David S. Landes (1924–2013)

This chapter traces the life and work of Harvard economic historian David Landes, while also situating his career in the wider context of the ever-changing discipline of economic history. Along with providing a brief biographical sketch and summary of some of his most important historical writings on the Industrial Revolution, technological change, economic growth and more, we show how, by the early 1980s, Landes struggled to find an academic home at Harvard for two main reasons: On the one hand, the rise of a highly quantitative and neoclassical “cliometrics” pushed him away from the Economics Department. On the other, Landes’ increasingly conservative approach to history and his unabashed Eurocentrism led to a strained relationship within the history discipline. In this regard, Landes’ career can help explain the demise of traditional economic history which has all but disappeared from both the economics and history departments at Harvard and across the United States.