sort by: Relevancy | Title try advanced search for more options
Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform (PLSC 270) A practical theory of freedom is discussed, based on Hayek's Constitution of Liberty. Free societies can be thought of as great learning machines capable of aggregating individuals' knowledge and accomplishments. Professor Rae uses examples from automotives and university administration to illustrate how freedom allows everybody to profit from others' knowledge. Professor Rae also highligh...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson begins by discussing recent trends in English political history, which has expanded from focusing solely on institutions to include analysis of political culture. After this, the formal institutions of government, such as the various law courts, the offices of royal administration, and Parliament, are briefly defined and situate...more
Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform (PLSC 270) Professor Rae discusses the rise of mass affluence, the joint stock corporation, and advertising/consumer culture in America. Gregory Clark's theory of the causes of the Industrial Revolution, including England's "downward social mobility" in the medieval and early modern periods, are explored. According to this theory, the upper classes produced children in greater numbers than in other c...more
In many regions, the central cultural idea is that of a lineage, a family and its line of male ancestors and descendants. The prime duty in these cultures is to keep the lineage going. Religion is small scale with the ancestors performing many of the functions of gods. Denser populations and larger political entities lead to large-scale religion where conformity is stressed and cultural rules are codified in a book and not subject to discu...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)An examination of Hobbes's lifetime reveals that the uncertainty of the British monarchy during his life (1588-1679) inspires Hobbes's social and political thought, especially regarding the role of the sovereign to provide for the security of his subjects. We consider the major elements of Hobbes's political and social thought including the state of nature, equality of men, the social contract...more
Capitalism: Success, Crisis and Reform (PLSC 270) In this final lecture of the semester, Professor Rae gives a summary of major themes, thinkers, and cases covered in the course. He begins by reviewing some foundational ideas, including Adam Smith's invisible hand, Marxist historicism, Malthusian economics, and Schumpeter's notion of creative destruction. Professor Rae also reviews the importance to capitalism of the modern nation state, ...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a colorful early life. Orphaned at ten, he moved in with a woman ten years his senior at sixteen. Their probable love affair is the subject of Stendhal's book Le Rouge et la Noir. Rousseau was friends and sometimes enemies with many major figures in the French Enlightenment. Although he did not live to see the French Revolution, many of Rousseau's path-breaking and co...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson traces the major economic expansion of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Despite occasional crises of mortality, population levels rose steadily, particularly in urban areas. Increased population levels resulted in enhanced agricultural and industrial output. Professor Wrightson reviews the extension of the cul...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)An examination of Hobbes's lifetime reveals that the uncertainty of the British monarchy during his life (1588-1679) inspires Hobbes's social and political thought, especially regarding the role of the sovereign to provide for the security of his subjects. We consider the major elements of Hobbes's political and social thought including the state of nature, equality of men, the social contract...more
Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151)We return to Weber's idea of domination, Herrschaft. Herrschaft has been translated into English as ''authority'' and as ''domination.'' The translation into domination highlights the elements of power and legitimacy that are co-mingled in the concept as well as the importance of the suggestion of the asymmetrical power relationship within the concept of domination. We turn to the first way...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)Professor Wrightson begins his examination of the major events of the English Civil Wars which culminated ultimately with the defeat of the royalist forces and the execution of King Charles I in 1649. He describes how Charles was forced to end his personal rule and call a parliament in 1640 in order to defend England against invading Scottish armie...more
Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts (HIST 251)In this lecture Professor Wrightson surveys the religious landscape of England during the later medieval period through to the reign of Henry VIII and the beginnings of the reformation. He notes that while the late medieval church was more vibrant and popular than many early triumphal analysis of the reformation allowed for, there were, nonetheless...more
