Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions. The topic includes business history, financial history and overlaps with areas of social history such as demographic history and labor history. Quantitative (econometric) economic history is also referred to as Cliometrics.

Treating economic history as a discrete academic discipline has been a contentious issue for many years. Academics at the London School of Economics and the University of Cambridge had numerous disputes over the separation of economics and economic theory in the interwar era. Cambridge economists believed that pure economics involved a component of economic history and that the two were inseparably entangled. Those at the LSE believed that economic history warranted its own courses, research agenda and academic chair separated from mainstream economics.

World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.

Sir Roderick Castle Floud FBA (born 1 April 1942) is an economic historian and is currently the Provost of Gresham College. He is the son of Bernard Floud, M.P.

Educated at Brentwood School in Essex, Sir Roderick gained his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Oxford (where he was also Treasurer of the Oxford Union), attending Wadham College. He gained his Doctorate in 1966 from Nuffield College, Oxford.

Having been an assistant lecturer in Economic History at University College London, he became a Fellow, Tutor and Director Studies in History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1969–1975). Between 1975 and 1988 he was the Professor of Modern History at Birkbeck, University of London, with a year as the Krater Visiting Professor of European History and Visiting Professor of Economics at Stanford University (1980–1981).

He was the Provost of the London Guildhall University (then called the City of London Polytechnic) between 1988 and 2000. Following that, he was the first Vice-Chancellor of the London Metropolitan University after it was formed out of the merger of the London Guildhall University and the University of North London. In 2004 he moved to become the President of the London Metropolitan University, a position he held until March 2006. He was knighted in 2005.