McArthur Lectures - March 2022
Professor Bob Allen
From Foraging to the First States: An Economic History
The shift from foraging to agriculture, the rise of cities, and the creation of states have been momentous developments in the human story. We know much more about these changes than we did a century ago, but much remains obscure. These issues are explored with particular focus on the middle east, but also with the global perspective in mind. Why was the development of agriculture usually accompanied by a decline in living standards? Indeed, why did people take it up under such circumstances? Why was farming confined for millenia to the fertile crescent and then why did it spread to Mesopotamia and beyond? Why did urbanization take off in southern Mesopotamia and why did the first states form there? Was this new form of living a fall from grace or the advent of a brighter future? The lectures explore these questions with the approaches and techniques of economic historians in an effort to unravel the mysteries.
Lecture 1 March 2nd
What the Natufians did for us
how the Natufians settled down and harvested wild cereals and how their descendants began farming by planting wild seed in well watered places.
Lecture 2 March 3rd
Malthus in the Levant
how the health of people deteriorated when they began farming and why they did it anyway.
Lecture 3 March 9th
Domar and Habbakuk on the Euphrates
how domestication made agriculture viable outside of the Fertile Crescent, triggering massive growth in population, new industries like pottery and bronze, inequality, war, and the invention of the plough, which pushed all of these trends even further.
Lecture 4 March 10th
Adam Smith in Mesopotamia
how southern Mesopotamia dried out, its economy boomed, the population grew, and Uruk became the world’s biggest city and its first state.
Venue: The McCrum Lecture Theatre, Bene't Street CB2 3QN
All lectures start at 5.30pm
The votive Vase of Warka, from Warka (ancient Uruk), Iraq. Jemdet Nasr period, 3000-2900 BCE. On display at the Sumerian Gallery of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, Iraq.By Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg)
To attend the lectures in person please register here
Attendees in person are asked to wear masks and observe social distancing. It is strongly recommended that a lateral flow test is taken on the day of the event. The doors will open at 5.15.
If you wish to stream the lectures please register here