Shows / New Books in Economic and Business History
New Books in Economic and Business History
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryBusiness in Socialist Hungary
Philip Scranton, University Board of Governors Professor Emeritus of the history of industry and technology at Rutgers University-Camden, talks about his book…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
The Future of Computer Chips: A Discussion with Julian Kamasa
Microchips are both important and in short supply. So how important? And what can be done to make them more plentiful? Also, what are the geopolitical…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryThe History of Electricity in Mexico
In her detailed cultural history of technological change, Electrifying Mexico, Diana Montaño argues that ordinary Mexicans became electrifying agents who…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Shaping Civilisations: The Sea in Asian History
The ocean is more connective device than barrier, bringing together diverse topics, time-periods and geographies. It has linked and connected the various…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryThe Archaeology of Innovation
Catherine Frieman, an associate professor of European Archaeology at the School of Archaeology, talks about her recent book, An Archaeology of Innovation…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Ajay Agrawal et al., "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence" (HBR Press, 2022)
Disruption resulting from the proliferation of AI is coming. The authors of the bestselling Prediction Machines describe what you can do to prepare. Banking…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryThe History of Temp Work
Historian Louis Hyman, professor and director of the Institute of Workplace Studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, talks…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Sharon Milagro Marshall, "Tell My Mother I Gone to Cuba: Stories of Early Twentieth-century Migration from Barbados" (U West Indies Press, 2016)
Barbadians were among the thousands of British West Indians who migrated to Cuba in the early twentieth century in search of work. They were drawn there by…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
David Collier and Gerardo L. Munck, "Critical Junctures and Historical Legacies: Insights and Methods for Comparative Social Science" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
Over the past 50 years, scholars across the social sciences have employed critical juncture analysis to understand how social orders are created, become…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Helen Anne Curry, "Endangered Maize: Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction" (U California Press, 2022)
In Endangered Maize: Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction (U California Press, 2022), historian Helen Anne Curry investigates more than a…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Liran Einav et al., "Risky Business: Why Insurance Markets Fail and What to Do About It" (Yale UP, 2023)
Why is dental insurance so crummy? Why is pet insurance so expensive? Why does your auto insurer ask for your credit score? The answer to these questions lies…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryAutomating Finance
Sociologist Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, a professor at University of California San Diego, talks about his book Automating Finance: Infrastructures, Engineers…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Jeff Fearnside, "Ships in the Desert" (Santa Fe Writer's Project, 2022)
Many of us have likely seen photos of the Aral Sea, and the rusted Soviet-era ships, sitting in the desert with no water in sight. The Aral Sea is now just 10%…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryShoddy: Recycled Textiles in History
Historian Hanna Rose Shell, a professor at University of Colorado, Boulder, talks about her book Shoddy: From Devil’s Dust to the Renaissance of Rags with…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Michael Joseph Roberto, "The Coming of the American Behemoth: The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920-1940" (Monthly Review Press, 2018)
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 shocked and appalled a number of people, forcing a critical reevaluation of what was possible, and what we ought to be…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryThe Ideology of Innovation in India
Science and Technologies scholar Lilly Irani talks her book, Chasing Innovation: Making Entrepreneurial Citizens in Modern India, with Peoples & Things host…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
How Did the Pandemic Transform Workers and Work?
The pandemic brought to the fore a group of workers deemed “essential” – frontline healthcare workers, restaurant employees, slaughterhouse workers, and the…
New Books in Economic and Business HistorySouth Korea, Technology, and Globalization
Patrick Chung, assistant professor of history at the University of Maryland, talks about his research on the rise of shipping and manufacturing in South Korea…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryThe History of the Black Urban Working-Class in the United States
Joe William Trotter, Jr., Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Founder and Director of the Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryInfrastructure and Inequality
Daniel Armanios, associate professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, talks about his work on infrastructure and inequality with…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Sabrina Mittermeier, "Fan Phenomena: Disney" (Intellect Books, 2023)
Sabrina Mittermeier's edited volume Fan Phenomena: Disney (Intellect Books, 2023) analyzes the fandom of Disney brands across a variety of media including…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
The Future of Inequality: A Discussion with Mike Savage
Most people in developed countries think inequality is increasing. And most would also agree that in terms of the global poor, the last 20 years have seen vast…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Tricia Starks, "Cigarettes and Soviets: Smoking in the USSR" (Cornell UP, 2022)
Seeing cigarette smoking as a cultural phenomenon of Western modernity is perhaps easier when the test case is outside the US where the narrative is dominated…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryUnderstanding Technology Bubbles
Brent Goldfarb and David Kirsch, professors of entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, talk about…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Alessandro Iandolo, "Arrested Development: The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955-1968" (Cornell UP, 2022)
In the middle of the 20th century, there was a passionate affair, between the Soviet empire and newly independent West African states. It was a short, intense…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Clemente Penna, "Urban Economies, Capital, Credit, and Slavery in Rio de Janeiro, 1820-1860" (UFRJ, 2019)
On this episode, Martín Garrido Lepe y Beatriz Rodriguez-Satizabal talk with Clemente Penna winner of the Tamás Szmrecsányi Prize for thesis in economic…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryThe History of Household Technology from Open Hearth to the Microwave
Historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan talks about her book, More Work for Mother, with Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel. The book examines the history of how Americans…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Neoliberalism and Higher Education
This episode is a roundtable discussion on the influence of the neoliberal project on higher education. Our guests are Professor Emeritus Frank Fear from…
New Books in Economic and Business History(In)efficiency: Should Efficiency be a Moral Value?
Efficiency has moved from a technique for measuring machines to a widely held moral value. But at what cost? Guests Jennifer Alexander, Associate Professor at…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Regine A. Spector, "Order at the Bazaar: Power and Trade in Central Asia" (Cornell UP, 2017)
Order at the Bazaar: Power and Trade in Central Asia (Cornell UP, 2017) delves into the role of bazaars in the political economy and development of Central…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Josiah Ober, "The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason" (U California Press, 2022)
Tracing practical reason from its origins to its modern and contemporary permutations, the Greek discovery of practical reason, as the skilled performance of…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Luke Munn, "Automation Is a Myth" (Stanford UP, 2022)
For some, automation will usher in a labor-free utopia; for others, it signals a disastrous age-to-come. Yet whether seen as dream or nightmare, automation…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Garritt van Dyk, "Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and France" (Amsterdam UP, 2022)
Garritt van Dyk talks about national identity, food, and cooking in this conversation about Commerce, Food, and Identity in Seventeenth-Century England and…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Naa Oyo A. Kwate, "White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion to Exploitation" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
The long and pernicious relationship between fast food restaurants and the African American community. Today, fast food is disproportionately located in Black…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
John D. Wong, "Hong Kong Takes Flight: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Global Hub, 1930s-1998" (Harvard UP, 2022)
On July 6, 1998, the last flight took off from Kai Tak International Airport, marking the end of an era for Hong Kong aviation. For decades, international…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
The Future of Global Trade: A Discussion with Shannon K. O'Neil
Critics of globalisation come in many forms from environmentalists to trade unionists and many others in between. In the midst of all the controversy less…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Illiquidity + Opacity = Insolvency: A Discussion with Gary Stern, Former President of the Minneapolis Fed
What's going on in private markets? As interest rates have gone up, public markets have been marked down much more severely than assets in the private market…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Carl Griffin, "The Politics of Hunger: Protest, Poverty and Policy in England, 1750-1840" (Manchester UP, 2020)
The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were supposedly the period in which the threat of famine lifted for the peoples of England. But hunger remained…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Clara E. Mattei, "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
A groundbreaking examination of austerity’s dark intellectual origins. For more than a century, governments facing financial crisis have resorted to the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Jane Tynan, "Trench Coat" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This interview focuses on Trench Coat by…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Pamela H. Smith, "From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
How and why early modern European artisans began to record their knowledge. In From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Jeremy L. Wallace, "Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology, and Authoritarianism in China" (Oxford UP, 2022)
For decades, a few numbers came to define Chinese politics--until those numbers did not count what mattered and what they counted did not measure up. Seeking…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Quentin Bruneau, "States and the Masters of Capital: Sovereign Lending, Old and New" (Columbia UP, 2022)
Today, states' ability to borrow private capital depends on stringent evaluations of their creditworthiness. While many presume that this has long been the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Dan Slater and Joseph Wong, "From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia" (Princeton UP, 2022)
Why some of Asia’s authoritarian regimes have democratized as they have grown richer—and why others haven’t Over the past century, Asia has been transformed by…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
The Future of the Arms Industry: A Discussion with Pieter D. Wezeman
If you read the business pages of most newspapers, they are filled with stories about the sort of companies that people do business with – airlines, retail…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Cynthia Radding, "Bountiful Deserts: Sustaining Indigenous Worlds in Northern New Spain" (U Arizona Press, 2022)
Common understandings drawn from biblical references, literature, and art portray deserts as barren places that are far from God and spiritual sustenance. In…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Gregory Smithsimon, "Liberty Road: Black Middle-Class Suburbs and the Battle Between Civil Rights and Neoliberalism" (NYU Press, 2022)
Half of Black Americans who live in the one hundred largest metropolitan areas are now living in suburbs, not cities. In Liberty Road: Black Middle-Class…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Stephanie Decker, "Postcolonial Transition and Global Business History: British Multinational Companies in Ghana and Nigeria" (Routledge, 2022)
In this episode, I interview Prof. Stephanie Decker about her new book Postcolonial Transition and Global Business History British Multinational Companies in…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, "When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm" (Doubleday, 2022)
An explosive, deeply reported exposé of McKinsey & Company, When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Daniel Gross. "A Banker's Journey: How Edmond J. Safra Built a Global Financial Empire" (Radius Book Group, 2022)
Who was Edmond J. Safra? "The greatest banker of his generation," in the estimation of a former World Bank President. The founder of four massive financial…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Jake S. Friedman, "The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age" (Chicago Review Press, 2022)
Soon after the birth of Mickey Mouse, one animator raised the Disney Studio far beyond Walt’s expectations. That animator also led a union war that almost…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
James Mark and Paul Betts, "Socialism Goes Global: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Socialism Goes Global: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation (Oxford UP, 2022) is the first work to provide a broad history of the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Max Haiven, "Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire" (Pluto Press, 2022)
Palm oil is a commodity like no other. Found in half of supermarket products, from food to cosmetics to plastics, it has shaped the world in which we live. In…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Robert L. Hetzel, "The Federal Reserve: A New History" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
In The Federal Reserve: A New History (University of Chicago Press, 2022), Robert Hetzel draws on a 43-year career as an economist in the central bank to trace…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, "Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt" (Harvard UP, 2021)
It didn't always take thirty years to pay off the cost of a bachelor's degree. In Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Joseph Sassoon, "The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire" (Pantheon Books, 2022)
The Sassoons were one of the great merchant families of the nineteenth century, alongside such names as the Jardines, the Mathesons, and the Swires. They…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Mathematical Morality: The Ideology that Justifies Billionaires
How can billionaires justify the endless accumulation of wealth? Effective altruism. An almost religious philosophical belief. Sam Bankman-Fried, the former…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Paul Belleflamme and Martin Peitz, "The Economics of Platforms: Concepts and Strategy" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
Digital platforms controlled by Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, Tencent and Uber have transformed not only the ways we do business, but also the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Trevor Jackson, "Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European Financial Crises, 1690-1830" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Whose fault are financial crises, and who is responsible for stopping them, or repairing the damage? Impunity and Capitalism: The Afterlives of European…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Agathe Demarais, "Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests" (Columbia UP, 2022)
Sanctions have become the go-to foreign policy tool for the United States. Coercive economic measures such as trade tariffs, financial penalties, and export…