Anyone got suggestions for good PhD topics in political science or history?
What area of history?
Since you’re in Australia (I believe), what about looking into the causes of the Australian banking (as well as real estate and other) crises of the 1890s, in the fashion of Rothbard’s Panic of 1819 (which was his PhD dissertation)? You could discuss the Australian free banking system and the government interventions from an Austrian perspective - I don’t think any Austrians have written on this particular event.
I’d love to do economic history, but I have no formal economics training so it could be difficult. Besides, Kevin Dowd has already written about the Australian free banking system in Laissez Faire Banking. But I will look into it and see if its feasible.
Aristippus are you from Australia? Liberty Australia has a Mises Seminar planned for Sydney - you should attend.
If you feel confident enough in your knowledge of Austrian theory, I’m pretty sure you’d be able to convince your supervisor to let you do a topic on economic history. As Tom Woods said, history supervisors generally see the use of Austrian theory as an extremely interesting perspective. I suppose, though, that banking is a particularly difficult area of economic history, even if there is a lot of room for inquiry beyond Dowd’s work.
What area of history would you like to work on? There are a few different methods of inquiry that you could draw from the Austrians - the applicability of which depends on the historical situation.
I’m in Melbourne, but I would definitely go to Sydney to see Hoppe and company. Whereabouts are you?
Still undecided what area of history I’d be looking at.
I’m in Melbourne too. If you’re on facebook I can add you to the Mises seminar group. Simply email me your details: ssabhlok@mises.com