Northeastern University, USA
The World History Seminar:
'Asia and Europe in the World Economy'
Five seminar sessions will be held Northeastern University presenting recent research and pursuing the debate between André Gunder Frank and David Landes (World History Seminar, 2 December 1998). This debate on the timing and causation of European dominance in the world economy includes all continents between the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. To unify the discussion we ask each scholar to devote a portion of his presentation to the general question: 'When and how did European economies gain hegemony over the economies of Asia?'The André Gunder Frank/David Landes debate left us with an important question demanding further research. What factors contributed to Europe's rise in the 19th century? Was it a result of endogenous factors, or as Gunder Frank and Prasannan Parthasarthi suggest, part of a complex set of global interactions and reactions grounded in Asian dominance that led to a new unfolding world order? Gunder Frank suggests some answers and areas demanding further research in his book ReOrient. Indeed, he may have provided world history with its most important research agenda.We hope to begin this dialogue at the World History Seminar, sponsored by the World History Center at Northeastern University, with scholars knowledgeable in these areas. Among them are Peter Gran of Temple University and author of Beyond Eurocentrism; UC-Irvine's Ken Pomeranz, who has provided original research for Gunder Frank's ReOrient; R. Bin Wong, of the 'California School', Peter Perdue of MIT; Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), and Prasannan Parthasarthi of Boston College.
In this series we hope to further our knowledge of how Europe was forced to react to a dominant Asian economy and how this contributed to a European response resulting in industrialization and the development of the modern world as we know it. These are big and important issues. The work of scholars, such as André Gunder Frank in the book ReOrient, and Prasannan Parthasarthi in his article Past and Present past February, have forced us to confront the possibility that the development of industrialism and the modern world may have resulted from complex global interactions rather than from European factors alone. Spawned by the Gunder Frank/Landes debate, this series of presentations may prove seminal in defining world history research.
13 January 1999
Peter Gran, Temple University
The Rise of the Rich: Egypt and the transition from old to modern capitalism, 1860-1850
11 February 1999
Kenneth Pomeranz, University of California, Irvine
A Global Perspective on Early Industrialization?
26 February 1999
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, EHESS
Rethinking Early Modern South Asia within its Indian Ocean context
3 March 1999
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Boston College
New Comparative Perspectives on the British Industrial Revolution
18 March 1999
Peter Perdue, MIT
The Industrial Revolution Seen from China: Early, late, deep, or sudden?
R. Bin Wong, University of California, Irvine
Chinese Political Economies of Commercialization and Industrialization in Comparative Perspective
For further information:
Jeff Sommers
Co-ordinator of the World History Center
E-mail: jsommers@lynx.neu.edu
Professor Patrick Manning
Director World History Center
E-mail: manning@nue.edu
URL:http://www.whc.neu.edu