Course Handbook - Faculty of History - University of Cambridge

During the Christmas and Easter Vacations lectures and classes do not occur and undergraduates are
not in residence. Graduate students are required to remain in residence continuously throughout the
academical year, and are expected to work on their research essays and dissertation during the
Christmas and Easter ‘vacations’, apart perhaps from brief holiday breaks. Residing in Cambridge
means, for research students and those taking most other graduate courses, living within 10 miles
from the centre of the city. (It is your College which must certify to the University that you have
fulfilled the residence requirements. If you have further questions, or need fuller information, you
should contact your College authorities.)
It cannot be emphasised too strongly that the MPhil course has a very tight timetable, and that
it is vital that you work consistently throughout your course.
2.2 Overview of Course
2.2.1 Introduction to Research Resources in History
2.2.2 Part I
NOTE: THESE COURSES ARE LISTED IN A SEPARATE BOOKLET ENTITLED
GRADUATE TRAINING HANDBOOK
This series of classes for all graduate students is designed to help students to discover what
printed and non-printed sources exist anywhere in the world relating to their fields of
interest. The course offers lectures/classes on topics such as ‘Preparing a Bibliography’,
‘Reading early printed books’, ‘Oral history’, ‘Images’, ‘History and literature’, ‘Working
on Early Modern and Modern British Records’, ‘Locating Research Materials on
Continental European Research Topics’, ‘Locating Research Materials on Extra-European
Research Topics’. There are sessions devoted to the resources specifically in Cambridge,
including the University Library, the collections of the Royal Commonwealth Society, the
Faculty Library, the Churchill College Archives Centre and in other local research centres.
A visit to the National Archive is also arranged.
Central Concepts in Economic and Social History
This class meets once a week on Mondays at 10am to 12 throughout Michaelmas. It consists
of a series of seminars/classes in two main areas: (a) Social Theory and Social History, and
(b) Economic Theory and Economic History, covering such topics as social stratification,
households, family and kinship, health and welfare, gender, social capital, neoclassical
economic growth theory, technological change, consumer behaviour and consumption,
demography, and globalisation.
Introductory reading:
D.C. Coleman, History and the Economic Past (1987)
D.A. Redman, Economics and the Philosophy of Science (1991)
A. Giddens, Sociology (1989)
M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (1965)
C.I. Jones, Introduction to Economic Growth (1998)
E.L. Jones, The European Miracle (1987)
R.D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New
York: 2000)
M. Granovetter and R. Swedberg (eds.), The Sociology of Economic Life (1992)
P. Joyce (ed.), Class (1995)
J. Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (1988)
R. Fox (ed.), Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology
(1998)
M. Anderson, Approaches to the History of the Western Family, 1500-1914 (1980)
J. Elster (ed.), Rational Choice (1990)
3