Charts the emergence and development of capitalism across the world from a variety of perspectives, providing a deep understanding of how capitalism came to be the dominant economic force.
This book re-examines the historical emergence and evolution of capitalism. Why did a radically new way of organizing economic life emerge in regions of the early modern world? Why did it eventually encompass the globe, tying the peoples of the world together in a common economic fate? These questions have been at the heart of historical and social-scientific inquiry since the nineteenth century. They are explored and answered anew by the scholars gathered together in this geographically and theoretically capacious volume. The chapters explore the emergence and development of capitalism in Africa, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia, North America, and the Atlantic world, and they engage with many of the major intellectual approaches for understanding capitalism, from the New Institutional Economics to world-systems theory.
The authors share a common commitment, but not a common approach, to understanding the historical development of capitalism. They believe that the emergence and evolution of capitalism must be understood by examining the concrete conditions of socioeconomic life in a particular country, empire, or region, and that such empirically and archivally driven historical analysis must be combined with theoretical discussion of the concepts and categories used to make sense of capitalism and its dynamics.
This work offers different accounts of capitalist development across and within major regions of the world. It is a
histories of, rather than a history of, capitalism. As such, it introduces readers to new historical research on capitalist development in different regional and national contexts and to several significant intellectual approaches for understanding what Max Weber called ’the most fateful force of our modern life.’
ROBERT G. INGRAM is Professor of Humanities at the University of Florida.
JAMES M. VAUGHN is Assistant Instructional Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago.
Contributors:
Gareth Austin, Ralph Austen, Peter Coclanis, Tracy Dennison, C. Alexander Evans, Emma Griffin, Robert G. Ingram, Anirban Karak, John Majewski, Mark Metzler, Kenneth Pomeranz, J. Mark Ramseyer, Tirthankar Roy and Horus T’an
Inhoudsopgave
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1. Capitalism: Histories and Institutions –
Robert G. Ingram
2. Origin Stories: Expressions and Presentations of Capitalism in Early British America –
Peter Coclanis
3. Creativity and Capitalism in the Nineteenth-Century United States –
John Majewski
4. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and the Birth of the Business Cycle –
Mark Metzler
5. Violence and Capitalism in Early Modern European Overseas Expansion –
Ralph Austen
6. Capitalism in Africa: Two Histories, 1650s-1940s –
Gareth Austin
7. European Empires and the Origins of Global Capitalism –
Emma Griffin
8. Capitalism in a Feudal Society? Property Rights and Economic Development in Russia under Serfdom –
Tracy Dennison
9. Capitalism in South Asia: Three Transitions –
Tirthankar Roy
10. Capitalism, Caste and Subaltern Aspirations in India: Bengal, c. 1500-1859 –
Anirban Karak
11. Chinese Capitalism c. 1500-1850: Institutions, Dimensions, Dynamics and Limitations –
Kenneth Pomeranz
12. Why the Soybean Export Failed to Trigger the Reemergence of Coercive Labour Control in Eighteenth-Century Manchuria –
Horus T’an
13. Property Law at the Transition to Exponential Growth: Examples from Japan –
C. Alexander Evans and J. Mark Ramseyer
Index
Over de auteur
JAMES M. VAUGHN is Assistant Instructional Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division at the University of Chicago.