Assignment: To investigate some event in European economic history. Your paper should focus on an
event between the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire and the end of World War II. You may use papers
or books read in this class as sources, but you must cite at least five outside sources.
Expectations: The purpose of this exercise is to apply economic logic to some event in European economic
history. An economic analysis is mandatory. A mere description of events will not suffice. Papers which
merely overview a period or event in economic history (without giving an economic analysis) will get no
better than a C.
Your paper should search for a causal link between two or more phenomena (e.g., “Did medieval peasants
desire for starvation insurance entail that open field farming was optimal?”). That is, you should construct
a well structured economic hypothesis and argue its merits using historical information. Use of economic
terminology is strongly encouraged, but do not go overboard.
To get an A, you will need to: i) construct a falsifiable hypothesis using economic logic, ii) support your
hypothesis with historical evidence, and iii) consider alternative hypotheses.
, JSTOR, or Google Scholar to find sources to support your
hypothesis. The library’s website has other scholarly databases as well. The five (or more) outside sources
you cite should be either academic articles or books. You can use websites, magazine articles, or newspaper
articles (and you should certainly cite them), but these do not count towards your five sources. PLEASE,
PLEASE, PLEASE note that Wikipedia is NOT a valid source.
