No Aids Allowed Duration - 3 Hours
Answer ONE question from each of the following three parts, for a total of THREE questions, all of which are of EQUAL VALUE. Thus do not spend more than one hour on each question. You may answer questions related to your term essays.
WARNINGS: Do not give similar answers to the questions selected, and thus do not select questions with similar themes; e.g. do not select two questions on agriculture. DOUBLE-SPACE YOUR ANSWERS; write on only one side of the page; and number or identify your questions properly.
PART ONE: answer one of the following four questions.
1. Analyse the rural roots of modern industrialization, in the context of the two current debates about the 'General Crisis of the 17th Century' and 'Proto-Industrialization.' Discuss the role and significance of rural industries, especially textile industries, in both of these debates, in particular the validity of the following two aspects of both the Hobsbawm and Mendels theses, namely that: (a) ' "Putting-out" was a most effective dissolver of the traditional agrarian structure, and provided a means of rapidly increasing industrial production....,' and that (b) such 'proto-industrialization [was] the first phase of the modern industrialization process.' Do you agree; if not, why not?
2. Compare and contrast the transformation of the agricultural sectors in England and France in the century c. 1750 to c. 1850, particularly in terms of (a) the debate about the relative roles of Enclosures in the two countries; (b) agricultural innovations, those of the so-called 'Agricultural Revolution;' (c) demographic growth and the provision of an elastic supply of industrial labour; and (d) the social 'costs and benefits' of the agrarian changes over this hundred-year period.
3. Compare and contrast the commercial and financial structures of the Netherlands (the Dutch Republic) and of Great Britain, including both private and public finances, from c.1660 to c.1815. In terms of changes in these sectors, explain why and how the Dutch maintained financial-commercial supremacy until the mid-18th century, while the British pursued an economic path that led instead to modern industrialization -- or more so than in the Netherlands.
4. From the era of the 17th-century 'General Crisis' to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815, discuss the significance of warfare and military power, especially naval power, for the economic development and industrialization of western Europe, comparing in particular the experiences of England, the Netherlands, and France. In Hobsbawm's thesis, what role did warfare play as a contributing factor to both the 'General Crisis' and its resolution in preparing the conditions by which England became the birthplace of modern industrialization?
PART TWO: answer one of the following four questions.
1. What was the 'tyranny of wood and water' in pre-Industrial Revolution Europe? Explain how that 'tyranny' was broken during the 18th and 19th centuries, with new mineral-based technologies; and why first in Great Britain? Then analyse the industrial transformations that ensued from those new technologies in Great Britain and in at least one other European country: France, Germany, and Russia, up to 1914.
2. Examine the economic forces -- involving technology, 'entrepreneurship,' and markets in particular -- and institutional factors, in both the private and public sectors, that determined major changes in industrial organization and industrial scale (i.e. larger scale forms of enterprise), in at least two of the following countries from 1789 to 1914: Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia.
3. What was the more important cause of European economic development from c.1760 to 1914, i.e. of the modern Industrial Revolutions: capital formation or technological innovation? Support your answer with an economic analysis of the financial and industrial transformations that did occur in at least two of the following countries, up to World War I, with particular reference to the current debates about the role of 'entrepreneurship': in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia.
4. Analyse the contributions of the transportation sector to modern industrialization, involving canals, roads, railways, and oceanic shipping, in three of the following countries: the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, from c.1780 to 1914.
PART THREE: Answer one of the following four questions:
1. Compare and contrast the causes, forms, and economic consequences, particularly in terms of contributions to modern industrialization, of 'land reform' and peasant-emancipation in France, Germany, Poland, and Russia, from 1789 to 1914, explaining who gained and who lost. In particular, to what extent had serfdom been an impediment to economic change in each of these countries, and to what extent did government-sponsored land-reforms eliminate that impediment?
2. Compare and contrast the role of the national state in promoting (or hindering) the economic development of at least two of the following European countries, in terms of agrarian, fiscal, financial, commercial, monetary, fiscal, and industrial policies: Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, from 1815 to 1914, explaining the relative importance of state intervention for economic development in the countries selected.
3. Explain, in terms of both monetary and real factors, why world prices fell so sharply during the so-called 'Great Depression' era of 1873-1896, after a prolonged period of inflation, from the 1840s; and why this severe deflation was then followed by a period of inflation, from 1896 to 1914. Does deflation reflect 'depression' and thus does inflation reflect 'economic boom,' as some commentators, of this era and in the current literature, suggest?
4. Discuss the importance of the capital exports for British, continental European, and world economic development, from c.1870 to 1914. How and why did Great Britain become the world's leading net exporter of capital, in this period? What relationships did such capital exports and British foreign trade have, according to the literature, with at least two of the following debates: (a) the 'New Imperialism' of 1870 - 1914; (b) the 'Industrial Retardation' debate (1870-1914); (c) the so-called 'Great Depression' of 1873-1896; (d) the efficacy of the International Gold Standard (1870-1914); (e) Free Trade, 'the law of international comparative advantage,' and the 'Return to Protectionism'?