Economic History

[peanutbutter]

Hi,

I am interested in economic history (though I have not yet applied to any programs in this field). Does anyone have a sense of how big or small an area this is within history? I feel like it is one that might be growing but is more popular outside of the U.S.?

Thanks!

[kahlan_amnell]

Hi,

I am interested in economic history (though I have not yet applied to any programs in this field). Does anyone have a sense of how big or small an area this is within history? I feel like it is one that might be growing but is more popular outside of the U.S.?

Thanks!

I think that economic history is a rather small area within history, and I don't think it is growing. I don't know about it's relative popularity in the US versus elsewhere.

[thepoorstockinger]

It seems to me that "economic" history also means different things to different people. I've heard professors talk about economic history as if it is the same thing as business history or labour history.

I gather that the very quantitative type of economic history is not nearly as popular as it once was, but there are a fair number of neat people doing "History of Capitalism" right now, and I am sure a lot of quantitative work that would have fallen under economic history a decade ago is still being done but happening in other subfields - I've seen some environmental history that really looks a lot like economic history to me and I am sure agricultural history and various regional subfields have economic historians doing neat work.

If you're into the super quantitative brand of economic history you might want to look at economics department.

[rustonite]

"Economic history" is a very, very broad term- just calling yourself an economic historian is akin to calling yourself a cultural historian. Are you further specialized? Like, economic history of 19th century US or something like that?