Reflecting on my own academic upbringing, I am increasingly amazed at the sheer abundance of economic history courses still offered at Yale and MIT in the 1970s. My first taste of economic history came with Harry Miskimin’s course on the economic history of Europe up through the Industrial Revolution. I later took a graduate course he offered on French mercantilism. I remember well the sage advice he gave me to postpone work in economic history to first get trained in the analytic tools of economics, since he thought I apparently could handle the demands of economics graduate school. I believe he was the only professor I ever had who actually smoked (cigarettes) in class.
From the Yale Daily News Archives I learned that Harry Miskimin later served as president of the Yale chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). There is a low-resolution picture of Miskimin in his mature years in the article linked.
Below are the assigned readings for the European economic history course from the Fall Term, 1971-72.
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Harry Miskimin
100% Yalie
Harry Alvin Miskimin, Jr. was born September 8, 1932 in Orange, New Jersey. He died October 24, 1995.
B.A. Yale, 1954; M.A. Yale, 1958; Ph.D. Yale, 1960. From instructor to professor history Yale University, New Haven, since 1960, associate professor, 1964-1971, professor history, since 1971, chairman department history, 1986-1989, Charles Seymour Professor of History, since 1991.
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Harry Miskimin
Obituary Note
Post by Wendy Plotkin
H-Urban Co-Editor
14 January 1996
1995 saw the death of Harry A. Miskimin, the Charles Seymour Professor of History at Yale University in October. According to a press release received from H-Net Central in December, Professor Miskimin was
“An authority on the economic history of medieval and early modern Europe” and “the author of five books, including The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300-1460and The Economy of Later Renaissance Europe, 1460-1600both of which were translated in Spanish and Portuguese; Money and Power in Fifteenth Century France, Money, Prices and Foreign Exchange in Fourteenth Century Franceand Cash, Credit and Crisis in Europe, 1300-1600.”
Professor Miskimin was general editor of four volumes of the Cambridge University Press series “The Economic Civilization of Europe.”
Of special interest to H-Urban subscribers, Miskimin co-edited THE MEDIEVAL CITY with A. Udovitch and D. Herlihy (Yale University Press, 1977). This collection included:
- The Italian City
Herlihy, “Family and property in Renaissance Florence”
Krekic, B., “Four Florentine commercial companies in Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in the first half of the fourteenth century”
Lane, F. C. “The First Infidelities of the Venetian Lire”
Cipolla, C. M. “A Plague Doctor”
Kedar, B.Z. “The Genoese Notaries of 1382”
Hughes, D. O. “Kinsmen and neighbors in Medieval Genoa”
Peters, E. Pars, parte: “Dante and an Urban Contribution to Political Thought”
- The Eastern City
Udovitch, A. L. “A Tale of Two Cities”
Goitein, S. D. “A Mansion in Fustat”
Prawer, J. “Crusader Cities”
Teall, J. “Byzantine Urbanism in the Military Handbooks”
- The Northern City:
Miskimin, H. A. “The Legacies of London”
Munro, J. “Industrial Protectionism in Medieval Flanders”
Strayer, J.R. “The Costs and Profits of War”
Hoffmann, R. C. “Wroclaw Citizens as Rural Landholders”
Cohen, S. “The Earliest Scandinavian Towns”Professor Miskimin was noted for his work on the “beginning of the transition from medieval to modern economies.” I am interested in reflections on this and other work of Professor Miskimin.
After obtaining his undergraduate and graduate education at Yale, he spent the rest of his career teaching at Yale College, serving as director of graduate studies for the Economic History Program after 1967.
On leave from Yale, Miskimin was for a period director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris. Although his intellectual work was on the medieval period, he participated in present day activities in his community, serving as a zoning commissioner for the Town of Woodbridge 1976-85, a member of the Woodbridge Democratic Town Committee and a board member of the Woodbridge Town Library.
Professor Miskimin was born in 1932 in East Orange, New Jersey, graduated from Phillips Andover Academy in 1950, and was in the U.S. Army from 1955-57.
Source: Humanities and Social Sciences Net Online
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Yale University
History 51 a – Economics 80a
Mr. Miskimin
Fall Term 1971-72
The readings from this course will be in diverse sources but the student may find it convenient to purchase the books of Herbert Heaton (Economic History of Europe rev. ed., Harper & Bros., New York, 1948) and Henri Pirenne (Economic and Social History of Mediaeval Europe, Harvest Books, Harcourt, Brace, New York.)
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Sept. 17 |
First Class |
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20 |
Heaton, Chapters 4, 5 |
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22 |
Heaton, Chapters 6, 7 |
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24 |
Pirenne, pp. 38-86 |
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27 |
Pirenne, pp. 87-140 |
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29 |
Pirenne, pp. 141-188 |
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Oct. 1 |
Heaton, Chapter 8 |
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4 |
Heaton Chapters 9, 10 |
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6 |
Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 2, pp. 433-441, 456-92 |
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8 |
Pirenne, pp. 188-end (Rec. Miskimin, The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe.) |
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11 |
Heaton, Chapters 11, 12 |
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13 |
Hamilton, E. J., American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1601-1650. Scan thoroughly |
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15 |
Continue Hamilton |
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18 |
Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. IV, pp. 1-95. |
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20 |
Nef, J. U., Industry and Government in France and England, 1540-1640, Great Seal Books, Cornell University Ithaca, 1957. Also in Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. XV, 1940. First half. |
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22 |
Finish Nef |
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25 |
Green, R.W., ed., Protestantism and Capitalism—The Weber Thesis and its Critics, D.C. Heath & Co., Boston. First half. |
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27 |
Finish Green |
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29 |
Heaton, Chapters 13, 14 |
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Nov. 1 |
Heaton, Chapter 15 |
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3 |
Heaton, Chapter 16 |
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5 |
Viner, Jacob, Studies in the Theory of International Trade, Harper Brothers, New York. Chapter 1 |
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8 |
Viner, Chapter 2 |
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10 |
Cipolla, C. M., “The Decline of Italy,” Economic History Review, 1952, pp. 178-87. Hamilton, E. J., “The Decline of Spain,”Economic History Review, 1938, pp. 168-79 |
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12 |
Review Heaton, Chapters 13-16 |
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15 |
Hour Test (paper may be substituted) |
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17 |
Wilson, C.H., “The Economic Decline of the Netherlands,” Economic History Review, 1939, pp. 111-127 |
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19 |
Heckscher, Eli, Mercantilism. Rev. ed., George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London, 1955, Vol. I, pp. 78-109 |
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22 |
Heckscher, Vol. I, pp. 137-78 |
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24 |
Heckscher, Vol. I, pp. 178-220 |
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26 |
Helleiner, K.F., ed., Readings in European Economic History, University of Toronto Press, 1946. Section by R. H. Tawney, pp. 143-82 |
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29 |
Helleiner, Section by Tawney, pp. 183-223 |
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Dec. 1 |
Bowden, Karpovitch, and Usher, An Economic History of Europe since 1750, pp. 45-66; Cambridge Economic History, IV, chapter V, pp. 276-308 |
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3 |
Bowden, Karpovitch, and Usher, pp. 146-96 |
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6 |
Ashton, T.S., The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830. First third. |
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8 |
Ashton, Second third |
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10 |
Finish Ashton |
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13 |
Taylor, Philip, ed., The Industrial Revolution—Triumph or Disaster? D.C. Heath & Company, Boston. |
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15 |
Rostow, W.W., The Stages of Economic Growth, a Non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 1-35 |
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17 |
Rostow, W.W., The Stages of Economic Growth, a Non-Communist Manifesto, Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 36-72 |
Source: Personal copy of Irwin Collier.
Image Source: Harry Miskimin’s 1954 Yale yearbook portrait.