The 10th International Economic History Congress, Leuven, Belgium, August 1990

Abstract

The International Economic History Association, like the discipline it represents, is making limited but genuine efforts to transcend its European origins. All but one of its ten congresses have been held in Europe, and all but three of its 22 executive committee members are European. The exceptions are all American save for the sole representative of Asia - the admirable Akira Hayami. Although Americans were the largest single national group (about 110) among the 1200- odd participants, three quarters were European, with very strong delegations from Holland, Britain, Germany, USSR and Hungary. A sprinkling of scholars from China (6), Taiwan, Korea and India (18) might be seen as tokenism, but more than 50 Japanese would have been a real factor at the Congress even without the exotic excitement provided by their economic historian extraordinaire - Crown Prince Naruhito. It is above all Japan's economic experience, and Japanese scholarship about it, which has forced the broadening of the agenda of the Association and the discipline.