Write your reflections on American commercial capitalism under British rule. Obviously, you cannot write a detailed account on each and every reading assigned through February 16th. Instead, I expect you to engage at least two of the readings that speak to life in colonial America and the hints they provide about the decision to seek independence from the British Crown. You can employ something you found interesting in the synthesis provided in Heilbroner & Singer, primary and/or secondary excerpts contained in Hyman and Baptist through Module 3, T.H. Breen’s scholarly article, “Narrative of Commercial Life,” Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlet, and/or the Declaration of Independence. I want you to think about why authors wrote about the topics they chose, including their big arguments (theses), the very specific evidence they employ to make their cases, and how their arguments either confirm or conflict with the other authors you cite. What do you think about these readings, in light of the topic of American capitalism? If you have already read these documents, do you see different things with your “economic history” lens on? You will want to employ similar strategies for the other four journal entries you will write during the semester. WHO IS THE AUTHOR AND WHO DOES THE AUTHOR SEE AS HIS/HER CENTRAL AUDIENCE? WHAT IS THE AUTHOR’S CENTRAL THESIS—the big argument that explains why he/she has decided to write about the topic?; WHAT IS THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORK—thinking about change over time, and the historian’s attempt to explain causes and consequences, what’s the timeframe chosen (from when to when?), and is the work organized chronologically, topically, or some other combination of the two?; and, importantly, WHAT KINDS OF EVIDENCE DOES THE AUTHOR EMPLOY (e.g., newspapers, business records, government documents, the words of others, cultural artifacts, evidence witnessed on the ground)? Finally, what does the author include/exclude, and why? Do exclusions matter?
In each journal entry, allow yourself some latitude in terms of stream-of-consciousness prose, but ultimately aim to say something about how the readings assigned for each journal entry connect to larger themes for the courseBhow the history of American capitalism changes over time, including who pays and who gets?
Your primary mission: to say something about the arguments forwarded in readings, the structure and evidence authors employ to advance the arguments they want to make, and how the readings do/do not fit together. In addition, you should provide some sort of critique (which is quite different from Auncritical bashing@ or Auncritical praise@) of each reading or the readings as a wholeBstrengths (what it does well), its weaknesses (what it leaves out), and where it fits into the literature (each author tells you what contribution they think their work makes to the debate about American society and its political- economy).
