GREEK ECONOMIC HISTORY ASSOCIATION

Panteion University, Department of Political Science and History

National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute of Historical Research

4th International Conference in Economic and Social History

Athens, 29 September-1 October 2022

Varieties of Capitalism in the Mediterranean (18th-20th c.)

The Greek Economic History Association, in collaboration with the Department of Political Science and History of Panteion University and the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation are organising the 4th International Conference in Economic and Social History. The conference will be held in Athens, between September 29 and October 1, 2022.

The conference theme is “Varieties of Capitalism in the Mediterranean (18th-20th century)”. Capitalism is seen as a phenomenon of global history enhanced by transnational transactions; the conference seeks to re-examine the various forms and patterns of capitalism in the Mediterranean region as an essential concept for understanding modernities.

Considering the pre-eighteenth-century historical experience of capitalist activity in the Mediterranean, we inquire into the existence of Mediterranean patterns of economic modernity in individual or group choices, strategies and profits. We wonder what distinguished merchant and financial capitalism as it emerged in the Mediterranean, after the eighteenth century. What was the role played by political authority (imperial, national, colonial) in capitalist development? How did the natural environment shape capitalist development and how was it been transformed by it? In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Mediterranean world became the area of intense economic activity and political conflict that transcended religious and – since the nineteenth century – national boundaries, and was gradually transformed by the emergence of national economies. The conference brings together scholars to discuss structures and behaviours and explore continuity and change in the various entrepreneurial paths in the Mediterranean. Other conference topics include: histories of merchant capitalism; pre-industrial and industrial capitalism; pre-capitalist and capitalist agriculture; production and consumption; financial institutions, sovereign debt and financial control; shipping and port economies; mobility and migration networks; class and social structures; race and gender relations; culture and capitalism in the Mediterranean.

The conference working languages are English and French (without translation).

Attendance is free without registration.

Conference presenters please register here.