Sven Beckert - Capitalism: A Global History and other works (8 books)

* Sven Beckert - Capitalism: A Global History and other works (8 books)

SVEN BECKERT (b. 1969) is widely regarded as one of the leading historians of global capitalism in the early twenty-first century. His scholarship spans U.S. history, global economic history, and the history of labor systems, with a particular emphasis on how power, coercion, and empire shaped economic development. Rather than treating capitalism as a purely market-driven or Western invention, he consistently highlights its global formation and the complex social and political forces behind it.

Beckert first gained wide recognition with THE MONIED METROPOLIS (2001), a study of New York City’s bourgeoisie and the rise of American capitalism in the nineteenth century. In this work, he explores how urban elites consolidated economic and political power, helping to create new forms of class identity and capitalist organization in the United States.

He achieved international prominence with EMPIRE OF COTTON: A GLOBAL HISTORY (2014), a sweeping global history that traces the central role of cotton in the making of modern capitalism. Beckert traces the history of cotton from its early cultivation to its central role in industrial capitalism. He argues that the rise of the modern world economy was not driven by free markets alone but by what he calls "war capitalism," a system built on slavery, imperial conquest, state power, and coerced labor.

His most recent work, CAPITALISM: A GLOBAL HISTORY (2025), is a monumental synthesis that traces capitalism’s emergence and evolution over centuries and continents. Rather than treating capitalism as a purely Western or European invention, Beckert situates it in a truly global context, showing how merchant networks in Asia, Africa, and Europe laid the groundwork for a system that would eventually dominate global economic life. Across these principal works, Beckert consistently challenges narratives that separate economic growth from coercion and inequality, presenting capitalism as a global, contested, and deeply political system—an interpretation that has significantly influenced debates in both American and world history.


The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format:

* Capitalism: A Global History (Penguin, 2025) – ePUB
* Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Knopf, 2014) – ePUB
* History of American Capitalism (AHA, 2012) – PDF
* The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850–1896 (Cambridge, 2001) – PDF

== EDITOR ==

* The American Bourgeoisie [ed. Beckert & Rosenbaum] (Palgrave, 2010) – PDF
* American Capitalism: New Histories [ed. Beckert & Desan] (Columbia, 2018) – ePUB / PDF
* Global History, Globally [ed. Beckert & Sachsenmaier] (Bloomsbury, 2018) – PDF
* Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development [ed. Beckert & Rockman] (Pennsylvania, 2016) – ePUB


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