Head of the Academic Platform: doc. PhDr. Michal Pullmann, Ph.D.
The Academic Platform for Social and Economic History brings together research, scholarship, and teaching in the field of economic, social, and cultural history and, in cooperation with other academic platforms, includes the teaching of history at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. It focuses on economic, social, and cultural transformations in European, national, regional, and local contexts from the mid-18th century to the end of the 20th century considering continuities from early modern times to the present day. In doing so, it transcends conventional periodization and examines historical processes and changes across established milestones in political history.
The aim of the platform is to understand the way societies change by examining their economic activities and social organization, including political implications. With this approach economic and social history has built up its own profile at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University over the last thirty years, both nationally and internationally.
The expertise covers a wide range of topics: transformations of civil society; capitalism; nationalism; history of the family; dis-/integrative tendencies in the economy, finance, and trade; stagnation and crises in both local and European contexts; labor history; social classes; group identities; stagnation and crises in local and European context; technology and knowledge transfers; dynamics of economic cycles; poverty and its effects; new social movements; gender aspects; the economic, social, and cultural contexts of modern dictatorships; the welfare state; technocratic governance in the 20th century; and the roots of today’s social and economic situation. In addition to these research areas and topics, the platform develops an important tradition of scholarship in business history.
The aim of research and teaching for the Academic Platform for Social and Economic History is to historicize our contemporary world. It emphasizes agency and ways the world has been perceived and conceptualized in social, economic, and cultural areas.
Members: