Professor Patrick O'Brien

Before his retirement from the post of Centennial Professor of Global Economic History at the London School of Economics, Patrick O'Brien was Director from 1990-98 of the Institute of Historical Research and before that a Reader in Economic History and Professorial Fellow of St. Antonys College, Oxford, where and with Professor Jeremy Adelman now at Princeton he convened Oxford's first seminar in Global History in 1985.  Ten years later he organised an inaugural seminar in the field for the IHR.  At LSE he helped to establish a masters degree in the field and The Journal of Global, History, acted as Leading Investigator for a European Council funded project entitled "The Discovery, Development and Diffusion of  Useful and Reliable Knowledge in the East and the West from the Accession of the Ming to the First Opium War" and covened an International Network for the Leverhulme Trust in Global History. He is a regular participant in seminars and conferences in global history in Oxford and is currently writing a Very Short Introduction to the Great Divergence Debate, editing two books: "Economic Outcomes that Flowed from the Wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France" and with Professor Tai Yu Kim of Seoul National University, "Industrial Revolutions Revisited" His publications are listed on his web page, displayed by LSE.