History of capitalism

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About this site

Forthcoming (Polity Books, 2024)

As a field of academic study, the "history of capitalism" sounds new. But it actually has a long history that extends back to the turn of the twentieth century, when "economic history" first emerged as a recognized field of scholarly inquiry.

As a discipline, History focused at that time primarily on elite politics or high culture. Economic history, in the words of an early practitioner, explored what many then regarded as "a sordid side of human affairs." And capitalism as a distinctive social organization of production and distribution fell squarely within its domain.

Wealth inequality, 1890

At its broadest, as I see it, the "new" history of capitalism encompasses three overlapping pools of scholarship. One focuses on the social and cultural experience of capitalism; this is sometimes referred to as the "history of economic life." Another—the "new" economic history—is concerned principally to test the theory and methods of economics against its history. And a third, methodologically more eclectic, treats capitalism as the "dependent variable" and, paying close attention to its political underpinnings, asks why capitalism has taken the particular forms that it has in different times and places.

The fundamental premise of this website is that the fullest understanding of the history of capitalism requires close attention to all of its dimensions—social, cultural, economic, and political—although the political dimension is most salient in my own research (see CAD PhD).

If you have suggestions for additions to this site or notice any errors, please get in touch.