"Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood tells the story of the Sociâetâe d'Economie et d'Assistance Mutuelle, a New Orleans mutual aid society founded by free men of color in 1836. The group was one of the most important multiethnic, intellectual communities in the US South: educators, world-traveling merchants, soldiers, tradesmen, and poets who rejected racism and colorism to fight for suffrage and education rights for all. The author drew on the meeting minutes of the Sociâetâe d'Economie as well as census and civil records, newspapers, and numerous archival sources to write a narrative stretching from the Haitian Revolution through the early jazz age"--

Analyzing the evolution of economic policy in postwar Britain, this book develops a striking new argument about the sources of Britain's economic problems. Through an insightful, comparative examination of policy-making in Britain and France, Hall presents a new approach to state-society relations that emphasizes the crucial role of institutional structures.

In this updated edition of a groundbreaking text, concepts such as energy return on investment (EROI) provide powerful insights into the real balance sheets that drive our “petroleum economy.” Hall and Klitgaard explore the relation between energy and the wealth explosion of the 20th century, and the interaction of internal limits to growth found in the investment process and rising inequality with the biophysical limits posed by finite energy resources. The authors focus attention on the failure of markets to recognize or efficiently allocate diminishing resources, the economic consequences of peak oil, the high cost and relatively low EROI of finding and exploiting new oil fields, including the much ballyhooed shale plays and oil sands, and whether alternative energy technologies such as wind and solar power can meet the minimum EROI requirements needed to run society as we know it. For the past 150 years, economics has been treated as a social science in which economies are modeled as a circular flow of income between producers and consumers. In this “perpetual motion” of interactions between firms that produce and households that consume, little or no accounting is given of the flow of energy and materials from the environment and back again. In the standard economic model, energy and matter are completely recycled in these transactions, and economic activity is seemingly exempt from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As we enter the second half of the age of oil, when energy supplies and the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption are likely to constrain economic growth, this exemption should be considered illusory at best. This book is an essential read for all scientists and economists who have recognized the urgent need for a more scientific, empirical, and unified approach to economics in an energy-constrained world, and serves as an ideal teaching text for the growing number of courses, such as the authors’ own, on the role of energy in society.

Applying the new economics of organisation and relational theories of the firm to the problem of understanding cross-national variation in the political economy, this volume elaborates a new understanding of the institutional differences that characterise the 'varieties of capitalism' worldwide.

A distinguished economist tackles the mysteries of the new world of e-commerce, explaining the principles of e-market systems, assessing how the major deal-making methods can determine the success or failure of an enterprise, and how information from various sources will help entrepreneurs make the most out of Internet business opportunities.

Should governments be involved in economic affairs? Challenging prevailing wisdom about the benefits of self-regulating markets, Nina Bandelj and Elizabeth Sowers offer a uniquely sociological perspective to emphasize that states can never be divorced from economy. From defining property rights and regulating commodification of labor to setting corporate governance standards and international exchange rules, the state continuously manages the functioning of markets and influences economic outcomes for individuals, firms and nations. The authors bring together classical interventions and cutting-edge contemporary research in economic sociology to discuss six broad areas of economy/state connection: property, money, labor, firms, national economic growth, and global economic exchange. A wealth of empirical examples and illustrations reveals that even if the nature of state influence on economy varies across contexts, it is always dependent on social forces. This accessible and engaging book will be essential reading for upper-level students of economic sociology, and those interested in the major economic dilemmas of our times. .

Across Rampart Street from the French Quarter, the Faubourg Tremé neighborhood is arguably the most important location for African American culture in New Orleans. Closely associated with traditional jazz and “second line” parading, Tremé is now the setting for an eponymous television series created by David Simon (best known for his work on The Wire). Michael Crutcher argues that Tremé’s story is essentially spatial—a story of how neighborhood boundaries are drawn and take on meaning and of how places within neighborhoods are made and unmade by people and politics. Tremé has long been sealed off from more prominent parts of the city, originally by the fortified walls that gave Rampart Street its name, and so has become a refuge for less powerful New Orleanians. This notion of Tremé as a safe haven—the flipside of its reputation as a “neglected” place—has been essential to its role as a cultural incubator, Crutcher argues, from the antebellum slave dances in Congo Square to jazz pickup sessions at Joe’s Cozy Corner. Tremé takes up a wide range of issues in urban life, including highway construction, gentrification, and the role of public architecture in sustaining collective memory. Equally sensitive both to black-white relations and to differences within the African American community, it is a vivid evocation of one of America’s most distinctive places.