The call for papers for the 55th “Datini Study Week” is now open. The topic of the Week is “Social Mobility in pre-industrial societies: tendencies, causes and effects (13th-18th centuries)”. The conference will take place in 2024 (12-16 May) in the beautiful city of Prato (Italy) but, as is the tradition for the Datini Study Week, the program is defined much in advance. Paper proposals have to be submitted by November 1, 2022.

On 20-21 October 2022 the Unit for Economic History of the Department of Economy and Society of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, will host a Frontier Research in Economics and Social History (FRESH) 2-day meeting on the theme Colonialism and natural resources.

The goal of FRESH meetings is to gather researchers to present ongoing research, with a focus on early- stage research, in an environment especially focused on constructive feedback and support.

Free wage labour is commonly presented as the focus, if not the very core, of the history of labour in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Emphasis is typically placed both on the rise of free wage labour in the 19th century and on the first labour and social legislation of the late 19th century, which laid the foundations in various European nation states for the regulation of formal labour that is still in force today. We also hear much about how these legal and social models of gainful employment were consolidated throughout Europe over the course of the 20th century until they were thrown into prolonged crisis: in Western Europe in the 1970s; in Eastern Europe somewhat later. The overriding impression is thus of an era of labour formalisation and protection lasting roughly from 1870 to at least 1970. The conference aims to challenge this narrative by focusing on multiple forms and fields of informal work.

International organizations are not simply the realm of bureaucrats, diplomats and statesmen. For much of the 20th century, business actors have taken important international roles, both officially and unofficially. Recent work has shown for example that bankers and financiers took key roles in the League of Nations’ Economic and Finance Committee; the International Chamber of Commerce was established in the name of business internationalism, and as a shadow bureaucracy for intergovernmental organisations; in the second half of the 20th century, the United Nations actively sought the involvement of businessmen in the promotion and funding of its programs. The examples are many. Historians are exploring the ways in which neoliberal international actors sought to use the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF to impose visions of a new ordoglobal order in the 1970s. Through the 20th century, business actors of many kinds have seen in international organisations the means to different ends, from peace through the distribution of wealth, to the regulation and control of the world economy, whether through primary commodity controls and wealth redistribution schemes to international business cartels.

Studies of deindustrialization in different parts of the world have pointed out that deindustrialization was often connected in intricate ways with forms of reindustrialization. Most obviously and commonly, deindustrialization at one particular place implicated industrialization somewhere else, often far removed from the place that industry had been located before deindustrialization hit. Sometimes, however, industries did not move all that far. And sometimes, the transformations associated with deindustrialization did not lead to complete devastation of the industrial cores and the abandonment of urban environments – a process most often associated with the rust belt of the United States and centers of heavy industry in formerly socialist countries. Even there one can argue that deindustrialization went hand in hand with economic transformations that led, in certain parts, to examples of reindustrialization. At the same time, optimistic predictions about a surge in manufacturing in the Global South because of the relocation of capital from the North thanks to an abundant supply of cheap labor and natural resources, and thanks to trade liberalization failed to materialize. The (South) East Asian ‘tiger’ model appears to be not so easily replicable.

The University of Tübingen’s Collaborative Research Center 923 – “Threatened Orders: Societies under Stress”(Germany) – provides funding for an intensive three-day event aimed at PhD students in business history or economic history working on any topic that overlaps with the theme of the school (for more details, see “Further Notes for Applicants” below). Students will, the pandemic permitting, be hosted in the historic town of Tübingen and will present, debate and discuss their works-in-progress with leading international scholars within a world-class university.

The school aims to provide doctoral students with an overview of relevant research and innovative tools and methodologies in the fields of business and economic history. It is the third event in this series organised jointly by the Seminar für Neuere Geschichte (University of Tübingen) and the Centre for Business History in Scotland (University of Glasgow).

Over the last 20 years, historiography has observed that international institutions are ideal case-studies for the study of transnational connections. Such an analysis can be made on several levels: in addition to investigating institutional structures or founding principles, an examination of the concrete functioning of these bodies allows us to analyze not only the forms and strategies of interstate political relations, but also the transnational circulation of problems, proposals, and people. From this point of view, the emergence of international organizations after WWI is linked to the appearance of a new figure in the world of work: the international officer, embedded within – and in turn the producer of – broader political and epistemic networks. The concept of "epistemic network" was introduced by Jasmien Van Daele and then adopted by Sandrine Kott to define and analyze a part of the social linkages revolving around the International Labour Organization (ILO), which was founded in 1919 to strengthen the protections of workers and the triangular dialogue between trade unions, business representatives, and public authorities. Against this setting, epistemic networks are defined by intense exchanges and debates characterized by high specialization, by sharing practices that are first spontaneous and then slowly formalized, and by the aim to elaborate proposals that move beyond the dimension and purpose of the single nation state.

The European Social Science History Conference is one of the largest congresses for the historical sciences in the world. It brings together scholars who explain historical phenomena using the methods of the social sciences. It welcomes participants working on a wide range of topics and any historical period.

On 12-15 April 2023 the 14th  European Social Science History Conference will take place in Gothenburg (Sweden) – https://esshc.socialhistory.org/. The ESSHC brings together scholars interested in explaining historical phenomena using the methods of the social sciences. The conference is characterized by a lively exchange in many small groups, rather than by formal plenary sessions. It is organized in a large number of networks that cover specific fields of interest. The conference language is English.

The Conference will be devoted to exploring the interaction (both positive and negative) between a company and its Past. The Conference program will encompass history, management, marketing, organisation, heritage conservation/management, and other related disciplines. Different disciplinary approaches and cross-contamination among various fields of study will be encouraged and not-conventional and provocative perspectives will be appreciated.

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ANZSECS) and the Australian Catholic University invite you to the 18th David Nichol Smith (DNS) Seminar for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

In 2022, the DNS will be held on 7-9 December at the ACU Fitzroy Campus of ACU in Melbourne. It will convene in-person, but will also feature a digital hub hosting a suite of provocations from colleagues around the world. We are delighted to announce that the seminar will include three keynotes: Lynette Russell, ARC Laureate Professor at Monash University; Kevin Dawson, Associate Professor of History at UC Merced; and Miranda Stanyon, ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.

Ce colloque est organisé par l’Institut de la gestion publique et du développement économique (IGPDE) sur proposition de plusieurs membres du Comité pour l’histoire économique et financière de la France.