A brief history of commercial capitalism

Spanning centuries and continents, this short work fundamentally reconfigures our view of the rise of capitalism on the world stage.

A brief history of money

A capital’s capital

A study of the changes in wealth and its distribution in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Paris that maps the interplay among wealth, inequality, and welfareSuccessful economies sustain capital accumulation across generations, and capital accumulation leads to large increases in private wealth. ...

A culture of growth

From Nobel Prize–winning economist Joel Mokyr, a revealing look at why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial RevolutionDuring the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much ...

A farewell to alms

Why are some parts of the world so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich--...

A glance in the rear view mirror

An introductory guide to the neo-liberal ideology of the global 1%. Perfect for those of us without economics degrees.

A history of economic thought

Lionel Robbins's now famous lectures on the history of economic thought comprise one of the greatest accounts since World War II of the evolution of economic ideas. This volume represents the first time those lectures have been published. Lord Robbins (1898-1984) was a remarkably accomplished thi...

A local history of global capital

Before the advent of synthetic fibers and cargo containers, jute sacks were the preferred packaging material of global trade, transporting the world's grain, cotton, sugar, tobacco, coffee, wool, guano, and bacon. Jute was the second-most widely consumed fiber in the world, after cotton. While th...

A monetary and fiscal history of the united states, 1961–2021

From the New York Times bestselling author, the fascinating story of U.S. economic policy from Kennedy to Biden—filled with lessons for todayIn this book, Alan Blinder, one of the world’s most influential economists and one of the field’s best writers, draws on his deep firsthand experience to pr...

A monetary history of the united states, 1867-1960

“Magisterial. . . . The direct and indirect influence of the Monetary History would be difficult to overstate.”—Ben S. Bernanke, Nobel Prize–winning economist and former chair of the U.S. Federal ReserveFrom Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman and his celebrated colleague Anna Jacobson ...

A new kind of public

This engaging and original work argues that modern Hollywood was forged in the fires of class struggle and economic inequality

A third path

How Brazil and Portugal experimented with corporatism as a “third path” between laissez-faire capitalism and communism Following the Great Depression, as the world searched for new economic models, Brazil and Portugal experimented with corporatism as a “third path” between laissez-faire capitalis...

A world safe for commerce

An Economist Biggest Book of the YearHow commerce determines whether America preserves the peace or goes to warWhen the Cold War ended, many believed that expanding trade would usher in an era of peace. Yet today the United States finds itself confronting not just Russia in Europe but China in th...

Adam smith’s america

The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free marketsOriginally published in 1776, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America’s founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue. Today, Sm...

After adam smith

How writers after Adam Smith helped shape our thinking about economics and politicsFew issues are more central to our present predicaments than the relationship between economics and politics. In the century after Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations the British economy was transformed. After Adam Smit...

After kant

Tracing the origins of modern political thought through three sets of arguments over history, morality, and freedomIn this wide-ranging work, Michael Sonenscher traces the origins of modern political thought and ideologies to a question, raised by Immanuel Kant, about what is involved in comparin...

Against the tide

About two hundred years ago, largely as a result of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, free trade achieved an intellectual status unrivaled by any other doctrine in the field of economics. What accounts for the success of free trade against then prevailing mercantilist doctrines? And how well has fr...

An infinite history

An innovative history of deep social and economic changes in France, told through the story of a single extended family across five generationsMarie Aymard was an illiterate widow who lived in the provincial town of Angoulême in southwestern France, a place where seemingly nothing ever happened. ...

Arts and minds

A history of the extraordinary society that has touched all aspects of British lifeFrom its beginnings in a coffee house in the mid-eighteenth century, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable. It has soug...

As gods among men

"In this masterly book, [Alfani] offers an insightful long-run perspective and fascinating lessons for the future. A must-read!"—Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First CenturyA sweeping narrative that shows how the rich historically justified themselves by helping their societies i...

Bankers and bolsheviks

A must-read financial history for investors navigating today's volatile global marketsFollowing an unprecedented economic boom fed by foreign investment, the Russian Revolution triggered the largest sovereign default in history. In Bankers and Bolsheviks, Hassan Malik tells the story of this boom...

Beyond the invisible hand

Why economics needs to focus on fairness and not just efficiencyOne of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This...

Beyond the silk road

A global history of economic exchange across ancient AfroeurasiaBeyond the Silk Road presents a new economic history of ancient empires from East Asia to the Mediterranean and North Africa during a period of intense empire building, transformation, and interaction. Leaving behind the obsolete ide...

Blood and money

Blood and Money tells the story of money as a history of violence and human bondage.

Breaking the mold

The new path for economic development that India must create The whole world has a stake in India’s future, and that future hinges on whether India can develop its economy and deliver for its population—now the world’s largest—while staying democratic. India’s economy has overtaken the United Kin...

Business and community in medieval england

One of the most important manuscripts surviving from thirteenth-century England, the corpus of documents known as the Hundred Rolls for Cambridge have been incomplete until the recent discovery of an additional roll. This invaluable volume replaces the previous inaccurate transcription by the re...

Capitalism

A comprehensive and concise history of capitalism from its origins to todayIn this authoritative and accessible book, one of the world's most renowned historians provides a concise and comprehensive history of capitalism within a global perspective from its medieval origins to the 2008 financial ...

Capitalism in the colonies

An account that challenges the conventional views of African merchants under colonialism, examining the emergence and changing fortunes of indigenous entrepreneurs in Lagos, NigeriaIn Capitalism in the Colonies, A. G. Hopkins provides the first substantial assessment of the fortunes of African en...

Capitalism without capital

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the abi...

Challenging inequalities

A comprehensive look at inequalities and why they matterThere is a widespread sense throughout the developed world that progress towards a better society has stalled. Many countries, including the UK, have experienced persistent economic stagnation accompanied by declining trust in institutions. ...

Class, culture, and the agrarian myth

Using examples from different historical contexts, this book examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth.

Commerce and coalitions

Why do countries differ so greatly in their patterns of political cleavage and coalition? Extending some basic findings of economic theories of international trade, Ronald Rogowski suggests a startling new answer. Testing his hypothesis chiefly against the evidence of the last century and a half,...

Comparative advantage in the knowledge economy

Comparative Advantage in the Knowledge Economy: A National and Organizational Resource provides a comprehensive and insightful understanding of all the dimensions of a transition from a traditional to a knowledge economy.

Compassionate capitalism

It may seem like a recent trend, but businesses have been practising compassionate capitalism for nearly a thousand years. Based on the newly discovered historical documents on Cambridge’s sophisticated urban property market during the Commercial Revolution in the thirteenth century, this book ex...

Competition in the promised land

From 1940 to 1970, nearly four million black migrants left the American rural South to settle in the industrial cities of the North and West. Competition in the Promised Land provides a comprehensive account of the long-lasting effects of the influx of black workers on labor markets and urban spa...

Contemporary methods and austrian economics

Contemporary Methods and Austrian Economics, examines the relationship between Austrian economics and these new social scientific methods.

Contingent expectations

An empirical analysis and new theoretical framework for understanding economic expectations and decision-making in different historical settings.Expectations play a crucial role in shaping economic behavior. But how are expectations actually formed, and how has this changed over time? The financi...

Controlling contagion

How human institutions—markets, states, communities, religions, guilds and families—have helped both to control and to exacerbate epidemics throughout history.How do societies tackle epidemic disease? In Controlling Contagion, Sheilagh Ogilvie answers this question by exploring seven centuries of...

Credit nation

How American colonists laid the foundations of American capitalism with an economy built on creditEven before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world. Credit Nation examines how the drive to expand credit shaped ...

Crises and hegemonic transitions

Tracing the vicissitudes of US hegemony from the interwar period to the present, Fusaro provides a novel Gramscian way to interpret past and present developments within the world economy.

Crisis and contradiction

In this wide-ranging collection, experts from around the world analyze political and economic trends in Latin America since the 1990s.

Crisis and sequels

This volume brings together contributions which take up the key debates regarding the economic crash of 2007–8 and its sequels.  

Debtor nation

The story of personal debt in modern AmericaBefore the twentieth century, personal debt resided on the fringes of the American economy, the province of small-time criminals and struggling merchants. By the end of the century, however, the most profitable corporations and banks in the country lent...