Course Handbook - Faculty of History - University of Cambridge

must be sought in writing (by letter or e-mail). Any such request must be accompanied by
confirmation that the change has been discussed with and is supported by your supervisor.
While permission to change titles is not automatically granted, it does often happen that
students need to refine their titles from those initially submitted. This is accepted practice so
long as the correct procedures are followed. The above points refer to minor refinements of
titles. However, no substantive changes of topic area will normally be permitted once
examiners have been appointed by the MPhil Sub-Committee, because examiners are
appointed with expertise relevant to the topic area indicated by the original title submitted
by the student. Students must therefore be sure to identify at least the broad area of their
intended dissertation correctly in the original title submission.
Dissertations must be submitted to the History Faculty Office before 12.30pm on
Friday 19 August.
Dissertations will be assessed by two examiners (excluding the supervisor), one of whom
may be an external examiner, who will report independently. Dissertations will be classed
according to a scale comprising Pass (60 and above), Marginal Fail (59) and Fail (58 and
below).
Two marks of 67 or above are normally required for a candidate to proceed to a PhD.
59 A borderline mark. As it stands, this mark indicates that the dissertation
fails but that the Pass/Fail qualities are very evenly balanced in the
dissertation.
Please refer to Appendix B ‘MPhil in Economic and Social History – Marking and
Examining Scheme’ for a more detailed explanation of examining and marking procedures.
2.4 Advanced Courses
These courses will be taught using a mixture of lectures and seminars amounting to 16 contact hours
over the course of Michaelmas and Lent Terms. Some courses are taught solely in one term or the
other, and dates are usually arranged at the first session, except for ‘Institutions and development’,
which has a set schedule.
1) The history of economic and social thought
Dr. C. Muldrew, Dr. S. Thompson and Dr. S. Reinert
This course focuses upon six basic themes in the history of economic and social thought
through intensive study of the writings of certain seventeenth, eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury
authors: the nature of money and monetary relations (John Locke and John Law);
regulation and laissez-faire (Adam Smith); economic and social reform; the Industrial
Revolution; the state and social change; and the development of capitalist modernity and
social theory (Marx, Weber).
Introductory reading:
Malynes, Gerald de, Consuetudo vel Lex Mercatoria, (London, 1622).
McCulloch, J.P., A Select Collection of Early English Tracts on Commerce, (Cambridge,
1954).
Patrick Hyde Kelly (ed.), Locke on Money, 2 vols., (Oxford, 1991)
John Law, Money and Trade Considered with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with
Money (Edinburgh, 1705).
Margaret Schabas, The Natural Origins of Economics (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress (Hackett,
1987).
Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edition (W. W. Norton, 1978).
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