Historicizing Economic Growth: An Overview of Recent Works

Abstract

In this historiographical review, I analyse recent works on the history of economic growth and provide a starting point for thinking about how this literature fits together as a discrete field of research. The questions being asked in these texts are relatively new, and as of yet no attempt has been made to identify the major themes that are driving this research. In putting these works into dialogue with each other, across the disciplinary boundaries of history, ecology, anthropology, economics, and political science, we can see that a new subfield of academic inquiry is emerging. Driven by concerns over climate change and rising economic inequality, this new research aims to understand the obsession with economic growth that has shaped so much of our contemporary world.