Cambridge Lectures in Economic History - JEB143
Title: Cambridge Lectures in Economic History
Czech title: Cambridge Lectures in Economic History
Guaranteed by: Institute of Economic Studies (23-IES)
Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
Actual: from 2024
Semester: summer
E-Credits: 5
Examination process: summer s.:written
Hours per week, examination: summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
Capacity: 59 / 59 (unknown)
Min. number of students: unlimited
4EU+: no
Virtual mobility / capacity: no
State of the course: taught
Language: English
Teaching methods: full-time
Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan
enabled for web enrollment
priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
Guarantor: prof. PhDr. Ing. Antonie Doležalová, Ph.D.
Teacher(s): prof. PhDr. Ing. Antonie Doležalová, Ph.D.
Class: Courses for incoming students
Examination dates   SS schedule   Noticeboard   
Annotation -
This unique course is based on cooperation between IES FSS and Robinson College, University of Cambridge. It offers both the inquiry into the newest thematic and methodological development of economic and social history and the teaching practice as is used at the University of Cambridge. For the Cambridge Lectures, Antonie Doležalová was awarded the Arnost of Pardubice Prize 2019 for the most innovative teacher at the Charles University.


CLEH 2025:
CAPITALISM AND AFRICAN HISTORY

Gareth Austin, King's College, Cambridge


This year, the compact course will explore the economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa in the long term. It does so from the perspective of a long-debated question: has Africa had too little, too much, or the wrong sort of capitalism?
Individual lectures and seminars will elaborate the following issues:
1. The economic history of Africa from 1450 to the present
2. Slavery and the Market
3. Colonialism and Capitalism in Africa
4. Capitalism in Independent Africa
Last update: Doležalová Antonie, prof. PhDr. Ing., Ph.D. (14.02.2025)
Descriptors -

With the exception of the first lecture 

of 02.20. 15:30-17:00, Opletalova 206

the course will taught as the compact course during the week 04/07. - 04/10 2025:

07.04..2025, 14-15:20,  Opletalova 206, 

04.08.2025, 18-19:20 Hollar  H014,

04.09.2025, 14-15:20 Opletalova 206

04.10.2025, 15:30-17,  Opletalova 206

Last update: Doležalová Antonie, prof. PhDr. Ing., Ph.D. (14.02.2025)
Course completion requirements -

Grading policy:

A…...100-91 

B…... 90-81

C…... 80-71

D…... 70-61

E….... 60-51

F… .....50 - 0

 

Total grade will depend on:

1) Active aprticipation in lectures and seminars. The discussion will be based on compulsory reading (20 points max)

2) 4 short papers, 1800 characters incl. spaces (1 pages) max., 80  points max, 20 points each

The minimal amount of points required to pass the subject: 51

A minimal number of 51 points to successfully pass the subject is divided as follows:

15 points activity in lectures and seminars (compulsory attendace: 3 lectures during the week 04/07- 04/10)

36 points papers

 

Each  paper will be evaluated by points as follows:

20 -17:  very well written (5 points max) , highly structured and focused (5 points max),  comprehensive understanding of key facts (5 points max), an ability to formulate own ideas in the analysis (5 points max)

16-13:  clear style, well structured and focused,  good understanding of key facts,  evaluative sought in some areas

12-7: descriptive style, logically structured and focused, a partial understanding of the key facts, missing evaluation

6-1: poorly and unclearly written,  poorly structured and not focused, poor understanding the topic, missing evaluation 

0: not submitted

Compulsory attendance 3/4 Professor Austin’s lectures in April 7-10

Last update: Doležalová Antonie, prof. PhDr. Ing., Ph.D. (19.02.2025)
Literature -

 

Compulsory reading

F. Cooper, ‘Africa and capitalism’, in Cooper, Africa in the World (Princeton, 2014).

J.E. Inikori, ‘Africa and the globalization process: Western Africa, 1450-1850’, Journal of Global History 2: 1 (2007), pp. 63-86.

G. Austin, ‘The economics of colonialism’, in C. Monga & J. Lin, eds, Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics (Oxford, 2015), pp. 522-35.

J-F. Bayart, ‘Africa in the world: a history of extraversion’, African Affairs 99 (2000), pp. 217-67.

 

Last update: Doležalová Antonie, prof. PhDr. Ing., Ph.D. (14.02.2025)
Requirements to the exam -

Papers assignements (to be submitted by May 25, 2025 23:59 via Moodle):

 

1.

2.

3.

4.

 

 

Compulsory attendance 3/4 Professor Austin’s lectures in April 7-10

 

Last update: Doležalová Antonie, prof. PhDr. Ing., Ph.D. (19.02.2025)
Syllabus -

CAPITALISM AND AFRICAN HISTORY

Prof. Gareth Austin, King's College, Cambridge

This compact course explores the economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa in the long term. It does so from the perspective of a long-debated question: has Africa had too little, too much, or the wrong sort of capitalism?


1. Introduction
This opening lecture briefly reviews the economic history of Africa, 1450 to the present, showing that it includes episodes of economic growth and trends of development. It goes on to outline the debate about capitalism and African development or underdevelopment, which requires us to think both about African history and about conceptions of capitalism.
Reading: F. Cooper, ‘Africa and capitalism’, in Cooper, Africa in the World (Princeton, 2014).


2. Slavery and the Market
This lecture introduces the natural resources of precolonial Africa, and how Africans responded to and changed them. It focusses on the labour ‘problem’ in a region in which land was abundant but rarely favourable to intensive agriculture, in a period in which African and foreign merchant and plantation capitalists shaped change. We ask why slave trades from Africa were economically and politically possible and profitable for so long, and we briefly consider their effects inside and outside Africa.
Reading: J.E. Inikori, ‘Africa and the globalization process: Western Africa, 1450-1850’, Journal of Global History 2: 1 (2007), pp. 63-86.


3. Colonialism and Capitalism in Africa
Did European colonial rule promote capitalism, and if so, what kind of capitalism? Scholars have long debated whether European rulers actively supported the deepening of capitalist institutions such as land and labour markets; or whether their political priority of social control led them to obstruct the further extension of the market system. We also consider the role of African capitalists, especially in the so-called ‘peasant’ colonies of British West Africa, and how far colonial rule helped or hindered them.
Reading: G. Austin, ‘The economics of colonialism’, in C. Monga & J. Lin, eds, Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics (Oxford, 2015), pp. 522-35.


4.Capitalism in Independent Africa
From independence, about 1960 in most cases, various forms of state-led development policy tended to limit opportunities for African private enterprise. Then came ‘Structural Adjustment’ in the 1980s, the drastic swing towards economic liberalism, supported by the IMF and World Bank. How have African capitalists, and capitalist institutions in Africa, fared since then? We will also briefly review the ‘capitalism and apartheid’ debate in South Africa: did systematic racial discrimination favour or frustrate economic development? Finally, is Africa’s future capitalist, and what are the implications in the context of the Anthropocene?
Reading: J-F. Bayart, ‘Africa in the world: a history of extraversion’, African Affairs 99 (2000), pp. 217-67.

Last update: Doležalová Antonie, prof. PhDr. Ing., Ph.D. (14.02.2025)