New Books in Economic and Business History

William I. Robinson, "Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

30 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Epochal Crisis: The Exhaustion of Global Capitalism (Cambridge UP, 2025) is the most recent book from Professor William Robinson, Distinguished Pr...

Paul Blustein, "King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency" (Yale UP, 2025)

30 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. dollar is the world’s most important currency. Trade is priced in dollars, the world’s central banks keep U.S. dollars in reserve, some p...

Mary Lisa Gavenas, "Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay" (Penguin, 2026)

29 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As detailed in Selling Opportunity: The Story of Mary Kay (Penguin, 2026) by Mary Lisa Gavenas, as the only woman in Forbes’ Greatest Business St...

Stephen B. Young ed., "Adam Smith and Modern Economics: Reclaiming the Moral High Ground" (de Gruyter, 2026)

29 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For more than two centuries, economists and researchers have struggled with the conundrum of reconciling Adam Smith’s views on economics and ethics....

Raffaele Danna, "The Craft of Indo-Arabic Numerals: How Practical Arithmetic Shaped Commerce and Mathematics in Western Europe, 1200–1600" (Harvard UP, 2026)

28 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the thirteenth-century Mediterranean, commerce transformed as merchants shifted from Roman to Indo-Arabic numerals—an alternative that better fac...

Trevor Jackson, "The Insatiable Machine: How Capitalism Conquered the World" (Norton, 2026)

28 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How did an economic system that was the result of largely uncoordinated and unplanned individual decisions come to dominate our modern world? This is ...

Karen Hao, "Empire of AI: Inside the Race for Total Domination" (Allan Lane, 2025)

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Hello! Thanks for reaching out. I'm glad you're here! Do you have any questions or thoughts about the recent discussion with Karen Hao on AI and its s...

Kaitlin P. Reed, "Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California" (U Washington Press, 2023)

27 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Despite it's centrality to a hippie counterculture which claimed an environmentalist ethos, California's "green rush" of cannabis growing from the mid...

Vanda Krefft, "Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women" (Algonquin Books, 2026)

24 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The icon...

Eileen G'Sell, "Lipstick" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

20 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From Revlon to Glossier, from Marilyn to Gaga, lipstick is as shape-shifting and unwieldy as femininity itself.Who wears lipstick today – as a matte...

Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller, "Boom to Bust: How Streaming Broke Hollywood Workers" (U California Press, 2026)

19 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Boom to Bust is a timely investigation into the rise of Peak TV and the perfect storm that caused a rapid decline in Hollywood work. When Hollywood ...

Lewis Sage-Passant, "Beyond States and Spies: The Security Intelligence Services of the Private Sector" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Scholars have long viewed intelligence as the preserve of nation states. Where the term ‘private sector intelligence’ is used, the focus has been ...

Andrew W. M. Smith, "Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac in Modern France" (Manchester UP, 2026)

17 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the French government announced a massive extension of its military base on the Larzac plateau in southern France. Land was to be expropriate...

Ibrahim J. Gedeon and Kyle Murray, "Automata: The Power of AI Integrated with Advanced Robotics" (U Toronto Press, 2026)

16 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Automata examines how AI and advanced robotics are rapidly surpassing human abilities in fields once thought uniquely ours – from playing chess to d...

Security and Risk: Challenges for Economy and Business in the Global 20th Century: A Conversation with Marie Huber, Nina Kleinöder, and Christian Kleinschmidt

16 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The volume addresses issues of security and risk in economic and business history. A focus lies on the study of security in order to highlight the ce...

Devika Dutt et al., "Decolonizing Economics: An Introduction" (Polity Press, 2025)

14 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Decolonization has long been debated across the social sciences, but the economics discipline has so far avoided such critical engagement. Decolonizi...

Money Beyond Borders with Barry Eichengreen

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Doubts about the international dominance of the dollar are only growing amid worries about tariffs, political dysfunction, and fraying international a...

David Kirsch on the Dot Com Bubble and Bust

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We chat with historian David Kirsch, Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School, about ...

Kim Embrey, "Coca and the Victorians: From Botanical Curiosity to Regulated Drug, 1835–1912" (Transcript Publishing, 2025)

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The South American coca plant was established in 19th-century Britain as a medical product before it became a globally restricted drug. Drawing on bot...

Alberto Galasso, "The Management of Innovation: Managing and Creating Technology Capital" (Rotman-UTP Publishing, 2024)

12 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Despite the importance of innovation for the growth of firms, industries, and the national economy, the strategic tools available to effectively manag...

Jasper Bernes, "The Future of Revolution: Communist Prospects from the Paris Commune to the George Floyd Uprising" (Verso Books, 2025)

12 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How might a twenty-first-century revolution against class society succeed? Communism comes from the future, but its hopes haunt our past. Reading rev...

Margaret Heffernan, "Embracing Uncertainty: How Writers, Musicians and Artists Thrive In An Unpredictable World" (Policy Press, 2025)

11 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most people hate and fear uncertainty. It causes such stress and anxiety that we often choose certain surrender over doubt, becoming passive, dependen...

Cedric de Leon, "Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity" (U California Press, 2025)

09 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest today is Cedric de Leon, author of Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity (U California Press, ...

Jordan Treske, "Building the Milwaukee Bucks: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, and the Rapid Rise of an NBA Franchise, 1968-1975" (McFarland, 2025)

08 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In three short years, the Milwaukee Bucks went from merely an idea to NBA champions. What started as a quest by Marvin Fishman and eventually Wesley P...

Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof, "The Burgeoning European Print Trade: The Distribution of Prints Via the Plantin-Moretus Press of Antwerp" (Harvey Miller, 2025)

08 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof join Jana Byars to talk about their new book, The Burgeoning European Print Trade: The Distribution of Prints Via the P...

David Arditi, "Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok" (Anthem Press, 2026)

07 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Who makes a living from the music industry? In Music Technology Panic Narratives Beyond Piracy: From Taping to Napster to TikTok (Anthem Press, 2...

Alex Diamond, "Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia's Peace Laboratory" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

06 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Colombian village of Briceño might, at first glimpse, look like many communities in the rural Global South. Many of the people living there rely ...

Wout Saelens, "Fossil Consumerism: Energy, Ecology and Everyday Life in the Early Modern Low Countries" (Leuven UP, 2026)

04 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Fossil Consumerism: Energy, Ecology and Everyday Life in the Early Modern Low Countries (Leuven UP, 2026) by Dr. Wout Saelens explores how the homes ...

Isabelle Held, "Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies" (Duke UP, 2026)

03 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Bullet bras, bazookas, bombshells, bikinis. In Atomic Bombshells: How Plastics Shaped Postwar Bodies (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Isabelle Held challenges t...

Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000" (Princeton UP, 2025)

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It’s one of the biggest questions in economic history: How did a richer, more advanced China fall behind Europe? Why was Europe the home of the Indu...

Shredding Capitalism with Sven Beckert (Paul Kramer, JP)

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

John is joined by the brilliant and affable Paul Kramer of Vanderbilt (The Blood of Government) to discuss Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin,...

Allan Greer, "Canada in the Age of Rum" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)

31 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Awash in a sea of rum describes the years between the 1670s and the 1830s in the colonies that would later become Canada. Millions of litres of the su...

Ben Collier on Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy

30 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, and guest host, Paula Bialski, Associate Professor of Digital Sociology at University of St. Gallen, talk to Ben Co...

Nellie Chu, "Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou" (Duke UP, 2026)

28 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou (Duke UP, 2026), the cultural anthropologist Nellie Chu tells the story o...

Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China" (Columbia UP, 2026)

28 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In recent decades, self-proclaimed “independent bookstores” have arisen across China. In the West, such retailers represent an alternative to corp...

Dovev Lavie, "The Cooperative Economy: A Solution to Societal Grand Challenges" (Routledge, 2023)

27 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Societal grand challenges have taken a toll on humanity, which finds itself at a crossroads. The concentration of wealth and economic inequality, the ...

James Lin, "The Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan" (U California Press, 2025)

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean for a small state to imagine itself as a model for the developing world? And how were these visions of agrarian development received...

J. S. Nelson, "Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know" (Oxford UP, 2021)

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The book places special emphasis on the relationship between corporations, managers, and shareholders. Drawing on Lynn Stout’s influential work on c...

Steffan Blayney, "Health and Efficiency: Fatigue, the Science of Work, and the Making of the Working-Class Body" (Activist Studies of Science, 2022)

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Our guest today is Steffan Blayney, the author of Health & Efficiency: Fatigue, the Science of Work, and the Making of the Working-Class Body. In H...

Elizabeth Mitchell Elder, "Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Company Towns: Industry Power and the Historical Foundations of Public Mistrust (University of Chicago Press, 2026), Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell Elder...

Orsi Husz, "Bankminded: Banks As Intimate Agents of Everyday Life in Welfare State Sweden" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2025)

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In today’s world, it is almost impossible to go through the day without interacting with a bank—whether through a salary payment, a debit card, a ...

Doug Crandell, "Twenty-Two Cents an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages" (Cornell UP, 2022)

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Twenty-Two Cents an Hour: Disability Rights and the Fight to End Subminimum Wages (Cornell UP, 2022), Doug Crandell uncovers the harsh...

Paul Kohlbry, "Plots and Deeds: Agrarian Annihilation and the Fight for Land Justice in Palestine" (Stanford UP, 2026)

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The emancipatory potential and limits of land justice, when land is at once home, property, territory, and homeland. Peasant farming was once an inte...

Lisa Nakamura, "The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Inattention Economy: How Women of Color Built the Internet (U Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Lisa Nakamura challenges the widespread myth that the...

Abe Walker, "Reassembling the UAW: Insurgency, Contention, and the Struggle for Unionism in the American South" (Temple UP, 2026)

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When Volkswagen’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant opened in 2012, the United Auto Workers were excited by the golden opportunity to organize in the anti-...

Entrepreneurial Work Ethic

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of High Theory, Saronik talks with Erik Baker about the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic. The dominant work ethic of our current moment, ...

César A. Hidalgo, "The Infinite Alphabet: And the Laws of Knowledge" (Allen Lane, 2026)

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We all understand that knowledge shapes the fate of business and the growth of nations, but few of us are aware of the principles that govern its moti...

Eurie Dahn, "Snack" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the hierarchy of foods, snacks are deemed trivial – perhaps even childish – especially in contrast to meals, which are seen as substantial and ...

Michael Kimmel, "Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2026)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The untold story of the first-generation Jewish American toymakers who literally manufactured “the century of the child.” In 1902, Morris and Ros...

Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee, "Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How it Could Save Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2026) 

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Giant companies, launch rockets into space, control satellite communication and develop era-defining AI technologies. But they are also seen as promot...

Marianna Dudley, "Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley" (Manchester UP, 2025)

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley (Manchester University Press, 2025) is a cutting-edge history of wind power in...

Jessica Ann Levy, "Black Power, Inc.: Corporate America and the Rise of Multinational Empowerment Politics" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Black Power, Inc.: Corporate America and the Rise of Multinational Empowerment Politics, (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026), traces the rise of Black...

Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent (Princ...

Cheng Li, "Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the Making of Modern China" (Stanford UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, tree planting and forestry have been pivotal to Chinese environmentalism. During the Mao era, while forests were razed to fuel rapid incr...

Cheng Li, "Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the Making of Modern China" (Stanford UP, 2025)

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, tree planting and forestry have been pivotal to Chinese environmentalism. During the Mao era, while forests were razed to fuel rapid incr...

Jon Stobart, "Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

An innovative approach in the field of material culture and consumption studies, Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the Engli...

Geoffrey Jones and Sabine Pitteloud eds., "The Cambridge Companion to the History of Multinationals and Society" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Geoffrey Jones and Sabine Pitteloud present the latest research on the global history of multinationals and their impact on society and the environmen...

Mattie Armstrong-Price, "Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways" (U California Press, 2026)

07 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Mattie Armstrong-Pri...

Lucy Lavers et al.," Adventurous Vents: A Journey through the Ventilation Shafts of Britain" (Penguin, 2025)

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the heart of the modern world lie ventilation shafts. We may not notice them, but wherever there are tunnels, sewers, mines, car parks and energy s...

Patrick Chung, "Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Standardizing Empire: The US Military, Korea, and the Origins of Military-Industrial Capitalism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026) by Dr. Patrick Chung tr...

Eleanor Gordon et al., "Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939" (Oxford UP, 2025)

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939 (Oxford UP, 2025) by Professor Eleanor Gordon, Professor Katie Barclay, and D...

Miles Kenney-Lazar, "Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos" (U Hawai’i Press, 2025)

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Since 2008, there has been tremendous public interest in the social and ecological ramifications of the global land rush, a rapid increase of capital ...

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Paul Poast, "Wheat at War: Allied Economic Cooperation in the Great War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The battlefields were not the only places that threatened death during World War I. As conflict raged on and supply lines tightened, the allied powers...

Jessi Streib, "The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Are jobs fair? In The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay after College (U Chicago Press, 2023), Jessi Streib, an associate Professor of...

Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, "Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

As European empires crumbled in the 20th century, the power structures that had dominated the world for centuries were up for renegotiation. Yet inste...

Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, "Fleeced: Unraveling the History of Wool and War" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Not everything about wool is warm and fuzzy. Wool, for millennia the cold climate textile fiber, has a long relationship to war, both in terms of supp...

Alice Wiemers, "Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2021)

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a diffe...

Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of ...

Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the internation...

Ilana Gershon, "The Pandemic Workplace: How We Learned to Be Citizens in the Office" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A provocative book arguing that the workplace is where we learn to live democratically. In The Pandemic Workplace: How We Learned to Be Citizens in t...

Paolo Zannoni, "Money and Promises: Seven Deals That Changed the World" (Columbia Business School, 2024)

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Money and Promises: Seven Deals That Changed the World, the distinguished banker, executive, and historian Paolo Zannoni examines the c...

Michelle Jackson, "The Division of Rationalized Labor" (Harvard UP, 2025)

21 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How have jobs changed in the last 150 years? In The Division of Rationalized Labor (Harvard UP, 2025) Michelle Jackson, an Associate Profess...

Raiford Guins, "King PONG: How Atari Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions" (MIT Press, 2026)

20 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

PONG is one of the longest- and most consistently circulating video games. Released in 1972, it remains at our fingertips as Android or iOS app, hoste...

W. Patrick McCray, "README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines" (MIT Press, 2025)

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In README: A Bookish History of Computing from Electronic Brains to Everything Machines (MIT Press, 2025), historian Dr. Patrick McCray argues that ...

Denys Gorbach, "The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City" (Berghahn Books, 2024)

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Industrial workers in Ukraine have a complex political lifeworld because their political action aimed at bringing radical social change coexists with ...

Donald Chew, "The Making of Modern Corporate Finance: A History of the Ideas and How They Help Build the Wealth of Nations" (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2025)

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In The Making of Modern Corporate Finance: A History of the Ideas and How They Help Build the Wealth of Nations (Columbia Business School Publish...

Sara Pennell & Jon Stobart, "Auctions and the Consumption of Second-Hand Goods in Georgian England" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Auctions and the Consumption of Second-Hand Goods in Georgian England (Bloomsbury, 2026) by Dr. Sara Pennell & Professor Jon Stobart provides the fir...

David Obst, "Saving Ourselves from Big Car" (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2025)

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Streetwise: Saving Ourselves from Big Car (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2025) exposes how “Big Car”―the complex of companies in the au...

Bridget Salmon and Andrew Godley, "The Making of the Modern Supermarket: Self-Service Adoption in British Food Retailing, 1950-1975" (Oxford UP, 2025)

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What seems mundane today—walking into a supermarket, picking up goods, and paying at a checkout—was once a radical experiment. In our latest New B...

Javiera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainabi...

Peter S. Goodman, "Davos Man: How the Billionaire Class Devoured Democracy" (Custom House, 2022)

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, New York Times' journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative Davos Men-memb...

Luca Cottini, "The Rise of Americanism in Italy, 1888-1919" (U Toronto Press, 2025)

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a pivotal time for the United States as the nation emerged as a political and industrial powe...

Stevan Harrell, "An Ecological History of Modern China" (U Washington Press, 2023)

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Is environmental degradation an inevitable result of economic development? Can ecosystems be restored once government officials and the public are com...

Mark Harrison, "Secret Leviathan: Secrecy and State Capacity under Soviet Communism" (Stanford UP, 2023)

31 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Soviet Union was one of the most secretive states that ever existed. Defended by a complex apparatus of rules and checks administered by the secre...

Nathan Munier, "Zimbabwe's Diamond Trade: The State, Resource Politics and Development" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

31 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when states experience a rapid increase in resource wealth? This book examines the significant diamond find in eastern Zimbabwe in 2006, ...

Blair Kelley, "Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class" (LIveright, 2023)

31 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In the United States, the stoicism and importance of the “working class” is part of the national myth. The term is often used to conjure the contr...

Robert Yee, "The City's Defense: The Bank of England and the Remaking of Economic Governance, 1914-1939" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In The City's Defense: The Bank of England and the Remaking of Economic Governance, 1914-1939, Robert Yee examines how the City of London maint...

Bram de Maeyer, "Building for Belgium: Belgian Embassies in a Globalising World (1945-2020)" (Leuven UP, 2025)

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Embassy buildings are the most tangible evidence of a state’s diplomatic presence abroad. State authorities have invested in the architectural conce...

Misty L. Heggeness, "Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy" (U California Press, 2026)

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A feminist romp through pop culture that illuminates how women influence and shape the economy. Taylor Swift isn't just a pop megastar. She is a work...

Toby Green, "The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Heretic of Cacheu: Crispina Peres and the Struggle over Life in Seventeenth-Century West Africa (U Chicago Press, 2025) by Professor Toby Green t...

Nena Vandeweerdt, "Women and Work Through a Comparative Lens: Gender and the Urban Labor Markets of Premodern Brabant and Biscay" (Leuven UP, 2025)

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Women and Work Through a Comparative Lens: Gender and the Urban Labor Markets of Premodern Brabant and Biscay explores women's economic roles in l...

Matteo Gatti, "Corporate Power and the Politics of Change" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Corporate Power and the Politics of Change (Cambridge UP, 2025), Matteo Gatti examines how corporations have taken on roles traditionally reserve...

Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff, "Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

24 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Dr. Lindsay Krasnoff, who is an historian, specializing in global sport, communications and diplomacy. She is also the Director...

Colin Mayer, "Capitalism and Crises: How to Fix Them" (Oxford UP, 2024)

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The world is encountering multiple crises - climate, droughts, floods, energy, food, and pandemics, to name a few. Capitalism and Crises: How to Fix ...

Emilie Connolly, "Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Dispossession in the United States" (Princeton UP, 2025)

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

From the earliest days of its founding, the United States set its sights on Native territory. Amid better-known “Indian wars,” the federal governm...

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, "Taco" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Taco (Bloomsbury, 2025) is a deep dive into the most iconic Mexican food from the perspective of a Mexico City native. In a narrative that moves from...

Malcolm Harris, "Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World" (Little, Brown, 2023)

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Palo Alto is nice. The weather is temperate, the people are educated, rich, healthy, enterprising. Remnants of a hippie counterculture have synthesize...

Ines Prodöhl, "Globalizing the Soybean: Fat, Feed, and Sometimes Food, c. 1900–1950" (Routledge, 2023)

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Ines Prodöhl’s Globalizing the Soybean: Fat, Feed, and Sometimes Food, c. 1900-1950 (Routledge, 2023) is a history of how, why, and where the soy...

John M. Findlay, "The Mobilized American West, 1940-2000" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the 1930s, the West was in peril. A cultural and economic backwater, the Great Depression had all-but wiped out the extractive industri...

Aija Leiponen, "Digital Innovation Strategy" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Based on applied economics and from the perspective of an innovator seeking to develop a new digital business, Digital Innovation Strategy (Ca...