EH.T: Re: Recent Economic History

================= EH.TEACH POSTING ================= John, I hope you'll keep us posted on your 20th century U.S. economic history class, especially since I'll be teaching one myself in Spring 2000. Trying to cram half a millenium worth of American Economic History into one semester has just been too much for me and my students -- I think our counterparts in history departments are onto something in splitting up their American history survey courses into two semester courses. I second your endorsement of Krugman's AGE OF DIMINISHED EXPECTATIONS as a macro text for 1973-present. The book also gives a nice overview of macroeconomic conditions from 1945-1973, by way of contrast with recent decades. Chapter 30 of Walton & Rockoff's AEH text, "Labor's Progress Since WW2," offers a good presentation of the labor-market experiences of women, blacks, union workers, and other subgroups. The issue of whether the very recent past counts as history is an interesting one. I like to think that it does, and students I've talked to always seem to want more of this in their economic history courses. By the way, James Loewen's book LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME contains a great chapter titled "Down the Memory Hole: The Disappearance of the Recent Past" (in high school history textbooks). rsd ***************************************************** Ranjit S. Dighe at home: Assistant Professor 41 W. 4th St. Department of Economics Oswego, NY 13126 Mahar Hall 315-342-5383 SUNY-Oswego Oswego, NY 13126 315-341-3480 E-mail: dighe@oswego.edu Home page: http://www.oswego.edu/~dighe/ ============ FOOTER TO EH.TEACH POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info EH.TEACH" to lists@eh.net. >