About
You're reading Great Transformations, a newsletter about economic history and the origins of historical development. I'm interested in how pre-industrial societies made the transition toward modern economic growth, and why some have been much more successful than others.
As a subscriber, you can expect regular essays on various topics in global economic history, especially and unabashedly on Britain—the holy land of industrialization. I'm an economic historian by trade, which means a quantitative perspective on the past, a focus on material outcomes, and an embrace of models and data. But I'll do my best to keep the research intelligible—if it wasn't fun at some level, I wouldn't be doing this—and embrace the beauty and mystery of the historical narrative. Think Fernand Braudel, but bad.
Do I have to pay for this?
Nope. But I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription nonetheless. To do the kind of research that I want to do, and that you want to see, takes funding and time. Big grant-giving institutions don’t always want the same kinds of output that we do, and lack the incentive to finance all the questions that we want to answer. Think of yourself like a Tuscan duke of old, giving patronage to itinerant artists and scientists whose work you value. A small donation from you totally scales up—if only ten percent of you sign up, I could make my entire research budget every year.
So if you value my work, I hope you consider clicking that orange button below. I’d be honored to take whatever you’re willing to give.
And if you do subscribe, you’ll get access to some fun additional content:
Weekly linkposts/bulletins/open threads with links to recent papers, videos of talks/seminars, and notices about upcoming events. Also some research notes.
Curated reading lists, constantly updated to reflect my research. The big one will be the Great Transformations Economic History Reading Guide, which is coming soon.
Posts on the practice of doing research, from managing papers and citations to finding and analyzing data.
If that sounds at all appealing, I humbly ask that you support my enterprise and sign up below.
