This course traces the origins and development of capitalism from the sixteenth century English countryside to contemporary China. We examine how political institutions and social relations configure in different places and in different ways the economic and market behavior of social classes, how goods are produced, the social division of labor (who produces what and for whom), and long-term economic outcomes. The course examines these issues in a variety of socio-political and national contexts, taking examples from Asia, Europe, and the Atlantic World (Europe, America and East Africa) to study the different forms taken by agricultural production (peasants, capitalist farmers, slave-based commodity production) and manufacturing (household handicrafts, industrial capitalism, and slave-based manufacturing). The course will also examine different approaches to the study of the origins of capitalism proposed by the classical economists (Smith, Malthus, and Marx) as well as contemporary neo-classical and Marxist theories of how the modern world economy came about. The course does not require an understanding of economic principles or language, and is accessible to those who have had no exposure to economics. About 60% of the course is devoted to the period before 1945 and 40% to the period since.