The humanities often speak to our desire to understand ourselves, while the sciences cater to our demand to control our surroundings. This course explores the intimate relationship between the humanities and the social sciences. Our exploration will be focused on the paradoxes of modernity, and specifically the experience with industrialization and development. This question presents itself to us today as "Why are some nations rich and others nations poor?" and it represents the question which has occupied economists since at least Adam Smith.
 

The answer to this question is not unambiguous, and neither are the implications one would derive from the various answers offered. A common theme in the work literature we will read is that modernity comes to us full of paradoxes. People are often made immeasurably better-off in terms of material well-being, but at the loss of their previous way of life and the social bonds they earlier relied upon. In dealing with the paradoxes of modernity we will also survey issues related to colonialism, capitalism, and socialism and how these systems of social organization affect our understanding of ourselves and our plight in the world.
 

We will be reading four novels in the course: Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854); John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939); Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1954); and Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1982). We will also be looking at scholarly discussions of these various books that relate their central themes to issues in social scientific analysis.
 

Our main social scientific work for the course will be Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell, How the West Grew Rich (1986). This book will provide the background material to our discussion of social change and development.
 
 

The lectures in this class will primarily be concerned with social scientific concepts in general, and economic and political economy concepts in particular. The novels will be discussed as vehicles for illustrating points raised, but this is not a course in literary criticism. Our focus is on mediating the divide between the humanities and the sciences in the hope of closing the gap and improving our understanding of the human condition.
 

Your course grade will be determined on the basis of 4 short written assignments related to readings and a take home final based on the readings and lectures throughout the semester. The short assignments will be due on February 15, March 7, April 4 and April 25 and will be a 4 to 6 double-spaced typed page assignment picking up on a theme in the readings and assessing the theme for contemporary relevance. The take-home final will be made up of essay questions concerning the material discussed throughout the semester.
 
 

My office hours will be on Tuesday and Thursday from 1:00 to 3:00 or by appointment. Ms. Polek's office hours will be from 10:00 to 12:00 on Wednesday and Friday. My office is Rm. 324 Enterprise Hall, Ms. Polek will meet students for office hours at the work station directly outside of my office. My office phone is 703-993-1149. Email is pboettke@gmu.edu.