对经济学的正确理解需要历史的视角。现代经济理论的理性主义结构是一种有力的解释工具，具有普遍意义–但是制度背景的重要性常常被忽略。如果稀缺的现实，选择的行使和不可避免的机会成本性质是永恒而普遍的，那么在其中作出个人和集体选择的社会机制，法律，公约和机构就会不断发展。具有历史经济学的学位课程使学生能够对经济变化的力量有更全面的认识。它平衡了经济学家的“普遍主义”假设与历史学家的“特殊主义”方法之间的平衡，并通过对历史实例的研究来帮助那些以前不太了解经济学的人理解经济理论。
A proper understanding of economics requires a historical perspective. The rationalist structure of the modern economic theory is a powerful explanatory tool and is of universal significance – but the importance of the institutional context is often overlooked. If the reality of scarcity, the exercise of choice and the inescapable nature of opportunity cost are timeless and universal, the social mechanisms, laws, conventions and institutions within which individual and collective choices are made evolve continuously. The degree programme in Economics with History enables students to develop a fuller appreciation of the forces of economic change. It balances the ‘universalist' assumptions of the economist with the ‘particularist' approach of the historian and helps those who have had little previous acquaintance with economics to understand economic theories through the study of historical examples.