Constructing Economic Science

Constructing Economic Science demonstrates how an existing public discourse, political economy, was transformed in the early twentieth century into a new university discipline: economics. This change in location brought about a restructuring of economic knowledge. Finance, student numbers, curricula, teaching, new media, and the demands of employment all played their part in shaping economics as it is known today. It was broadly accepted in the later nineteenth century that industrialising economies required the skilled and specialised workforce that universities could provide. Advocacy for the teaching of commercial subjects was widespread and international. In Cambridge, Alfred Marshall was alone in arguing that economics, not commerce, provided the most suitable training for the administration and business of the future; and in 1903 he founded the first three-year undergraduate economics programme. This was by no means the end of the story, however. What economics was, how Marshall thought it should be taught, had by the 1920s become contested, and in Britain the London School of Economics gained dominance in defining the new science. By the 1930s, American universities had already moved on from undergraduate to graduate teaching, whereas in Britain university education remained focussed upon undergraduate education. At the same time, public policy was reformulated in terms of economic means and ends—relating to postwar reconstruction, employment, and social welfare—and international economics became American economics. This study charts the conditions that initially shaped the “science” of economics, providing in turn a foundation for an understanding of the way in which this new language itself subsequently transformed public policy.

Pyongyang Modern: Architecture of Multiplicity in Postwar North Korea

This article explores North Korea’s postwar reconstruction through the variegated features of architectural development in Pyongyang. The rebirth of Pyongyang as the center of both state authority and work culture is distinctly represented by architecture. In this setting, architecture as theory and practice was divided into two contiguous and interconnected types: monumental structures symbolizing the utopian vision of the state and vernacular structures instrumental to the regime of production in which the apartment was an exemplary form. The author makes three claims: first, Pyongyang’s monumental and vernacular architectural forms each embody both utopian and utilitarian features; second, the multiplicity of meaning exhibited in each architectural form is connected to the transnational process of bureaucratic expansion and industrial developmentalism; and third, North Korea’s postwar architectural history is a lens through which state socialism of the twentieth century can be better understood—not as an exceptional moment but as a constituent of globalized modernity, a historical formation dependent on the collusive expansion of state power and industrial capitalism. A substantial part of this article is a discussion of the methods and sources relevant to writing an architectural history of North Korea.

Attlee, Clement

Clement Attlee was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, leading his Labour government on a radical program of postwar reconstruction. Attlee himself came from a privileged background, and the decisive influences that brought him to left-wing politics came from his time working with children and families in the East End of London, in the years before World War I. His book The Social Worker, published in 1920, drew on these experiences.

Arab Middle Eastern Urbanization

This article explores urbanization in the Arab countries of the Middle East and covers contributions published in English. The literature offers a wide diversity of topics, some of which represent cross-cutting themes across the entire region (e.g., the diffusion of Dubai’s urbanization model throughout the Middle East under the “contemporary urbanization trends” theme) while others are context-specific to a sub-region (e.g., the Levant or the Arab Gulf), a country, or even a city (e.g., Beirut’s postwar reconstruction). A thematic presentation highlights the areas of concentration and those of omission that warrant further exploration vis-à-vis each context whether theoretically and/or empirically. Urban governance is one of the most broached topics, particularly the roles of civil society and the market. Indeed, studies abound on the political economy of place, namely the impacts of neoliberalism and globalization and the transfer of contemporary urbanization trends from the Gulf to the rest of the region. Paralleling this focus on high-end urbanization is a focus on urban informality whether in its strict form in Cairo, or in the form of refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Postwar reconstruction and place memory have received much attention and are connected, especially in Lebanon, to urban rehabilitation. Notably, the emphasis in the literature remains, for the most part, on capital cities with far fewer contributions on other urban centers within each sub-region/country. Also, while studies abound on urban heritage, there is a need for contributions that connect the rehabilitation of historic urban landscapes (HULs) to housing availability and affordability. In terms of omissions, there is a dearth in contributions pertaining to urbanization and environmental sustainability, particularly environmental planning, urban ecosystems, and ecological designs (nature-based solutions), and also climate change including risk and vulnerability assessments, mitigation (decreasing greenhouse gas emission), adaptation (urban systems’ adjustments to climate change), climate justice, and urban resilience. Throughout, there is little variation in the theoretical framing and the empirical methods among the abundant contributions. While the prevailing qualitative empirical approaches offer valuable insights, there is an evident lack of quantitative studies probably attributed to the challenges in the availability and accessibility of census and geospatial data. The latter may also be the reason for the near absence of urban morphological studies throughout the region.

The Tourist Trap: Great Britain, Postwar Recovery, and the Marshall Plan

After World War II, Great Britain faced major economic problems, which the government sought to rectify by reviving export markets and achieving a favorable balance of trade. One overlooked component of reconstruction was a decision to recognize tourism as an “invisible export,” a way to draw currency, especially American dollars, into the country. However, in a period characterized by scarcity, rationing, and austerity measures, the endeavor presented enormous challenges. The situation was exacerbated by the advent of the Marshall Plan in 1948. It required British participation in a European-based tourism scheme that jeopardized the success of Britain's own initiative and, ironically, could potentially undermine the economic benefits that Marshall Plan participation was supposed to provide. In exploring the history of British tourism policy in this era, this article shows the extent to which the Marshall Plan compromised an important aspect of British reconstruction policy. It can thereby better inform our understanding of the complexities of postwar reconstruction and of Britain's guarded response to aspects of the Marshall Plan—particularly the American initiative to promote greater European economic integration in the immediate postwar era.

The Courts

This chapter explores the discussion of justice and revenge that began in the Warsaw Ghetto and continued in the chaos of the postwar reconstruction of Jewish life both in Poland and abroad. It highlights how Jewish newspapers, political parties, and social organizations were flooded with denunciations from those who considered themselves to be the victims of policemen. It also refers to the Honor Court of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland that “cleansed” the Jewish society in 1946 of people who cooperated with the Nazi authorities during the occupation, unmasking traitors of the Jewish people. The chapter looks at cases examined by the Honor Court, which largely concerned Jewish policemen from Warsaw, particularly lawyers who had returned to legal practice. It points out how the Honor Court did not consider the responsibility of the Jewish Order Service as an institution, but instead, each policeman was tried individually.

China and the Reconstruction of Syria

How will China contribute to Syria's postwar reconstruction? The Syrian regime's Russian and Iranian sponsors are unlikely to provide sufficient material assistance, while Gulf and Western countries are unwilling to help. This article shows how Chinese support has thus become the Syrian regime's priority, although China's state and private firms will be wary of risk. China could also provide Syria with a model for development, but it would be partial as it lacks a peace-building dimension, including the construction of transitional justice.