding Fellow of the Br itish Academy.\n LOCATION:LMH\, Lady Mitchell Hall END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR