The twentieth century saw the greatest transformation in human material welfare in history — and two world wars, genocides, totalitarian regimes, famines, and persistent poverty across much of the globe. Why did some societies achieve sustained prosperity while others stagnated or collapsed into violence?
This course uses the economic history of the twentieth century to pursue that question. We trace how each era's dominant economic framework — from the classical liberalism of the first age of globalization, through socialism and Keynesianism, to the “neoliberal” order of the late twentieth century — arose as a response to the perceived failures of its predecessor.
How readings work. Items marked Open are freely available and link straight to the source. Items marked Canvas are posted in the course Canvas site — you must be logged in and enrolled. Nothing copyrighted is hosted on this page.
★ marks primary sources to be read before the session they sit under. Other readings may be done at your own pace across the topic block.
Laptops and devices. Laptops, tablets, and phones stay closed and put away during class. Slides are posted to Canvas as PDFs before each meeting, so there is nothing to transcribe in real time — bring them printed if you like, and take notes by hand. Device accommodations arranged through the Disability Resource Center are honoured.
The readings listed below are subject to change. Any changes will be announced in class and the updated syllabus posted on Canvas.
The Rise and Crisis of the Global Economy
Sessions 1–19 · Aug 21 – Oct 12
Session 1 · Introduction
Sessions 2–4 · Origins of Capitalism and Modern Economic Growth
Why did sustained economic growth begin where and when it did? What were its preconditions?
- Koyama & Rubin, How the World Became Rich, ch. 1–3 Book
Sessions 5–7 · The First Age of Globalization
What drove the integration of the world economy before 1914? Who benefited and who lost?
- Koyama & Rubin, How the World Became Rich, ch. 9 Book
- DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, ch. 1–3 Book
- Rhode, “North America: The Rise of US Technological and Economic Leadership” Canvas
- Jacks, “What Drove 19th Century Commodity Market Integration?” EEH 43(3), 2006 Open ↗
- O'Rourke & Williamson, “Were Heckscher and Ohlin Right?” NBER Historical WP 37 Open ↗
Sessions 8–10 · World War I
How did the war destroy the pre-1914 economic order? What were its long-run consequences?
- Broadberry, “World War I: Why the Allies Won,” in The Economics of the Great War Open ↗
- Eloranta & Harrison, “War and Disintegration, 1914–1950” Canvas
- DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, ch. 5 Book
Optional listening
The Rest Is History, “The Road to the Great War,” episodes 469–474
Series ↗
Six episodes tracking the July Crisis almost day by day. Parts 2–5 apportion the blame
across four different capitals — Berlin, Vienna, London, and St Petersburg — which is
roughly the structure of Session 8.
Sessions 11–12 · Socialism and Communism
What was the intellectual appeal of socialism? How did the Bolsheviks seize power, and what kind of economy did they build?
- ★ Lenin, What Is to Be Done? (1902), ch. 2 Open ↗ and ch. 4 §E Open ↗ — for Session 11
- ★ Lenin, State and Revolution (1917), ch. 5 §2 Open ↗ — for Session 12
- ★ Lenin, The April Theses (1917) Open ↗ — for Session 12
- ★ Lenin, The Hanging Order Telegram (1918) Open ↗ — for Session 12
- DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, ch. 8 Book
Sessions 13–14 · Fascism
What was the economic programme of fascism? How did fascist regimes differ from communist ones?
- ★ Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) Open ↗ — for Session 13
- ★ The Fascist Manifesto (1919) Open ↗ — for Session 13
- DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, ch. 9 Book
Sessions 15–17 · The Great Depression
What caused the Great Depression and why was it so severe? How did governments respond?
- Romer, “The Nation in Depression,” JEP 7(2), 1993 Open ↗
- Temin, “Transmission of the Great Depression,” JEP 7(2), 1993 Open ↗
- Friedman & Schwartz, “The Great Contraction, 1929–33,” ch. 7 of A Monetary History of the United States Open ↗
- Bernanke, “The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: A Comparative Approach,” JMCB 27(1), 1995 Open ↗
- Cole & Ohanian, “New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression,” JPE 2004 Canvas
- Ohanian, “What — or Who — Started the Great Depression?” NBER WP 15258 Open ↗
- Selgin, “Contextualizing the Great Depression” (Macro Musings podcast) Open ↗
Sessions 18–19 · Review and Midterm I
War, Recovery, and the Keynesian Consensus
Sessions 20–34 · Oct 14 – Nov 20
Sessions 20–22 · Soviet Communism
Did Soviet central planning “work”? What were its achievements and its failures?
- Gregory & Harrison, “Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives,” JEL 2005 Canvas
- Naumenko, “The Political Economy of Famine: The Ukrainian Famine of 1933,” JEH 2021 Canvas
- Kornai, “The Soft Budget Constraint,” Kyklos 39(1), 1986 Canvas
Sessions 23 & 25 · The Nazi Economy
How did Nazi economic policy relate to rearmament and war? Was the wartime economy efficient?
- Tooze, The Wages of Destruction, ch. 1 and 5 Canvas
- Temin, “Soviet and Nazi Economic Planning in the 1930s,” EcHR 44(4), 1991 Open ↗
- Buchheim & Scherner, “The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy,” JEH 66(2), 2006 Open ↗
Sessions 26–28 · World War II and the Post-War Economic Order
How did the war reshape the global economy? What institutions underpinned the postwar boom?
- Higgs, “Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s,” JEH 1992 Canvas
- Crafts & Toniolo, “Aggregate Growth, 1950–2005” Canvas
Sessions 30–31 · The Problem of the “Third World”
Why did the developing world fail to converge? What was the role of development economics and foreign aid?
- Koyama & Rubin, How the World Became Rich, ch. 10 Book
- DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, ch. 12 Book
- Lewis, “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” 1954 Canvas
- Rosenstein-Rodan, “Problems of Industrialisation of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe,” EJ 1943 Canvas
- Easterly, “The Ghost of Financing Gap,” World Bank WP 1807 Open ↗
- Easterly & Levine, “Africa's Growth Tragedy,” QJE 1997 Canvas
Sessions 32–34 · Inflation and the Collapse of the Keynesian Consensus
What caused the Great Inflation? How did it undermine the postwar policy framework?
- ★ Friedman, “The Role of Monetary Policy,” AER 58(1), 1968 Canvas — for Session 33
- DeLong, “America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s,” 1997 Canvas
- DeLong, Slouching Towards Utopia, ch. 15 Book
Neoliberalism, Globalization, and Their Discontents
Sessions 35–36 · Nov 30 – Dec 2
What policies did Reagan and Thatcher actually pursue? Were welfare states dismantled or merely reformed? Who won and who lost from the second age of globalization?
- Easterly, “In Search of Reforms for Growth,” NBER WP 26318 Open ↗
- Grier & Grier, “The Washington Consensus Works,” JCE 2021 Canvas
- Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion?” JEL 2006 Canvas
- Autor, Dorn & Hanson, “The China Syndrome,” AER 2013 Canvas
- Saez & Zucman, “The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America,” JEP 2020 Open ↗
- Auten & Splinter, “Income Inequality in the United States,” JPE 2024 Canvas
- Milanovic, “Global Income Inequality by the Numbers,” World Bank WP 6259 Open ↗
The Screening Room
Optional film and television
None of this is required unless announced in class. It is here because some arguments land better on screen than on the page — and because several of these are simply worth your time.
They Shall Not Grow Old
Imperial War Museum footage restored, speed-corrected and colourised, over veteran interview audio.
Session 9
The Remains of the Day
Deference, dignity, and what is owed to an employer whose politics are monstrous. Lord Darlington as a sympathetic — and catastrophic — English Nazi sympathiser.
Sessions 13–14 · 25–27
Mr. Jones
Gareth Jones breaks the story of the Ukrainian famine; Walter Duranty of the New York Times buries it.
Sessions 20–22
The Death of Stalin
Succession politics as farce, in the days after the stroke. Banned in Russia. Note the comic register sits against a real body count.
Sessions 20–22
Anthropoid
The 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, and the annihilation of Lidice in reprisal. Extremely violent in its final act.
Sessions 23–24
Munich: The Edge of War
Munich 1938, from the Robert Harris novel. A sympathetic reading of Chamberlain: that he bought time knowingly rather than being duped.
Sessions 25–27
The Gathering Storm
Churchill in the wilderness years. The counter-case to Munich: appeasement as a failure of nerve rather than prudent delay. Watch the two as a pair.
Sessions 25–27
The Battle of Algiers
The canonical decolonization film, even-handed to the point that it has been screened by insurgents and counterinsurgency planners alike.
Sessions 28–30
Lumumba
Congolese independence and the murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 — the origin story for Mobutu, and for the Cold War in Africa.
Sessions 28–30
American Factory
A Chinese glass company reopens a shuttered GM plant in Ohio. The China Shock inside one building.
Sessions 34–36
Commanding Heights
Runs the whole arc of this course in one narrative: liberal order → war → planning → Depression → Keynesian consensus → stagflation → Hayek's revenge. Shown in segments across the semester.
Throughout
Course materials. Lecture slides, scanned chapters, and the readings marked Canvas above are posted on the course Canvas site. You will need to be logged in and enrolled. This page hosts no copyrighted material; where a reading is freely available, it links to the publisher or the author.
Contact. Prof. Mark Koyama · office hours by request.
ISS 4931 · Hamilton School · University of Florida · Fall 2026 · schedule subject to revision