Click here for LS 812 Course Outline
Click here for list of project topics
Click here for model for group presentations
Click here for Term Paper Evaluation Worksheet
Click here for Examples of Past Term Papers This file is 74MB.
For those wanting a more detailed bibliography click here

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Selected Downloadable Background Readings
Helpful background for Biblical studies
Bible history timeline + Marcion studies
Ancient Greek Manuscript Sources
The Saturnalia
The Virgin birth and Cult of Mary
Gnosticism, Ancient and Modern
Debunking Karl Jasper's Axial Age
Background on the Stoics, from early Greek to modern times
Background on early Christian heretics, Arians and Gnostics
Notes on Millenarianism and the Apocalypse
Carolingian manuscripts (McKitterick)
A review of "Burning Times" (NFB)
Jews in 13th C. England
Expulsion of Jews in 1290 by Edward I
The Mystery of Goya's Saturn
A link to Haskins, Rise of the Universities (1923)
Information on Newton's Non-scientific Papers
The Needham Question (Why not China?)
Notes on Luddites and Neo-Luddites
Voltaire, "Man of Forty Crowns" (1768)
The Snobbishness of the Learned

Some Weekly Readings
Week 1
Ancient Tax Farming
The First Crusade
Census of Quirinius
Origins of Arbitrage
Lending in Ancient Mesopotemia
Some additional Roman & Early Christian readings
Readings on ancient Roman trade with India
Note: Sources on ancient Indian economic activity are scarce with much of what is
known originating from a limited number of Roman sources.

There are also a number of useful sources on religion in the Background readings!

Week 2
Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury, ch.1&2
Usury in Greece and Rome
Lessius and the Scholastic Paradigm
Usury and the Scholastic Tradition
Bellhouse (1988), Puritan Casuistry
Stigler (1988), Dark Ages of Probability
Link for Merchant of Venice click here

Week 3
Aristotle on monopoly
"Monopoly Theory Prior to Adam Smith"
"Scholastic Economics"
Howell, ch.4, on Ramus and Smith
"Was Isaac Newton an Arian?"
Isaac Newton and the Apocalypse
Additional readings on Newtonians
de Bruyn on Millenarianism

Week 4
Defoe, "Villany of Stock jobbers detected" (1701?)
Defoe "Anatomy of Exchange Alley" (1719)
Isaac Lemaire and the Early Trade in VOC shares
Posthumus (1929)
Tulipmania
Coffeehouses and Newspapers
Bartlett on Swift as a Supply-Sider
Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Pt.III
Gulliver with Azimov commentary

Week 5
Karl Pearson on Rev. Richard Price
Richard Price, Miracles and the Origins of Bayesian Decision Theory
Hume "Of Miracles"
Hume's argument against miracles
Stace, Some Misinterpretations of Empiricism
Price Dissertation 4
Hume "Public Credit"
Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason
Hume "of Interest" and "Public Credit" (modern version)

Week 6
St. Eulalia and the Persecutions
Background on the Cathars, a gnostic sect
The Cathars were brutally suppressed in the 13th C.
Levack on witch-hunts, ch.3 + 7
Witches Trials and Economics
More on Witch Trials
Background on the Inquisitions
the Inquisition FAQ
Heresy Proceedings in Languedoc, 1500-1560
Woolstonecraft, "Vindication I" and "Vindication II"
Some readings on famines
Bengal Famine of 1770

Week 7
Sir (St.) Thomas More, "Utopia"
Background on More's "Utopia"
The Ranters and other 17th Century sects
Old Corruption and the Radicals
Background on the Luddite Riots
The Luddite Trials
"The Search for 'General Ludd'"
Zip file with Shakers, Oneida Utopias
Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"
Dickens, "Our Mutual Friend" Last completed work by Dickens.
Morris, "News from Nowhere"
Bellamy, "Looking Backward"

Week 8
Click here for Adam Smith lecture notes
Smith, Wealth of Nations, ch.2
An article from Challenge on the invisible hand
An article from the JPE on the invisible hand (this is Grampp)
Viner on history of laissez-faire
Henry George, "Progress and Poverty"
A Primer on Henry George
George vs. Walker
Evolution of the Property Tax
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic, Intro + ch.2

Week 9
Classical Economists and Laissez-faire
Keynes, Economic Consequences
Background on the 1929 Stock Market Crash
Keynes, General Theory, ch.12
Hayek, Road to Serfdom, ch.1-3
The Friedmans, Free to Choose, Intro + ch.1
Intro to Neo-liberalism history
Mancur Olson, Logic of Collective Action
Piketty and Comments on Piketty and More Comments and McCloskey's comments
(See Below for Duane's Readings) Duane's Piketty Slides
A few readings on Amartya Sen
SFU Library link to full text of Rethinking Wealth and Taxes

Week 10
Hegel, Philosophy of Mind (Spirit)
Tocqueville's Virus
Kierkegaard on Hope
Phenomenology and Existentialism
Phenomenology and Heterodox Economics
Heidegger's Transcendentalism
Heidegger and Humanism
Being and Time Glossary
Existentialism
Arendt, Heidegger and Humanism
Stace, The Zionist Illusion
Epicurus, Life and Death
Marcuse: One-Dimensional 25 years on
A primer on Merchant and ecofeminism
Lyotard's politics
Jarvis on Ulrich Beck
"Beck Back in the 19th C."
Rhetoric, Epistemology and Climate Change Economics


Those interested in phenomenology, post-modernism, existentialism and the like can check out the readings course LS 829.

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Here are .zip files with the lecture slides:
Click here for Lecture 1
Click here for Lecture 2
Click here for Lecture 3
Click here for Lecture 4
Click here for Lecture 5 and here for the Bayes example.
Click here for Lecture 6
Click here for Lecture 7
Click here for Lecture 8
Click here for Lecture 9
Click here for Lecture 10

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HERE ARE THE CHAPTERS FROM "EARLY HISTORY OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS" FOR DOWNLOAD
Click here for Chapter 2 History of Commerce and Finance
Click here for Chapter 3 Scholastic Analysis of Usury and Other Subjects
Click here for Chapter 8 Emergence and Valuation of Joint Stocks
Click here for Chapter 10 Manias, Manipulations and Institutional Failures
Click here for Chapter 11 English Debates Over Interest Rates and Public Credit
Click here for all the other chapters plus the Bibliography
and Click here for the Figures and Image inserts . These are inserts where there is blank space in the text.

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Some Pictures for week 1 and later
The Beyond Belief link has more pictures

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Duane's Readings
K. Arrow, Are we consuming too much?
Daly's Reponse to Arrow
Economic Growth and the Environment
Daly on Economic Growth
Easterlin

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Here are some interesting magazine and journal articles to ponder:

"The Philosophy of Investment: A Post-Keynesian Perspective" My article from JPKE.
Derrida on Lyotard
A Neo-Luddite Epilog
Warren Buffett on the Stock Market from Fortune Dec 10/01.
A Primer on Warren Buffett

In the event that this link does not activate, the server is probably down. Please try again later and if you are still unsuccessful, notify me by email at poitras@sfu.ca