Law in Economics and Business
Code
1409
Academic unit
null
Department
null
Credits
4,0
Teacher in charge
Luciano Amaral
Teaching language
English
Objectives
The purpose of this course is to give a general perspective on the formation of the contemporary world. In order to do so the course starts by studying the moment of planetary opening known as the Discoveries. Then it studies the main institutional and economic characteristics of Europe?s Ancien Régime and its destruction by the Liberal revolutions of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The course proceeds by analyzing the expansion of Liberal ideas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as their crisis in the twentieth century. In order to do so it studies the two world wars and the challenges posed by Communism and Fascism. The course ends by an analysis of the prosperity process that is a main feature of the contemporary Western world, connecting it with globalization.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
1. Expansion
- A comparison between Europe and the rest of the world prior to the European Discoveries
- The Discoveries and the expansion of Europe
2. Ancien Regime
- The political features of the world prior to the liberal revolutions: absolute monarchies, intra-continental empires and aristocratic republics
3. Liberty
- The destruction of the Ancien Regime and the revolutions that created the political contemporary world: the English, the American and the French Revolutions
4. From Napoleon to 1848
? The Napoleonic invasions and the destruction of the old political order of Europe; the spread of liberalism and nationalism in Europe
5. Empire
- Growth, development and stabilization of European imperialism, from the beginning to the ?scramble for Africa? at the end of the nineteenth century. The crisis of 1914 and World War I
6. Total war
- The two world wars, the decline of European imperialism and of European influence in the world and the new American order
7. Democracy and totalitarianisms
- The communist and fascist challenges to Western liberalism and democracy:
- The 1917 Russian revolution
- Italian fascism (1922)
- Nazism (1933)
- The Cold War (1945-1991)
8. Prosperity
- Economic growth in the world, from the British industrial revolution in the eighteenth century to current global prosperity: three centuries of economic change
9. Crises
- Crises in Western economies, from the Tulip speculation to the current financial crisis, with special attention to the 1930s crisis
10. Equality
- The process of income equalization since the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1980s. Its current increase
11. Globalization
Bibliography
Davies, Norman, Europe, A History, London, Pimlico, 1997.
Gaddis, John Lewis, The Cold War, London, Allen Lane-Penguin, 2005.
Ferguson, Niall, Empire, How Britain Made the Modern World, London, Penguin, 2003.
Johnson, A History of the American People, New York, Harper, 1997.
Jones, E.L., The European Miracle, Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Kenyon, J.P., Stuart England, London, Penguin, 1978.
Kindleberger, Charles P., Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Wiley, 2005.
Landes, David, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor, New York, Abacus, 1998.
Maddison, Angus, Monitoring the World Economy, 1820-1992, Paris, OECD, 1995.
Malia, Martin, The Soviet Tragedy, A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991, New York, The Free Press, 1994.
Parker, R.A.C., The Second World War, A Short History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989.
Payne, Stanley G., A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, Madison, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
Pommeranz, Kenneth, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000.
Strachan, Hew, The First World War, A New Illustrated History, London, Pocket Books, 2003.
Teaching method
The methods followed in the course are traditional lectures by the course?s teacher, combined with the analysis and discussion of various texts in class, as well as the writing of essays on specific topics.
Evaluation method
- A final exam (70% of the final grade)
- Preparation of chosen texts to be discussed in class (15%)
- Writing of essays on particular topics (15%)