Dr. Douglas Forsyth

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Douglas Forsyth, Associate Professor (Ph.D. Princeton University, 1987).  Dr. Forsyth is author of The Crisis of Liberal Italy: Monetary and Financial Policy, 1913-1922 (Cambridge University Press, 1993). He is co-editor (with Daniel Verdier) of The Origins of National Financial Systems: Alexander Gerschenkron Reconsidered(Routledge, 2003); and (with Ton Notermans) of Regime Changes: Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Regulation in Europe from the 1930s to the 1990s (Berghahn, 1997). Prior to joining the Bowling Green faculty,  Dr. Forsyth taught at Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As an affiliate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, he co-chaired the Italian Studies group. He is currently at work on a book-length project with the working title: “Transparency: The Institutionalization of Information Flows in the Economies of Britain, Germany, and the United States since 1870.”

Fields of Study

• Policy History
  
• Comparative Modern European and Economic History
• Modern Italy
  

Education

• 1987                PhD, Princeton University.
• 1983                MA, Princeton University.
• 1977                BA, Reed College.

Additional Education:

• 1984/5             Fulbright Fellow, University of Rome.
• 1977/9             Study at University of Basel (Switzerland), with a Fulbright and other fellowships.
• 1975/6             Junior year abroad, University of Munich.

Book:

The Crisis of Liberal Italy:  Monetary and Financial Policy, 1914-1922, (New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Reviews in:  Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2 (1997), no. 2, pp. 247-50; Canadian Journal of History, 31 (1996), no. 3, pp. 455-7; English Historical Review, 111 (1996), no. 442, p. 788; Journal of Modern History, 68 (1996), no. 2, pp. 494-5; American Historical Review, 100 (1995), no. 5, p. 1621; International History Review, 17 (1995), no. 4, pp. 813-4; Journal of Economic History, 55 (1995), no. 3, pp. 704-5; Times Literary Supplement (8 April 1994), p. 26; Italian Journal, 8 (1994), nos. 3-4, p. 59; Rivista di Storia Economica, 2 (1994), no. 3,  pp. 401-4.

Paperback edition:  2002, as part of Cambridge University Press’s pilot digital paperback reprint project.

Italian edition:  La crisi dell’Italia liberale.  Politica economica e finanziaria 1914-1922, translated by Annalisa Agrati (Milan:  Corbaccio, 1998).

            Reviews in:  L’Eco di Bergamo, 6 June 1998; L’Espresso, 12 March 1998; Il Giornale, 11 March 1998; Il Giornale di Brescia, 11 July 1998; L’Independente, 25 April 1998; Italia oggi, 17 August 1998; Liberazione, 27 May 1998; Lotta communista, 337 (September 1998); Il Messaggero Veneto, 9 March 1998; Il Mondo, 27 February 1998; Il Secolo d’Italia, 20 March 1998.

Edited Books:

• The Origins of Distinct National Financial Systems in the 19th Century:  Alexander Gerschenkron Reconsidered, with Daniel Verdier (New York:  Routledge, 2003).  A collaborative project on the origins of distinct national financial systems in industrialized countries in the 19th century.  Contributors are:  Richard Deeg, Joost Jonker, Sverre Knutsen, Michel Lescure, Håkan Lindgren, Ranald Michie, Alessandro Polsi, Jaime Reis, Don K. Rowney, Hans Sjögren and the editors.
• Regime Changes:  Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Regulation in Europe, 1931-1990, with Ton Notermans, (Providence  RI:  Berghahn, 1997).  Includes essays by Hansjörg Herr, Jan Kregel, Sofía Pérez, Sigurt Vitols and the editors.

Refereed Journals

• The Peculiarities of US-Italian Relations in Historical Perspective,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 3 (1998), no. 1, pp. 1-21.
• “Regime di politica macroeconomica e regolazione finanziaria in Europa, 1931-1996,” Stato e Mercato 48 (1996), no. 3, pp. 367-407.

Other articles:

• “Alexander Gerschenkron,” in Ross Emmett, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Economists (Thoemmes/Continuum, 2006), vol. 1, pp. 340-7.
• “Preface,” to Todd A. Good, The Free Trade Area and the Construction of Great Britain’s European Policy, 1952-58 (Lewiston  NY:  Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), pp. xi-xv.
• “Associazione fra le società italiane per azioni;” “Banca d’Italia;” “Banca Nazionale del Lavoro;” “Crisi del ’29;” “Istituto Mobiliare Italiano;” “Istituto nazionale delle assicurazioni;” and “Volpi di Misurata, Giuseppe;” in Victoria De Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto, eds., Il Fascismo.  Un dizionario critico (Torino:  Einaudi, 2002-3), vol. I, pp. 107-9, 141-4, 144-5, 369-73, 688-9, 689-90, 689; vol. II, pp. 801-3.
• “Macroeconomic Policy Regimes and Financial Regulation in Europe,” (with Ton Notermans), and “A Sea Change in Economic Governance Across Europe, 1931-1948,” both in Douglas J. Forsyth and Ton Notermans, eds., Macroeconomic Policy Regimes and Financial Regulation in Europe, 1931-1994, (Providence  RI:  Berghahn, 1997), pp. 17-68, 69-123.
• “The Rise and Fall of German-Inspired Mixed Banking in Italy, 1894-1936,” in, Harold James, Håkan Lindgren, and Alice Teichova, eds., The Role of Banks in the Interwar Economy (New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 179-205.

Articles on the history of architecture and historical preservation:

• “American Century:  Two California Bungalows in the Industrial Northeast, 1913-2014,” American Bungalow, 83 (fall 2014), pp. 92-103.
• “George D. Leman:  An Arts and Crafts Vernacular Rediscovered,” American Bungalow, 80 (Winter 2013), pp. 18-31.
• “Good Bones and Urban Survival:  Staying Put in Parkside,” American Bungalow, 78 (Summer 2013), pp. 62-75.
• “When Less is More:  Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo Cottages,” American Bungalow, 77 (Spring 2013), pp. 18-31.
• “Rebirth in the Urban Village,” American Bungalow, 75 (Fall, 2012), pp. 93-102.
• “Progressive Architecture, Friendly Relations:  Making it Work in Cleveland,” American Bungalow, 73 (Spring 2012), pp. 88-98.
• “Rust Belt Rising:  Learning from the Motor City,” American Bungalow, 72 (Winter, 2011), pp. 46-57.
• “Elegantly European, Unmistakably American,” American Bungalow, 71 (Fall, 2011), pp. 48-59.
• “Homesteading in Foursquare Heaven,” American Bungalow, 68 (Winter, 2010), pp. 82-93.
• “The Wealth of Craftsmanship,” American Bungalow, 66 (Summer, 2010), pp. 36-47.
• “America the Way It’s Supposed to Be:  Toledo’s Old West End,” American Bungalow, 62 (Summer, 2009), pp. 68-81.

Working Papers/Newsletters:

• “Productivity Gaps and Perceptions:  The USA and Europe since 1870” (2002).  This paper is posted on the website of the Institute Pierre Renouvin, Université de Paris—I, Panthéon—Sorbonne, as part of an on-going project, “Pour une nouvelle histoire des relations transatlantiques,” directed by Prof. Robert Frank:  http://ipr.univ-paris1.fr/irice/protect/prog020629.htm; login:  irice; password: europe.
• “Restoring International Payments:  Germany and France Confront Bretton Woods and the European Payments Union,” Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, Instituto Juan March de Estudios e Investigaciones, Working Papers (1997), no. 111.
• Guest editor of Policy History, 2 (1997), no. 3, the newsletter of Bowling Green State University's Program in Policy History, special issue on “The Political Origins of Banking Structures,” with contributions by Daniel Verdier (European University Institute, Florence), Alessandro Polsi (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), and Don K. Rowney (Bowling Green State University).
• (with Ton Notermans) “The Political Consequences of Price Flexibility:  A Hypothesis,” Advanced Research on the Europeanization of the Nation-State, Working Paper Series (Oslo:  ARENA, 1996), no. 6.

Reviews:

• Piet Clement, Harold James, and Herman Van der Wee, eds., Financial Innovation Regulation, and Crises in History (Brookfield  VT:  Pickering and Chatto, 2014), forthcoming in Enterprise and Society (2015).
• Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, La Fine dell’uguaglianza.  Come la crisi economica sta distruggendo il primo valore della nostra democrazia (Milan:  Mondadori, 2012), Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 19 (2014), no. 5, pp. 694-6.
• Valerio Castronovo, ed., Storia dell’IRI, vol. 1, Dalle origini al dopoguerra (Rome:  Laterza, 2012), Journal of Modern Italian Studies 19 (2014), no. 2, pp. 189-91.
• Deidre N.McCloskey, Bourgeois Dignity:  Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 2011), The Historian 75 (2013) no. 1, pp. 217-8.
• Sophus A. Reinert, Translating Empire:  Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy (Cambridge  MA:  Harvard University Press, 2011), The Historian, 74 (2012), no. 3, pp. 629-30.
• Gianni Marongiu, La politica fiscale dell’Italia liberale dall’unità alla crisi di fine secolo (Florence:  Leo S. Olschki, 2010), English Historical Review (2012), no. 127, pp. 1559-61.
• Augusto De Benedetti, Il Masso di Sisifo.  Studi sull’industrializzazione in bilico (Rome:  Carocci, 2006), Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 12 (2007), no. 2, pp. 258-60.
• Nicola Crepax, Storia dell’industria in Italia, The Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 9 (2004), no. 2, pp. 250-1.
• Rolf Petri, Storia economica d’Italia.  Dalla Grande Guerra al miracolo economico (1918-1963), Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 8 (2003), no. 1, pp. 113-5.
• Michele Salvati, Occasione mancate.  Economia e politica in Italia dagli anni ’60 a oggi, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 7 (2002), no. 2, pp. 330-2.
• Robert Di Quirico, Le banche italiane all’estero, 1900-1950.  Espansione bancaria all’estero e integrazione internazionale nell’Italia degli anni tra le due guerre, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 7 (2002), no. 1, pp. 159-60.
• Jasper Ridley, Mussolini:  A Biography, The Historian 64 (2002), no. 2, pp. 463-4.
• Leopoldo Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra.  Importanza e limiti della presenza americana in Italia, Journal of Cold War Studies 4 (2002), no 2, pp. 143-5.
• Nicholas Crafts and Gianni Toniolo, eds., Economic Growth in Europe Since 1945, Revista de Historia Económica, 15 (1997), no. 3, pp. 669-73.
• Gian Luigi Basini, L’industrializzazione di una provincia contadina.  Reggio Emilia 1861-1940, American Historical Review, 102 (1997), no. 3, pp. 845-6.
• H. James Burgwyn, The Legend of the Mutilated Victory:  Italy, the Great War, and the Paris Peace Conference, 1915-1919, Società e Storia 70 (1996), pp. 984-5.
• Vera Zamagni, The Economic History of Italy, 1860-1990, Journal of Modern History 68 (1996), no. 2, pp. 490-3.
• Alessandro Polsi, Alle origini del capitalismo italiano.  Stato, banche, e banchieri dopo l'unità, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2 (1996), no. 1, pp. 309-12.
• Louise A. Tilly, Politics and Class in Milan, 1881-1901, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24 (1994), no. 4.
• Marco Maraffi, Politica ed economia in Italia.  La vicenda dell'impresa pubblica dagli anni trenta agli anni cinquanta, Italian Politics and Society (1993), no. 39.
• Liborio Mattina, Gli industriali e la democrazia.  La Confindustria nella formazione dell'Italia Repubblicana, Italian Politics and Society (1993), no. 39.
• Elda Gentili Zappi, If Eight Hours Seem Too Few:  Mobilization of Women Workers in the Italian Rice Fields, Italian Politics and Society (1991), no. 34.
• Frank M. Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 1919-32, Italian Politics and Society (1991), no. 33.
• Valerio Castronovo, Storia di una banca.  La Banca Nazionale del Lavoro e lo sviluppo economico italiano, 1913-1983, Passato e Presente, 12 (1986), no. 4.
• Richard D. Forbes, J.P. Morgan Jr., 1867-1943, Passato e Presente, 12 (1986), no. 4.
• Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics:  The Division of Labor in Industry, Italian Politics and Society (1984), no. 14.

• “Productivity Gaps and Perceptions:  The USA and Europe since 1870,” paper delivered at a conference on the “History and Future of Transatlantic Relations,” Columbia University, New York, 3 September 2004.
• “Italy, Still a Difficult Democracy,” for a panel on “Rationality and Culture in Comparative Politics:  Revisiting Classics in Italian Politics,” chaired by Simona Piattoni (Università degli studi di Trento), sponsored by the Conference Group on Italian Politics (CONGRIPS), at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Philadelphia, 28 August 2003.  Comment:  Carol Mershon (University of Virginia).
• “The History and Future of Transatlantic Relations” (with Matt Connelly, Columbia University),” at a workshop on “Transatlantic Relations,” Institut Pierre Renouvin, Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, 3 July 2003.
• “Productivity Gaps and Perceptions:  The USA and Europe since 1870,” and “Bowling Green State’s University’s Graduate Program in Policy History,” a contribution to a “Table ronde sur l’histoire appliquée,” both at a conference “Pour une nouvelle histoire des relations transatlantiques,” Institute Pierre Renouvin, Université de Paris—I, Panthéon—Sorbonne, Paris, 28 June 2002.
• “Transparency:  The Institutionalization of Information Flows in the Economies of Britain, Germany and the United States since 1870,” versions presented at the 10th Annual Plesur Conference at SUNY—Buffalo, “Different Paths?:  The Development of Great Britain, Germany and the West, 3 March 2001; and at the Center for European Studies, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 4 February 2000.
• Co-organizer, conference on “The Origins of Universal Banking,” European University Institute, Fiesole (Florence), Italy, 2-4 March 2000.
• “The Strange Case of the Disappearance of the Stock Market in Germany after World War II;” and “Restoring International Payments:  German and French Ideas about International Monetary Integration from the Keynes and White Plans to the European Payments Union, 1943-50,” Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, 14 November 1997.
• “German and French Ideas about International Monetary Integration from the Keynes and White Plans to the European Payments Union Treaty, 1943-50,” ARENA (Advanced Research on the Europeanization of the Nation-State) Project, Norwegian Research Council, Oslo, 10 June 1997.
• “A Sea Change in Economic Governance Across Europe, 1931-1950,” Depts. of Social Sciences and History, University of Tromsø, Norway, 30 May 1997.
• “Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Regulation in Europe during Two Periods of Institutional Change, 1931-50, and 1973-90;” “Restoring International Payments:  French and German Ideas about Monetary Integration in the late 1940s and early 1950s”, Instituto Juan March de Estudios e Investigaciones, Madrid, 28-29 April 1997.
• “A Sea Change in Economic Governance Across Europe, 1931-50,” Fulbright Program in Madrid, luncheon series, Instituto Internacional en España, 24 February 1997.
•  “Restoring International Payments:  Germany and France Confront Bretton Woods and the European Payments Union,” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Annual Meeting, University of Colorado at Boulder, 23 June 1996.
• “A Sea Change in Economic Governance Across Europe, 1931-48,” University of Connecticut at Storrs, 12 February 1996, sponsored by the Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History.
• “Was Italy the ‘Bulgaria of NATO’?:  Peculiar Features of the US-Italian Relationship During the Cold War,” presented to the Boston University Interdisciplinary Italian Studies Program, 16 March 1995.
• Roundtable panelist at a Conference on “Whither Italy?,” sponsored by the Foreign Service Institute, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (Dept. of State), and the National Intelligence Council, National Foreign Affairs Training Center, Arlington  VA, 22 February 1995.
• “The US-Italian Relationship,” Conference on Italy After the Elections, sponsored by the National Intelligence Council, and the School of Area Studies of the Foreign Service Institute, National Foreign Affairs Training Center, Arlington  VA, 6 April 1994.
• “The Peculiarities of the US-Italian Relationship in Historical Perspective,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 7 January 1994, Session on the Peculiarities of Contemporary Italian History.
• “Monetary Management and Financial Markets in Europe across a Regulatory Divide, 1931-1957,” Working Conference on Financial Institutions and Regulatory Regimes in Europe from the 1930s to the 1990s, Center for European Studies at Harvard University, 15 January 1993, and Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, 10 July 1992.
• “Rethinking the Crisis of Liberal Italy,” Columbia University Seminar on Modern Italy, 8 November 1991.
• “Banking in Italy,” at C-Session of 10th International Economic History Congress, Louvain, Belgium, 23 August 1990, on “The Role of Banks in the Interwar Years.”
• “Political Economy and the Collapse of Parliamentary Government in Italy, 1914-1922,” Harvard Center for European Studies, 21 February 1989.

• “The Accidental Urbanist:  How a Historian of the Political Economy of Modern Europe Found Himself Doing Work on American Cities,” Vearl Smith Historic Preservation Workshop, Lakeside (Ohio) Chautauqua, 2 August 2013.

• A book-length project with the working title:  “Transparency:  The Institutionalization of Information Flows in the Economies of Britain, Germany, and the United States since 1870.”
• Vanda Wilcox has asked me to write a 7000-7500 word essay on monetary and financial policy in Italy from roughly the Libyan War through the March on Rome, 1911-22, for an edited volume on Italy during that period.  It will be published by Brill, and it will contain essays by leading scholars.  The manuscript submission deadline is summer 2015.

Graduate Courses

• HIST 5540                    European Foreign Relations, 1914 to present             
• HIST 582                     Europe Since 1945                                               
  
• HIST 612                    Introduction to Policy History                        
• HIST 647                    Problems in Modern European History                     
• HIST 647                    History of European Integration                                 
• HIST 6520                    Historiography                                                           
• HIST 680                    European International History since 1648                
• HIST 680                    History of Multilateralism since 1915            
• HIST 6820-5001          New Trends in the Historiography of the Modern World
• HIST 682                    Recent Work in Modern and Contemporary European History
• HIST 751                    The Thirty Years War of the 20th Century in Europe, 1914-1945                                                    
• HIST 783                    Karl Marx and Max Weber Reconsidered: Why Did Europe Dominate the Modern World?        
• HIST 784                    Comparative Politics in Europe since 1890                

Undergraduate Courses

• HIST 1520/1520H          Modern World                                                           
• HIST 3477                   20th Century Europe                                                  
• HIST 4555/4555H          Europe since 1945                                                                                        
  
• HIST 4807/4807H          European International History
• HIST 4001                 Professional Practices in History
  
• HIST 4444                 War and Diplomacy in Europe