Invented in post-industrial 19th century Europe, the idea of capitalism originally sought to describe and explain the distinctive characteristics of an emerging modern world. Since then, capitalism has served to identify an economic system, a particular social structure, and a set of cultural values and mental attitudes. The subject of continuous debate among scholars for more than a century, capitalism has been accorded so many definitions, it is now virtually meaningless. Depending upon the interpreter, capitalism is synonymous with the market economy, the division of labor, credit creation, economic concentration, social polarization, class formation, the decline of kinship and community, patriarchy, property rights, contracts, acquisitiveness, the work ethic, conspicuous consumption, individualism and entrepreneurship. Noted economic historian Richard Grassby investigates the origins and evolution of the idea of capitalism to illustrate for readers the true nature, merits, and the future of capitalism. Grassby examines its numerous and often conflicting definitions, and he tests alternative models of capitalism against the historical record to establish when, where, how, and why modern economies and societies emerged. Although Grassby argues that capitalism is a concept with diminished explanatory power, he shows the influence of this powerful idea on the formation of the world we live in. This is required reading for classes on World history, modern European history, and economic history.

One cannot conceive of capitalism without labor. Yet many of the current debates about economic development leading to industrialization fail to directly engage with labor at all. This collection of essays strives to correct this oversight and to reintroduce labor into the great debates about capitalist development and economic growth before the Industrial Revolution. By attending to the effects of specific regulatory, technological, social and physical environments on producers and production in a set of specific industries, these essays use an “ecological” approach that demonstrates how productivity, knowledge and regime changed between 1400 and 1800. This book will be of interest to researchers in history, especially labor history, and European economic development.

In this Very Short Introduction James Fulcher considers what capitalism is, the forms it can take around the world, and its history of crises and long-term development. In this new edition he discusses the fundamental impact of the global financial crises of 2007-8 and what it has meant for capitalism worldwide.

The authors use a long-wave framework to examine the historical evolution of British industrial capitalism since the late-18th century, and present a challenging and distinctive economic history of modern and contemporary Britain. The book is intended for undergraduate courses on the economic history of modern Britain within history, economic and social history, economic history and economic degree schemes, and economic theory courses.

Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.

During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism argues for slavery's centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. According to editors Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, the issue is not whether slavery itself was or was not capitalist but, rather, the impossibility of understanding the nation's spectacular pattern of economic development without situating slavery front and center. American capitalism—renowned for its celebration of market competition, private property, and the self-made man—has its origins in an American slavery predicated on the abhorrent notion that human beings could be legally owned and compelled to work under force of violence. Drawing on the expertise of sixteen scholars who are at the forefront of rewriting the history of American economic development, Slavery's Capitalism identifies slavery as the primary force driving key innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, management, and political economy that are too often attributed to the so-called free market. Approaching the study of slavery as the originating catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism casts new light on American credit markets, practices of offshore investment, and understandings of human capital. Rather than seeing slavery as outside the institutional structures of capitalism, the essayists recover slavery's importance to the American economic past and prompt enduring questions about the relationship of market freedom to human freedom. Contributors: Edward E. Baptist, Sven Beckert, Daina Ramey Berry, Kathryn Boodry, Alfred L. Brophy, Stephen Chambers, Eric Kimball, John Majewski, Bonnie Martin, Seth Rockman, Daniel B. Rood, Caitlin Rosenthal, Joshua D. Rothman, Calvin Schermerhorn, Andrew Shankman, Craig Steven Wilder.