Primary source Essay #2: The second primary source essay will also be based on one primary
source, but there will be a wider range of sources to chose from. Primary sources that you
should consider for this assignment include newspapers, especially the
New York Times, theFinancial Times, and the
London Times, magazines and periodical literature (the
Far Eastern
Economic Review from 1987-2000 is available, as well as government documents and
records. For example the records of the United Nations are now largely digitized and available
online The records of various governments pertaining to international economic diplomacy
are also available, including
The Foreign Relations of the United States for the 1970s and
1980s. The primary source should be complemented with relevant secondary literature of
about seven books, plus relevant articles.
Course Description:
This course examines the history of capitalism in the late twentieth century, during a
period referred to in the literature as neo-liberal, characterized by deregulation of markets,
the weakening of unions, privatization, and the withdrawal of state-based social services.
During the era, large parts of the world became integrated into capitalist structures and
processes, and the global economy was punctuated by regular financial crises (1982, 1992,
1997, 2007). Our discussions begin with an introduction to this era through Jeffry Frieden’s
book on global capitalism, which covers the roots of the neo-liberal era in the aftermath of
the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971. We then turn to case studies and thematic
explorations of the late twentieth century, beginning with the integration of communist
areas of the world into the international capitalist system. We start with Chris Miller’s,Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR, which
examines the relationship between Soviet and Chinese economic policies in the 1970s and
1980s. From there we explore the social history of capitalism in China and Russia through two
articles that highlight the limits of the reform process and the precarity of living through the
dramatic socio-economic changes underlying the social transformations. Our next case study
is Ethiopia, which had experienced a series of Marxist revolutions and counter-revolutions in
the 1970s and 1980s, and we explore how this era of revolution, neoliberalism, and the end of
Soviet assistance affected the trajectory of poverty in the country. In the second part of the
course we explore the relationship between rural-urban worlds of the late twentieth century,
focussing on the global south. Readings in these weeks include articles on the social question
in India and Africa, conceptualizations of the neoliberal era in relation to labour migration
and economic vulnerability, a case study of poverty in Mumbai, rural-urban female worker-
migrants in China, and an examination of a key commodity of global capitalism, oil, through
which we learn about relationships between capitalism, the politics of energy, oil
corporations, and the environment
