Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History: “Shaping the economy through public debt: State-building in industrialising America”
10/02/2026 (Seminars)
Bank of Greece, DIESOI
The Historical Archives of the Bank of Greece, in the context of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History, jointly organised with the Athens University of Economics and Business and Panteion University, invite you to the lecture entitled:
“Shaping the economy through public debt: State-building in industrialising America”
Speaker: Nicolas Barreyre (EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales)
A few words on the topic:
The nineteenth-century U.S. state is often understood as a non-administrative state that purposefully shied away from intervening in the economy. This work looks at the public debt amassed during the Civil War to explore how this instrument of finance and statecraft could be used to reshape the state and convert it into an influential economic player without developing a large bureaucracy. The speaker will present how public debt served to build and maintain the financial infrastructure that would underpin the massive capitalist-industrial development of the United States in the half-century that followed the Civil War.
The sessions are held between 17:00-19:00 at the Museum of the Bank of Greece, 3 Amerikis Street, Athens, and are open to the public, without requiring prior registration. The lecture will be delivered in English.
The complete programme of upcoming lectures is available on the website of the Interdisciplinary Seminar in Economic History.
Relevant link:
Poster of the event