HIS 204 Social Studies Economics I

This course examines the processes of colonization and nation-building through the lens of political economy, focusing on the mainland colonies of British North American and the resulting nation-state of the United States to 1865. Topics include the contest of empires to dominate trans-Atlantic trade, the economic choices that affected individuals, migration, social relations, patterns of wealth accumulation, and political engagement, and the resulting asymmetries of economic and political power that led to the American Revolution and subsequent economic reorganization of the nation's banking and commercial system. Students will analyze the causes and consequences of the technological and infrastructural developments that led to Market Revolution and the dramatic expansion of slavery, focusing on the transformation of and volatility in agricultural and industrial sectors in the process of regional and national market integration. Students will conclude with an examination of the Civil War, emancipation, and the fraught transition to a national free labor economy. Students will be assessed on their ability to display historical content and economic concepts, to interpret and analyze primary and secondary documents, and to synthesize a collection of sources to create evidence-based historical arguments (L03).