Faculty within the Department of History explore economic history from a number of different perspectives and sites. While some employ mainly quantitative techniques to the study of social structures and relations, others utilize more qualitative methods—with a widespread appreciation of the need to incorporate both methodological approaches whenever feasible and appropriate. A small but strong group of faculty in the Department use materials and methods from the social sciences to examine how economic behavior is embedded in local, comparative, and global contexts. They continue to weave ties between economic history and other disciplines, including economics, to explore the social, political, and cultural dimensions of economic change. Their work often overlaps and interacts with that of faculty in other clusters, and with colleagues elsewhere in the University, including the internationally-known Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Work on labor history and some microhistory might also be placed within this framework, and is in dialogue with the scholarship on slavery and postemancipation societies.
