Victoria Bateman is an economic historian and a Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge, where she is Director of Studies in Economics at Gonville and Caius College. She is author of the book "Markets and Growth in Early Modern Europe" (Routledge, 2016), writes regular economic commentary for UnHerd, Bloomberg View and CapX, and has contributed articles to The Guardian, Times Higher Education, The Conversation and The Telegraph. She has appeared on the BBC (Radio 4 & Newsnight), discussing everything from Brexit to welfare reform, and has made a public call for a sexual revolution in economics.
The Middle East was once the cradle of civilisation: can it prosper once again? Looking back at lessons from the European Enlightenment, this column argues that if the region wants to advance economically, it needs to advance in terms of its treatment of women. Female agency is central to understanding the West’s technological leadership of the past two centuries.