Professor John Munro passed away on December 23, 2013. This site is maintained and kept online as an archive. For more infomation please visit the Centre for Medieval Studies

Prof. John H. Munro
Department of Economics
University of Toronto
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/

Updated 21 August 2013

BIBLIOGRAPHIES FOR ECO 301Y: 'A'-LIST TOPICS - Short Format: for 2013 - 2014

Topics in the Economic History of Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe, c.1250-1750

These bibliographies are in the short-format only. Please see the general notes about bibliographies for undergraduate economic history courses.

The following topics are on the 'A'-list for 2013 - 2014; and some of them will be transferred to the 'B'-list for the next time that this course is given again, when most of this year's 'B'-list topics will, conversely, become 'A'-list topics. Each year a different set of 10 topics, 5 topics for each of the two terms, is chosen from the Master List of essay topics, though with some occasional duplications, of the most important topics.

The following topics are numbered in the sequence 1 - 10; but the term 'Topic no.' following each of these numbers refers to the Topic Number in the Master List of Essay/Tutorial Topics for Eco. 301Y1. You should refer to this Master List for a more detailed discussion of the debates about and thus the significance of each of these major topics, in European economic history.

These bibliographies are provided in both PDF format (default) and in MS-Word. To retrieve them, click on the blue-highlighted topic number for the pdf version, and on the highlighted words 'Also in MS Word', for that version; but do so only in the html version of this document (since the pdf version will not give you that access). There are no statistical tables or any other appendices in the short-format of these bibliographies. Usually presented in just two or three pages, they contain the most important readings and some key questions to be considered.

FIRST TERM: FALL 2013: September to December 2013


(1) Topic no. 1: The Black Death, Late-Medieval Demographic Crises, and the Standard of Living Controversies: in 14th- and 15th-Century Europe. Also available in MS Word.

(2) Topic no. 3: The Problem of Serfdom in European Economic Development, II: The Spread of Serfdom into Eastern Europe, ca. 1400- ca. 1700. Also in MS Word .

(3) Topic no. 4 : Feudal Governments, Warfare, Taxation, and Economic Crisis in Late Medieval Europe. Also available in MS Word.

(4)Topic no. 6: Monetary Problems and 'Economic Conjuncture' in Late-Medieval Europe, c. 1290 - c. 1520: the nature of monetary and price changes (deflation and inflation) in the late-medieval European economy. Also available in MS Word

(5) Topic no. 7: The Church, the Usury Question, and Late-Medieval Banking: the Foundations of Modern Finance. Also available in MS Word .


SECOND TERM, WINTER 2014: January to April 2014 (not updated)

(6) Topic no. 13: The Population Problem and the Economic Development of Early-Modern Europe (1500 - 1640): Was there a 'Malthusian Trap'? Also availabe in in MS Word.

(7) Topic no. 14: The Era of the European 'Price Revolution', ca. 1540-1640: Causes and consequences of inflation: its impact on European economic growth. Also available in MS Word

(8) Topic no. 15: The 'Rise of Capitalism' and the Protestant Reformations: The Weber- Tawney Theses on the 'Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism', 16th - 18th centuries. Also available in MS Word

(9) Topic No. 16: The Social Costs of Agricultural Modernization: The Tudor Stuart Enclosure Movements in England, from ca. 1480 to ca. 1700 . Also available in MS Word

(10) Topic no. 24: Mercantilism: Money, Economic Nationalism, and the State in Early-Modern Europe. Also available in MS Word .

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