Economic History

Economic history emerged in the late nineteenth century as an academic field devoted to the study of past economic phenomena and processes. Since then it has undergone significant changes in terms of its thematic and theoretical concerns, analytical methodologies and language, and the spatial and temporal scales in which it is framed. Distinctive national and regional approaches and traditions can be identified that reflect the different and changing social systems and ideologies across the world as well as the diverse forms of training and disciplinary affiliations of the economic historians themselves.