Preliminary Draft- Comments Welcome Economic History, Historical Analysis, and the “New History of Capitalism” Eric Hilt* Department of Economics Wellesley College and NBER December, 2016 Abstract: This paper presents a critical survey of ten books from the history of capitalism, a newly emerging subfield of history. The books include Sven Beckert’s Empire of Cotton, Edward Bapitst’s The Half Has Never Been Told, and others on finance, risk, and conservative economic doctrines. The critical perspective of this new literature, which emphasizes the human costs of economic development, distinguishes it from the field of economic history. At their best, the books offer provocative insights and vivid descriptions of some of the darker episodes of our economic past. Yet their neglect of social scientific methods and lack of engagement with the economic history literature undermines their analysis and their effectiveness as social criticism. In this paper I highlight insights from the field of economic history that would strengthen the future work of historians of capitalism. I also suggest some questions that might create opportunities for cross-pollination, if not collaboration, between the two communities of scholars. * Email:
[email protected]. I would like to thank Bill Collins, Ann Carlos, Peter Conti-Brown, Robert DuPlessis, Philip Hoffman, John Majewski, Naomi Lamoreaux, Noam Maggor, Petra Moser, Dan Raff, Paul Rhode, Caitlin Rosenthal, Gavin Wright, and seminar participants at the University of Pennsylvania for helpful comments and suggestions. I. Introduction Economic history was once a deeply interdisciplinary field. The Economic History Association was founded by members of both the American Historical Association and the American Economic Association, and the early volumes of the Journal of Economic History included numerous contributions by historians.