New Books in Economic and Business History
Episodes
The Future of Big Finance: A Discussion with Anastasia Nesvetailova
03 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How common is financial malpractice in big, well known financial companies? Is it so common that it should really be seen as a business model more tha...
Perry Mehrling, "Money and Empire: Charles P. Kindleberger and the Dollar System" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Kindleberger ranks as one of the twentieth century's best known and most influential international economists. This book traces the evolution ...
Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, "The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty" (Penguin, 2020)
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Does a strong state mean a weak market? This is a common misconception amongst economists. Many view the state as either taxing and regulating the mar...
Simon Ville and David Merrett, "International Business in Australia before World Shaping a Multinational Economy" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features Professor Simon Ville talking about his latest book with David Merrett International Business in Australia Before World War On...
William J. Bernstein, "The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups" (Grove Press, 2021)
29 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do financial bubbles and religious millenarianism have in common? They both involve collective delusion. When Charles Mackey wrote a book on the ...
Lawrence H. White, "Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin?" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
28 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The recent rise of dollar, pound, and euro inflation rates has rekindled the debate over potential alternative monies, particularly gold and Bitcoin. ...
Burkhard Schnepel and Julia Verne, "Cargoes in Motion: Materiality and Connectivity across the Indian Ocean" (Ohio UP, 2022)
27 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cargoes in Motion: Materiality and Connectivity across the Indian Ocean (Ohio University Press, 2022) is an innovative collection of essays that for...
Missing: Men at Work — A Conversation with Nick Eberstadt
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over six million prime-age men are neither working nor looking for work; America's low unemployment rate hides the fact that many men have dropped out...
Kenneth Mondschein, "On Time: A History of Western Timekeeping" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2020)
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Western culture has been obsessed with regulating society by the precise, accurate measurement of time since the Middle Ages. In On Time: A History o...
Nicholas Scott Baker, "In Fortune's Theater: Financial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I was joined by Nicholas Scott Baker to discuss his book, In Fortune’s Theater: Financial Risk and the Future in Renaissance Italy...
Saskia Coenen Snyder, "A Brilliant Commodity: Diamonds and Jews in a Modern Setting" (Oxford UP, 2022)
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the late nineteenth century, tens of thousands of diggers, prospectors, merchants, and dealers extracted and shipped over 50 million carats of ...
Adrian R. Bazbauers and Susan Engel, "The Global Architecture of Multilateral Development Banks: A System of Debt or Development?" (Routledge, 2023)
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adrian Bazbauers and Susan Engel’s 2021 book The Global Architecture of Multilateral Development Banks: A System of Debt or Development? (Routledg...
Suzanne Sutherland, "The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe" (Cornell UP, 2022)
24 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe (Cornell UP, 2022), Suzanne Sutherland explores the role ...
Truth, Fiction, and Student Loan Forgiveness: A Conversation with Beth Akers
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With the Biden Administration's student loan relief coming down the pike, Annika sits down with Dr. Beth Akers, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterp...
Natalie Koch, "Arid Empire: The Entangled Fates of Arizona and Arabia" (Verso, 2023)
22 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The iconic deserts of the American southwest could not have been colonized and settled without the help of desert experts from the Middle East. For ex...
Enrique Martino, "Touts: Recruiting Indentured Labor in the Gulf of Guinea" (de Gruyter, 2022)
20 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Touts: Recruiting Indentured Labor in the Gulf of Guinea (de Gruyter, 2022) is a historical account of the troubled formation of a colonial labor mar...
Troy Bickham, "Eating the Empire: Food and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Reaktion Books, 2020)
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When students gathered in a London coffeehouse and smoked tobacco; when Yorkshire women sipped sugar-infused tea; or when a Glasgow family ate a bowl ...
Inflation, Past and Present: A Conversation with Tyler Goodspeed
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We all know that things are a little more expensive when we head to the grocery store. But what does inflation actually mean? How did we get to where ...
Mark Paul, "The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America's Lost Promise of Economic Rights" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since the Founding, Americans have debated the true meaning of freedom. For some, freedom meant the provision of life's necessities, those basic condi...
Claire Provost and Matt Kennard, "Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
17 May 2023
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...
Peter Thilly, "The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China" (Stanford UP, 2022)
14 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the opium trade — but not through the relativ...
John Klaess, "Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City" (Duke UP, 2022)
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City (Duke UP, 2022), John Klaess tells the story of rap's emergence on New York City's air...
Maria L. Quintana, "Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) explores the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestwo...
Henry Grabar, "Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World" (Penguin, 2023)
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking sp...
Sarrah Kassem, "Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organization" (Bristol UP, 2023)
06 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How have platforms transforming the world of work? In Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organisation (Bristol UP,...
Jack Buffington, "Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America" (Georgetown UP, 2023)
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic "shutdown" in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays b...
Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, "Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity" (PublicAffairs, 2023)
05 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (PublicAffairs, 2023) is a groundbreaking work by bestselling authors ...
Peter Frankopan, "The Earth Transformed: An Untold History" (Knopf, 2023)
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Earth Transformed. An Untold History (Knopf, 2023) is a captivating and informative book that reveals how climate change has been a driving forc...
Chad E. Pearson, "Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century" (UNC Press, 2022)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, employers, government officials, journalists, and powerful individuals deployed a variety o...
Anne Marie Todd, "Valley of Heart's Delight: Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley" (U California Press, 2022)
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This agricultural history explores the transformation of the Santa Clara Valley over the past one hundred years from America's largest fruit-producing...
Brian Domitrovic, "The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
01 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) explores...
Artan R. Hoxha, "Sugarland: The Transformation of the Countryside in Communist Albania" (Central European UP, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Sugarland: The Transformation of the Countryside in Communist Albania (Central European UP, 2023), Artan Hoxha discusses the ambitious developme...
Brett Christophers, "Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World" (Verso, 2023)
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone ...
Elliott West, "Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
23 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion (U Nebraska Press, 2023) renowned historian Elliott West presents a sweeping nar...
Thomas Aiello, "Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate" (U Georgia Press, 2023)
22 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Thomas Aiello joins E. James West to discuss Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott News...
Joel E. Correia, "Disrupting the Patrón: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay's Chaco" (U California Press, 2023)
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Paraguayan Chaco is a settler frontier where cattle ranching and agrarian extractivism drive some of the world's fastest deforestation and most ex...
Kathryn Cornell Dolan, "Breakfast Cereal: A Global History" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Kathryn Dolan presents the long, distinguished and surprising history of breakfast cereal....
Charles Read, "Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises Since 1825" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Calming the Storms: The Carry Trade, the Banking School and British Financial Crises Since 1825 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) by Dr. Charles Read expose...
Quinn Slobodian, "Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy" (Metropolitan, 2023)
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Look at a map of the world and you'll see a colorful checkerboard of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. Over the last decade...
Paul Kenny, "Why Populism?: Political Strategy from Ancient Greece to the Present" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
17 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The rise to power of populists like Donald Trump is usually attributed to the shifting values and policy preferences of voters-the demand side. Paul ...
Luca Zan, "The Venice Arsenal: Between History, Heritage, and Re-Use" (Routledge, 2022)
16 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Venice Arsenal: Between History, Heritage, and Re-Use (Routledge, 2022) reviews four decades of debate about restoring an industrial heritage sit...
Harold James, "Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization" (Yale UP, 2023)
15 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization (Yale UP, 2023), distinguished economic historian Harold James offers a fresh perspe...
Nikhil Menon, "Planning Democracy: Modern India’s Quest for Development" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi closed the Planning Commission, which he accused of stifling the country’s growth and being a holdover ...
Amy Edwards, "Are We Rich Yet? The Rise of Mass Investment Culture in Contemporary Britain" (U California Press, 2022)
12 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How did British society become financialised? In Are We Rich Yet? The Rise of Mass Investment Culture in Contemporary Britain (U California Press, 2...
Andrew Curley, "Carbon Sovereignty: Coal, Development, and Energy Transition in the Navajo Nation" (U Arizona Press, 2023)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For almost fifty years, coal dominated the Navajo economy. But in 2019 one of the Navajo Nation’s largest coal plants closed. This comprehensive new...
Tim Simpson, "Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China's Consumer Revolution" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A comprehensive look into how Macau’s recent decades of gambling-related growth produced one of the wealthiest territories on the planet. Betting on...
Kate Strasdin, "The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe" (Pegasus Books, 2023)
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Dress Diary: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe (Penguin, 2023) by Dr. Kate Strasdin presents the hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's l...
The Cooperative Extension System
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of High Theory, Karl Dudman tells us about the Cooperative Extension System. Formed in 1914 as an extension of the Land Grant Universi...
Dror Goldberg, "Easy Money: American Puritans and the Invention of Modern Currency" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Economists endlessly debate the nature of legal tender monetary systems--coins and bills issued by a government or other authority. Yet the origins of...
Howard Gillette, Jr., "The Paradox of Urban Revitalization: Progress and Poverty in America's Postindustrial Era" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
09 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the twenty-first century, cities in the United States that had suffered most the shift to a postindustrial era entered a period widely proclaimed a...
Johnny Walker, "Rewind, Replay: Britain and the Video Boom, 1978-92" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nostalgia for the 1980s is in the air. From Stranger Things to the relaunch of 80s franchises like Top Gun, the American entertainment industry cas...
Alan Blinder, "A Monetary and Fiscal History of the United States, 1961-2021" (Princeton UP, 2022)
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Spanning twelve presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, and eight Federal Reserve chairs, from William McChesney Martin to Jerome Powell, this ...
Sudha Rajagopalan, "Journeys of Soviet Things: Cold War as Lived Experience in Cuba and India" (Routledge, 2023)
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the intersection of history, material culture studies, and post-socialist memory studies, Journeys of Soviet Things: Cold War as Lived Experience ...
Katherine Johnston, "The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World" (Oxford UP, 2022)
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World (Oxford UP, 2022) interrogates how people with an interest in Afr...
Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management
03 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
JoAnne Yates, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, Emerita and Professor of Managerial Communication and Work and Organization Studies at MIT’...
Julia H. Lee, "The Racial Railroad" (NYU Press, 2022)
01 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the seeming supremacy of car culture in the United States, the train has long been and continues to be a potent symbol of American exceptional...
The Transformation of Livestock Herding in Socialist Mongolia
31 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1956 and 1960, leaders in the Mongolian People’s Republic embarked on a collectivization campaign to change the way in which Mongolians inte...
Divya Cherian, "Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia" (U California Press, 2022)
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia (U California Press, 2022) explores the question of what it m...
Weijian Shan, "Money Machine: A Trailblazing American Venture in China" (Wiley, 2023)
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010, Ping An took over Shenzhen Development Bank, ending an experiment that had never been tried before, and not been tried since: a foreign compa...
Leon Wansleben, "The Rise of Central Banks: State Power in Financial Capitalism" (Harvard UP, 2023)
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While central banks have gained remarkable influence over the past fifty years, promising more stability, global finance has gone from crisis to crisi...
Andrew Phemister, "Land and Liberalism: Henry George and the Irish Land War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Phemister is Research Associate at Newcastle University. He has previously held postdoctoral positions in History at NUI Galway, the University...
Chris Alden and Alvaro Mendez, "China and Latin America: Development, Agency and Geopolitics" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
19 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
China's role as an economic powerhouse in Latin America is reshaping a region on the cusp of development and change. Since the turn of the century, bi...
From China's Lost Generation to American Private Equity Professor
19 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Having lived through both China’s Great Leap Forward during primary school, then the Cultural Revolution and the closing of schools for ten years, B...
Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, "Pioneers of Capitalism: The Netherlands 1000–1800" (Princeton UP, 2022)
18 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the Middle Ages, the Netherlands played a significant role in the emergence of capitalism, which led to the impressive Dutch Golden Age and pav...
Eric Porter, "A People's History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport" (U California Press, 2023)
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What can an airport tell us about a city? Quite a bit, according to UC-Santa Cruz history professor Eric Porter in A People's History of SFO: The M...
Mareike Schomerus, "Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Violent conflict and its aftermath are pressing problems, particularly for international development initiatives. However, the results of development ...
Roger Biles and Mark H. Rose, "A Good Place to Do Business: The Politics of Downtown Renewal Since 1945" (Temple UP, 2022)
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The “Pittsburgh Renaissance,” an urban renewal effort launched in the late 1940s, transformed the smoky rust belt city’s downtown. Working-class...
Laura Kolb, "Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare" (Oxford UP, 2021)
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 2021), Laura Kolb examines how Shakespeare and his contemporaries represen...
James W. Cortada, "Birth of Modern Facts: How the Information Revolution Transformed Academic Research, Governments and Businesses" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)
12 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For over twenty years, James W. Cortada has pioneered research into how information shapes society. In Birth of Modern Facts: How the Information Rev...
Alberto García, "Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico" (U California Press, 2023)
11 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Abandoning Their Beloved Land: The Politics of Bracero Migration in Mexico (U California Press, 2023) offers an essential new history of the Bracero ...
Theresa Runstedtler, "Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA" (Bold Type Books, 2023)
11 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imag...
Ross Melnick, "Hollywood's Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World" (Columbia UP, 2022)
10 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning in the 1920s, audiences around the globe were seduced not only by Hollywood films but also by lavish movie theaters that were owned and oper...
Chris Walley on Deindustrialization (EF, JP)
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On a blustery fall morning back in 2019, RTB welcomed Christine Walley, anthropologist and author of Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial C...
Xin Wen, "The King’s Road: Diplomacy and the Remaking of the Silk Road" (Princeton UP, 2023)
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us–who maybe aren’t historians–have an image of the Silk Road: merchants who carried silk from China to as far as ancient Rome, in one o...
The Future of the Silk Road: A Discussion with Tim Winters
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The term "Silk Road" evokes images of trade and exotic luxurious goods and Orientalist images. Today, however, it also is associated with the project...
Claudio E. Benzecry, "The Perfect Fit: Creative Work in the Global Shoe Industry" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Perfect Fit: Creative Work in the Global Shoe Industry (The University of Chicago Press, 2022) shows us how globalization works through the ma...
Joan Flores-Villalobos, "The Silver Women: How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In The Silver Women: How Black Women's Labor Made the Panama Canal (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023), Joan Flores-Villalobos argues that Black West India...
Nikhil Menon, "Planning Democracy: Modern India's Quest for Development" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
05 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Indian planning project was one of the postcolonial world's most ambitious experiments. Planning Democracy: Modern India's Quest for Development ...
Caroline Rusterholz, "Women's Medicine: Family Planning and British Female Doctors in Transnational Perspective, 1920-70" (Manchester UP, 2021)
04 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Who built the twentieth century birth control movement? In Women's Medicine: Family Planning and British Female Doctors in Transnational Perspectiv...
Marcus Rediker, "The Slave Ship: A Human History" (Penguin, 2008)
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this widely praised history of an infamous institution, award-winning scholar Marcus Rediker shines a light into the darkest corners of the British...
Mary-Jane Rubenstein, "Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
03 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We are in the midst of a new space race that pairs billionaire space barons with governments in an effort to exploit the cosmos for human gain. While ...
Helena Hansen et al., "Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America" (U California Press, 2023)
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the past two decades, media images of the surprisingly white “new face” of the US opioid crisis abounded. But why was the crisis so white? Some...
Mitchell Schwarzer, "Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption" (U California Press, 2022)
26 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Oakland grew up on the shadow of the dynamo of the nineteenth century West, always the "other" city on San Francisco Bay. But as Mitchell Schwarzer,...
Claire Bond Potter, "Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy" (Basic Books, 2020)
25 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With fake news on Facebook, trolls on Twitter, and viral outrage everywhere, it's easy to believe that the internet changed politics entirely. In Pol...
The Future of Democratic Capitalism: A Discussion with Martin Wolf
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Does China show that capitalism works better without democracy? What can be done to secure the future of open societies in which there is wealth, tole...
Tara Zahra, "Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars" (Norton, 2023)
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Before the First World War, enthusiasm for a borderless world reached its height. International travel, migration, trade, and progressive projects on ...
The Business of the Early NHL
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Greg Marchildon interviews J. Andrew Ross about his book Joining the Clubs: The Business of the National Hockey League, 1917-1945 (University of Syrac...
David Bond, "Negative Ecologies: Fossil Fuels and the Discovery of the Environment" (U California Press, 2022)
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
So much of what we know of clean water, clean air, and now a stable climate rests on how fossil fuels first disrupted them. Negative Ecologies: Fossi...
Michael Schiltz, "Accounting for the Fall of Silver: Hedging Currency Risk in Long-Distance Trade with Asia, 1870-1913" (Oxford UP, 2020)
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The second half of the nineteenth century is correctly known to have culminated in the emergence of the gold standard as the first truly international...
Anna Zeide, "US History in 15 Foods" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From whiskey in the American Revolution to Spam in WWII, food reveals a great deal about the society in which it exists. Selecting 15 foods that repre...
Zoe Adams, "The Legal Concept of Work" (Oxford UP, 2022)
19 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Why do we think about some practices as work, and not others? Why do we classify certain capacities as economically valuable skills, and others as in...
Zoe Adams, "The Legal Concept of Work" (Oxford UP, 2022)
19 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Why do we think about some practices as work, and not others? Why do we classify certain capacities as economically valuable skills, and others as in...
Anna M. Grzymała-Busse, "Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State" (Princeton UP, 2023)
19 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sacred Foundations. The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton University Press, 2023) argues that the medieval church was a ...
Geoffrey Jones, "Deeply Responsible Business A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership" (Harvard University Press, 2023)
18 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Professor Geoffrey Jones about his new book Deeply Responsible Business: A Global History of Values-Driven Leadership ...
Andrea G. McDowell, "We the Miners: Self-Government in the California Gold Rush" (Harvard UP, 2022)
17 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When miners arrived in California seeking their fortune during the gold rush of the 1840s and early 1850s, they encountered a place with few existing ...
Helen Yaffe, "We Are Cuba!: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World" (Yale UP, 2020)
17 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced the start of a crisis that decimated its economy. Helen Yaffe examines the astonishing de...
Sarah Foss, "On Our Own Terms: Development and Indigeneity in Cold War Guatemala" (UNC Press, 2022)
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
During the Cold War, U.S. intervention in Latin American politics, economics, and society grew in scope and complexity, with diplomatic legacies evide...
Historians Examine Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Popp, a professor of history at Copenhagen Business School, and Jonathan Coopersmith, a professor (retired) of history at Texas A&M, talk about...
Brian Lander, "The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire" (Yale UP, 2022)
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire (Yale UP, 2021) is a multidisciplinary study of the eco...
Sarah Kunz, "Expatriate: Following a Migration Category" (Manchester UP, 2023)
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Who are expatriates? How do they differ from other migrants? And why should we care about such distinctions? Expatriate: Following a Migration Catego...