The Imperial and the Global

Now that the cold war is safely over the concept of capitalism is undergoing a re-emergence in the academy. University history courses deploying the term are now common in the USA, and recently the revival in its use has acquired recognition with the publication of the Cambridge History of Capitalism.1 How is this concept to be understood historically? Today, almost everyone would agree that any adequate account would have to recognize the global character of the phenomenon and the key role of empire in its geographical spread. Linked to both of those aspects would be a third: the central role of slavery as both mechanism and resource for its successes. The two books discussed here offer sharply contrasting approaches to understanding the history of these three key components. Grandin takes a specific incident and offers a genealogy of the elements – both the individuals involved in the incident and the activities they were engaged in, and the structures (including structures of thought) in which these activities were embedded. By contrast, Beckert employs the history of one commodity, cotton, as a means to construct a ‘new history of global capitalism’, using this specific case to tell a sweeping story of economic, social and political developments over the last half a millennium.

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