Avner Offer, FBA
avner.offer@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
Current Research: ‘From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism, c. 1970-2015’
The postwar 'golden age' of economic growth also built up American and European welfare states. This settlement was successfully challenged in the 1970s by a coalition of business, taxpayers, consumers, ideologists and social scientists. From this core of discontent, market liberalism has retrieved the intellectual and political hegemony it had previously lost, and continues to advance across the globe, though much evidence suggests that it may have already reached its high-water mark. The project investigates the origins, attributes, and drivers of this movement, its successes, failures, and prospects. In particular, it considers the role of human capital, technological change, economic fundamentals, social disruption and cognitive constraints in explaining the New Right, The Washington Consensus, the fall of communism, de-regulation, privatisation, and globalisation.
I continue to keep up with, to research and occasionally to publish in my other fields of interest, international political economy (with special reference to war), c. 1870-1920, rural and urban land tenure, and the economic determinants of well-being and quality of life. In all of these fields, I have a secondary interest in law.
CURRICULUM VITAE, May 2008
Academic Positions
2000— : Chichele Professor of Economic History, University of Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College.
1992—2000: Professorial Fellow, Nuffield College, Reader in Recent Social and Economic History, University of Oxford.
1990-1991: Reader in Economic and Social History, University of York.
1979-1990: Lecturer in Economic and Social History, University of York.
Research Fellowships
Oct. 2008-Oct. 2011: Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.
Jan.—May 1999: Senior Visiting Fellow, Remarque Institute, New York University
Sept.—Dec. 1991: Senior Fellow, Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Sept. 1985—Sept. 1988: Research Fellow, Research School of Social Science, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra.
Sept.—Dec. 1984: Visiting Associate, Clare Hall, Cambridge
Oct. 1981—Sept. 1982: Hartley Research Fellow, University of Southampton.
Oct. 1976—Dec. 1978: Junior Research Fellow, Merton College, Oxford.
Student Record
1979: D.Phil. Faculty of Modern History, University of Oxford.
1973-1976: Research Student, St. Antony’s College, Oxford.
1973: B.A.(cum laude), Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (History and Geography).
Honours
Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship, 2008
Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK, 2003
Fellow of the British Academy, 2000
Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1992
Publications
a. Books and Pamphlets
Property and Politics 1870-1914: Landownership, Law, Ideology and Urban Development in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), xviii+445 pp. Reissued, Aldershot: Gregg Revivals 1992.
The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), xix+449 pp. Paperback edition, 1991. Reprinted, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, reissued Oxford, 1998. [Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1992]
(editor) In Pursuit of the Quality of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), viii+302 pp.
Why has the Public Sector grown so large in Market Societies? The Political Economy of Prudence in the UK, c. 1870-2000 [Inaugural lecture] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 45 pp.
The Challenge of Affluence: Self-control and Well-being in the United States and Britain since 1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Xviii+454 pp. Paperback edition forthcoming Oct. 2007.
b. Parts of Books
‘War Economy’ in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economic Theory and Doctrine, ed. John Eatwell et al. (London 1987; Macmillan), vol. 4, pp. 875-7.
‘Pacific Rim Societies: Asian Labour and White Nationalism’, in D. Schreuder and J. Eddy (eds.), The Rise of Colonial Nationalism 1880-1914 (Sydney and London: Allen & Unwin, 1988), pp. 227-47.
‘Bounded Rationality in Action: The German Submarine Campaign, 1915-1918’ in W. Gerrard and J. Hodge (eds.), Rationality and Economics (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 179-202.
‘Going to War in 1914: A Matter of Honour?’, in Craig Wilcox (ed.), The Great War: Gains and Losses – Anzac and Empire (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1995), pp. 117-161. [see also under ‘articles’].
‘Foreign Farming in British Eyes’, in Negley Harte and R. Quinalt (eds.), Land and Society in Britain, 1700-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 78-89.
‘The Technological Revolution that Never Was: Gender, Class, and the Home Appliance Market in Interwar England’ (with Sue Bowden), in V. de Grazia and E. Furlough (eds.), The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 244-274.
‘Introduction’, pp. 1-17, and
‘The Mask of Intimacy: Advertising and the Quality of Life’ in Avner Offer (ed.), In Pursuit of the Quality of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) and 211-255.
‘The American Automobile Frenzy of the 1950s’, in K. Bruland and P.K. O’Brien (eds.), From Family Firms to Corporate Capitalism: Essays in Business and Industrial History in Honour of Peter Mathias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 315-353.
‘Costs and Benefits, Prosperity and Security, 1870-1914’ Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 690-711.
‘The Blockade of Germany and the Strategy of Starvation, 1914-1918: An Agency Perspective’, in R. Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.) Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 169-188.
‘A Dialogue with the Past’, in Pat Hudson (ed.), Living Economic and Social History (Glasgow: Economic History Society, 2001), pp. 254-257.
‘Economic Welfare Measurement and Human Well-being’, in Paul A. David and Mark Thomas (eds.), The Economic Future in Historical Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 371-399.
‘Torture
and Trade in the ‘War on Terror’’, in Chris Miller (ed.), The
c. Refereed Journal Articles
‘The Origins of the Law of Property Acts, 1910-1925’, Modern Law Review, vol. 40 (1977), pp. 505-22.
‘Ricardo’s Paradox and the Movement of Rents in Britain, c.1870-1910’, Economic History Review, vol. 33 (1980), pp. 236-52.
‘Empire and Social Reform: British Overseas Investment and Domestic Politics, 1908-1914’, Historical Journal, vol. 26 (1983), pp. 119-38.
‘Using the Past in Britain: Retrospect and Prospect’, The Public Historian, vol. 6, 4 (Fall 1984), pp. 15-34.
‘The Working Classes, British Naval Plans and the Coming of the Great War’, Past and Present, no. 107 (May 1985), pp. 204-226.
‘Morality and Admiralty: The Royal Navy, Economic Warfare and International Law, 1900-1919’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 23 (Jan. 1988), pp. 99-119.
‘Economic Interpretation of War: The German Submarine Campaign 1915--1918’, Australian Economic History Review, vol. 24 (1989), pp. 21-41.
‘Farm Tenure and Land Values in England, c. 1750-1950’, Economic History Review, vol. 44, no. 1 (Feb. 1991), pp. 1-20.
‘The British Empire 1870--1914: A Waste of Money?’, Economic History Review, vol. 46 (May 1993), pp. 215-238.
‘Household Appliances and the Use of Time in the U.S.A. and Britain Since the 1920s’, (with Sue Bowden) Economic History Review, vol. 47, (Nov. 1994), pp. 725-748.
‘Lawyers and Land Law Revisited’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 14, 2 (1994), pp. 269-278.
‘Going to War in 1914: A Matter of Honor?’, Politics & Society, vol. 23, 2 (June 1995), pp. 213-241.
‘Between the Gift and the Market: The Economy of Regard’, Economic History Review, vol. 50, 3 (Aug. 1997), pp. 450-476.
‘Social and Economic Mobilization in the First World War’, Zmanim, no. 65 (Jan. 1999), pp. 95-111. [in Hebrew]
‘Household Appliances and “Systems of Provision”: A Reply’, (with Sue Bowden), Economic History Review, vol. 52, 3 (Aug. 1999), pp. 563-567.
‘Body-Weight and Self-Control in the USA and Britain since the 1950s’, Social History of Medicine, vol. 14, 1 (2001), pp. 79-106.
‘The Markup for Lemons: Quality and Uncertainty in American and British Used-Car Markets, c. 1953-1973’ Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 59, 5, Supplementary issue (2007), pp. i31-i48.
d. Non-refereed Journals
‘The Challenge of Affluence—Interview with Avner Offer’, Challenge, 50, 1 (2007), pp. 1-13.
‘Charles Hilliard Feinstein’, Transactions of the
e. Book Reviews:
Albion, American Journal of Sociology, ANU Reporter, Australian Economic History Review, Australian Historical Studies, Economic History Review, Economic Journal, English Historical Review, Geographical Journal, German History, History, International History Review, Journal of Historical Geography, Journal of Economic History, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Overland, Oxford Today, Planning History Bulletin, Times Literary Supplement, Zmanim.
f. Editor
Joint-editor (with Prof. F.M.L. Thompson) of a series of Historical Handbooks: short books designed to provide an historical perspective on current issues, written mainly by economic and social historians. The series was published by Faber and Faber:
W.D. Rubinstein, Wealth and Inequality in Britain (1986).
Alison Ravetz, The Government of Space: Town Planning in Modern Britain (1986).
Michael Sanderson, Educational Opportunity and Social Change in England (1987).
Martin Daunton, A Property-Owning Democracy? Housing in Britain (1987).
John Saville, The Labour Movement in Britain: A Commentary (1988).
Tony Mason, Sport in Britain (1988).
Frank Prochashka, The Voluntary Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (1988).
Anne Digby, British Welfare Policy: Workhouse to Workfare (1989).
J.A. Sharpe, Judicial Punishment in England (1990).
Noel Whiteside, Bad Times: Unemployment in British Social and Political History (1991).
Sean Glynn, No Alternative? Unemployment in Britain (1991).
Colin Holmes, A Tolerant Country? Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities in Britain (1991).
g. Video Recordings
Interviewer, Interviews with Historians: Michael Thompson [F.M.L. Thompson], London: Institute of Historical Research (1996).
