New Economic History?

The British Group in Early American History are having their annual conference in Kent next month and the subject chosen for discussion this year is Economies and Culture in the development of Early America. Does this signal a resurgence of interest in economic history after it became unfashionable for so many years?

Registration for the conference is open now, please follow this link in order to sign up: here

An interest in economic history has been maintained during the last few decades by historians of the Atlantic world, so whereas the topic has been thought old fashioned and brought to mind academia of the 1970s to European historians, the same is not true of Americanists.

In surveying the origins of the United States, an investigation into the economic structures underpinning the imperial systems and the African slave trade have been a consistent part of our research and central to what we have taught our students.

However, it is still unusual to attend conferences proclaiming to be promoting economic history, so the BGEAH meeting should be a reallyy exciting one and by the looks of the programme, this is certainly not a stagnant, backward looking field of study. Let’s hope that this is the first of many conferences to explore this under-examined part of the field.