ABSTRACT
Historians work in a discipline with few inherent concepts and are obliged to draw upon many fields in recreating the past. In studying history, students need knowledge of the chronology of key events, their geographical settings, and the formation of political institutions and legal systems. Also, it is imperative in history classes that students comprehend how basic principles of economics have affected both individuals and societies in the past as well as the present. This understanding is invaluable in assisting young people to use economic analysis as a tool for rationally comprehending human action and, because of the extensive relationship between policy decisions and the economy, to become effective citizens. Many young people see no relationship between the study of the past and understanding the present. The integration of economic concepts and analysis into historical studies is a superb pedagogical antidote to this problem. Basic economic literacy enables students to draw valid connections between past and present. Although every historical and contemporary event is unique in one sense, since antiquity people have more often than not responded predictably to economic incentives and disincentives, tax rates, economic freedom or the lack thereof, and fluctuating currency values. For various reasons, authors of most school history texts, state and national standards, and curriculum materials seem seldom to incorporate systematic explanations of economic concepts or economic analysis in their work. Examples of this problem abound ranging from state standards that include Adam Smith and John Locke but draw no connections between their economic thought and
contemporary economic institutions and issues, to world history text treatment of the British Industrial Revolution as a virtual crime against humanity. One goal of this chapter is the integration of economic understanding into history classrooms through utilization of five economics-based case studies of widely studied societies and events usually included in history curricula: Ancient Greece and Rome, Imperial China, Colonial British America, the British Industrial Revolution, and the U.S. Depression of the 1930s. A sixth case study is also included that is intended to facilitate teacher and student comprehension of current economic problems through identifying lessons that can be learned from comparisons of the economic policies of the Great Depression with the Great Recession of 2007-2010. A table containing annotated descriptions of economic history pedagogical resources is also included in the chapter.
