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Due Thurs., April 28

In a conversational style (i.e. a dialogue such as you did for the last assignment), discuss whether there was a crisis in capitalism during the Great Depression.  Was the New Deal socialist?  Or was it necessary to rescue capitalism itself?  What parallels are there to today?

Economists and other commentators have considered this and similar questions.  While this is not meant to be a major research paper, you may use other sources, citing them in the usual way.

1 to 2 pages

The last two classes I told you about the next homework essay.  Originally I said it would be due the Tuesday we come back.  But I've decided to give you the rest of the week.  So, here it is once again:

Due March 24 (Thursday after break)

Write an essay in conversational form that addresses the question of whether or not railroads were "indispensable" as an engine of economic growth.  For example, you might write a fictional conversation between you and your roommate in which you discuss the question.  In any case, write it up as a conversation (like a script or screenplay) with the dialog between the characters.  Because writing a conversation script means fewer words per page, I would expect this to be longer (in pages) than the last one.  Probably two full pages.

For examples of economics as a conversation, go here:

Here are links to the papers for the short writing assignment.  This is due on Tuesday, Feb. 15, and is essentially similar to the first assignment.

Assignment:  Write a 1 page (more or less) article summary of one of the articles below.  I have assigned one of the three articles to you by order of the first letter of your last name to ensure that some people have read each one (thus improving the chances for a good discussion).

Things to think about as you write your summary include (but are not limited to):  What was the author's main idea or thesis?  (This is usually stated quite clearly in the introduction section.)  What evidence did they advance to convince the reader of the thesis?  Does the author's thesis take issue with another paper or with the conventional wisdom?  What is the author's conclusion?  (Usually in the conclusion section you will see the thesis restated along with an brief explanation of how they proved it.)  Finally, were you persuaded to the author's point of view on the topic?

Answer these questions in about a page (double spaced) or two pages if you're so inclined.

Be brief and to the point.  I write book reviews for two journals.  For one of them, I only have 200 words to review an entire book.  The other journal gives me about 1200 words, but that's still not much.  One page double spaced is about 250 to 300 words.  I'd say that 400 words is a good target for this assignment.

Here are the links:

If your last name begins with A through G, summarize the paper by Bils:
Bils, Mark. "Tariff Protection and Production in the Early U.S. Cotton Textile Industry," The Journal of Economic History 44 (1984): 1033-1045

If your last name begins with H through O, summarize the paper by Harley:
Harley, C. Knick. "International Competitiveness of the Antebellum American Cotton Textile Industry," Journal of Economic History 52 (1992): 559-584.

If your last name begins with P through Z, summarize the paper by Temin:
Temin, Peter.  "Product Quality and Vertical Integration in the Early Cotton Textile Industry," Journal of Economic History 48 (1988): 891-907.


Any questions?  Please let me know.

The first homework was sent by e-mail before the web page was up, but for the sake of completeness here are the links to those papers.

Thomas, Robert. "A Quantitative Approach to the Study of the Effects of British Imperial Policy on Colonial Welfare:  Some Preliminary Findings."  Journal of Economic History 25 (1965):615-638

Walton, Gary. "The New Economic History and the Burdens of the Navigation Acts." Economic History Review 24 (4), 2d series, (1971): 533-542.

Sawers, Larry.  "The Navigation Acts Revisited." Economic History Review 45 (2), (May 1992): 262-284.