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 History
Jack Wertheimer, "Jewish Giving: Philanthropy and the Shaping of American Jewish Life" (NYU Press, 2025)
The American Jewish philanthropic enterprise is unparalleled in scope, dynamism, and the diversity of funders and the causes they support. Yet even as Jewish…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
David Silkenat, "Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South" (Oxford UP, 2022)
They worked Virginia's tobacco fields, South Carolina's rice marshes, and the Black Belt's cotton plantations. Wherever they lived, enslaved people found their…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Thomas Haigh on the History of “AI” as a Brand
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Thomas Haigh, Professor and Chair of History and affiliate of the Department of Computer Science at University of…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Anny Gaul, "Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian Culinary History of the Tomato" (U California Press, 2025)
By the end of the twentieth century, the tomato—indigenous to the Americas—had become Egypt's top horticultural crop and a staple of Egyptian cuisine. The…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Maria Bach, "Relocating Development Economics: The First Generation of Modern Indian Economists" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Originating in the Nineteenth Century, the European idea of development was shaped around the premise that the West possessed progressive characteristics that…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Jimmy Wales with Dan Gardner, "The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last" (Crown Currency, 2025)
In my interview with Jimmy Wales, father of Wikipedia, we celebrate his new book, The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last (Crown…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Michael McCulloch, "Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit" (Temple UP, 2023)
The dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped dwellings…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Chris Yogerst, "The Warner Brothers" (UP of Kentucky, 2023)
One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Meg Bernhard, "Wine" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Today I talked to Meg Bernhard about her new book Wine (Bloomsbury, 2023). Agricultural product and cultural commodity, drink of ritual and drink of addiction…
- 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
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025)
In 1924, the Al-A‘waj, also known as the Crooked, set sail from Kuwait on a trading journey around the Persian Gulf, through the Strait of Hormuz, to Western…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Lauren E. M. Everett, "Fortunate People in a Fortunate Land: At Home in Santa Monica's Rent-Controlled Housing" (Temple UP, 2025)
Rent control and other tenant protections have profound and positive impacts on individuals’ and communities’ lives. Dr. Lauren Everett’s Fortunate People in a…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Amy Hughes, "An Actor's Tale: Theater, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States" (U Michigan Press, 2025)
Harry Watkins was no one special. During a career that spanned four decades, this nineteenth-century actor yearned for fame but merely skirted the edges of it…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Verena Halsmayer on Managing Growth in Miniature: Solow’s Model as an Artifact
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, chats with Verena Halsmeyer, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna, about her recent, award-winning book…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Emily Callaci, "Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor" (Seal Press, 2025)
Across the globe in the 1970s, a network of feminists distilled their struggles into a single demand: Wages for Housework! Today, it remains a provocative…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Christina Jerne, "Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
For more than 150 years, Italy has been home to a resilient and evolving resistance against the pervasive influence of mafias. While these criminal…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Vanessa S. Williamson, "The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History" (Basic Books, 2025)
Americans have always fought over the meaning of freedom and equality. What is not commonly recognized is that the battles most pivotal in defining our…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Thomas Piketty, "A Brief History of Equality" (Harvard UP, 2022)
It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Joe Allen, "The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS" (Haymarket Books, 2020)
If the 20th Century was the American Century, it was also UPS's Century. Joe Allen's The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS (Haymarket Books, 2020)…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Pierre-Yves Donzé & Maki Umemura, "Pierre-Yves Donzé & Maki Umemura, Japan and the Great Divergence in Business History" (JESB, 2025)
For much of the late 20th century, Japanese business historians were core contributors to the global field. They published, collaborated, and shaped debates…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
How Government Made the U.S. into a Manufacturing Powerhouse
Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Colleen Dunlavy, Emeritus Professor of History at University of Wisconsin-Madison, about her recent book, Small…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Joseph Stiglitz, "The Origins of Inequality" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Joseph E. Stiglitz has had a remarkable career. He is a brilliant academic, capped by sharing the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and the Nobel Peace Prize…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Fahad Ahmad Bishara, "Monsoon Voyagers: An Indian Ocean History" (U California Press, 2025)
Monsoon Voyagers follows the voyage of a single dhow (sailing vessel), the Crooked, along with its captain and crew, from Kuwait to port cities around the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Charles Watkins, "Trees Ancient and Modern: Woodland Cultures and Conservation" (Reaktion, 2025)
Charles Watkins joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Trees Ancient and Modern (Reaktion, 2025). This delightful new book explores the relationship…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
William J. Glover, "Reformatting Agrararian Life: Urban History from the Countryside in Colonial India" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Reformatting Agrarian Life presents a stealth urban history from the countryside that foregrounds the mutual entanglements of agrarian and urban expertise…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Loic De Canniere, "The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labour Markets and Welfare" (Anthem, 2025)
The Future of Employment in Africa: Demography, Labor Markets and Welfare explores the major trends that will define the face of the sub-Saharan continent in…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Linda Upham-Bornstein, "'Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender': Taxpayers’ Associations, Pocketbook Politics, and the Law during the Great Depression" (Temple UP, 2023)
During the Great Depression, the proliferation of local taxpayers’ associations was dramatic and unprecedented. The justly concerned members of these…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Peter McAteer, "Leading the Sustainable Organization: The Quest for Ethical Brands and a Culture of Sustainable Innovation" (Anthem Press, 2025)
Never before have we been presented with the prospect of redesigning business at scale to create a more sustainable future for our planet and the people who…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Maxim Sytch, "The Influence Economy: Decoding Supplier-Induced Demand" (Oxford UP, 2025)
In The Influence Economy: Decoding Supplier-Induced Demand (Oxford UP, 2025), Maxim Sytch reveals how professional services--consulting, marketing, banking…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Edmond Smith, "Ruthless: A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1660-1800" (Yale UP, 2025)
Was Britain’s industrial revolution the result of its machines, which produced goods with miraculous efficiency? Was it the country’s natural abundance, which…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Daniel B. Rood, "The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Greater Caribbean" (Oxford UP, 2020)
The period of the "second slavery" was marked by geographic expansion of zones of slavery into the Upper US South, Cuba, and Brazil and chronological expansion…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Hector Vera, "Yardstick Nation: The Metric System in America" (Vanderbilt UP, 2025)
Why is there no metric system in the United States? Why is it that a country known for its openness to the future, its scientific innovations, and its…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Jeff Neilson, "Fortress Farming: Agrarian Transitions, Livelihoods, and Coffee Value Chains in Indonesia" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Over the last several decades, sources of income derived away from farms have come to play a much bigger role in rural Indonesian households. How do rural…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Scott D. Anthony, "Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025)
Epic Disruptions: 11 Innovations That Shaped Our Modern World (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025) arrives at the perfect moment as artificial intelligence…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025)
The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another tale to…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Robert C. Bird, "Legal Knowledge in Organizations: A Source of Strategic and Competitive Advantage" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Legal Knowledge in Organizations: A Source of Strategic and Competitive Advantage (Cambridge UP, 2025) offers a step-by-step guide on how to utilize the law as…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Stuart Hart, "Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future" (Stanford Business Books, 2024)
In Beyond Shareholder Primacy: Remaking Capitalism for a Sustainable Future (Stanford Business Books, 2024) Hart argues that the current Milton…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Deborah Gordon, "No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World" (Oxford UP, 2021)
In No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2021), Deborah Gordon shows that no two oils or gases are…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Christopher F. Jones, "The Invention of Infinite Growth: How Economists Forgot About the Natural World" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
Most economists believe that growth is the surest path to better lives. This has proven to be one of humanity’s most powerful and dangerous ideas. It shapes…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Nancy Newman, "Songs and Sounds of the Anti-Rent Movement in Upstate New York: Including Twenty-Two New Settings of Period Tunes" (SUNY Press, 2025)
Upstate New York's Anti-Rent Movement is considered the last struggle over feudalism in the United States. Tenant farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk region engaged…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton UP, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, "Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards" (Brepols, 2025)
Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards (Brepols, 2025) by Dr. Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio focuses on enormous…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Maggie Gram, "The Invention of Design: A Twentieth-Century History" (Basic Books, 2025)
Maggie Gram is a writer, cultural historian, and designer. She leads an experience-design team at Google. She has taught at the Maryland Institute College of…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Emily Gee, "Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman" (Liverpool UP, 2025)
Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman (Liverpool University Press, 2025) by Emily Gee is the first comprehensive…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Ethan A. Everett, "The Investment Philosophers: Financial Lessons from the Great Thinkers" (Columbia Business School, 2025)
What do Warren Buffett and Friedrich Nietzsche have in common? Why does Baruch Spinoza’s understanding of irrational emotions help explain financial markets?…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
David Singerman, "Unrefined: How Capitalism Reinvented Sugar" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Sugar is everywhere in the western diet, blamed for epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and other modern maladies. Our addiction to sweetness has a long and…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Anthony J. Knowles, "Driving Productivity: Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany" (Brill, 2025)
Driving Productivity: Automation, Labor, and Industrial Development in the United States and Germany (Brill, 2025) reconstructs the industrial histories of the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Maria Fedorova, "Seeds of Exchange: Soviets, Americans, and Cooperation in Agriculture, 1921–1935" (Northern Illinois UP, 2025)
Seeds of Exchange: Soviets, Americans, and Cooperation in Agriculture, 1921–1935 (Northern Illinois UP, 2025) examines the US and Soviet exchange of…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Aram G. Sarkisian, "Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era" (NYU Press, 2025)
Orthodoxy on the Line: Russian Orthodox Christians and Labor Migration in the Progressive Era (NYU Press, 2025) is an Immigration and labor history of the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Michael Glass, "Cracked Foundations: Debt and Inequality in Suburban America" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
How debt and speculation financed the suburban American dream and led to today’s inequalities In the popular imagination, the suburbs are synonymous with the…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Katherine J. Parkin, "The Abortion Market: Buying and Selling Access in the Era Before Roe" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
The abortion market was a powerful economic force in American life. Before legalization lowered the cost, one million women each year collectively paid upward…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Richard Duncan, "The Money Revolution: How to Finance the Next American Century" (John Wiley & Sons, 2022)
In The Money Revolution: How to Finance the Next American Century, economist and bestselling author Richard Duncan lays out a farsighted strategy to maximize…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025)
The Architecture of the Wire explores the development of telecommunications infrastructure and its impact on the architectural and urban culture of the modern…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Marcia C. Schenck, "Remembering African Labor Migration to the Second World: Socialist Mobilities between Angola, Mozambique, and East Germany" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
This open access book is about Mozambicans and Angolans who migrated in state-sponsored schemes to East Germany in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s…
New Books in Economic and Business HistoryEmília Barna, "Working in Music on the Semi-Periphery: Local Cultural Production and Global Capitalism" (CEU Press, 2025)
In this episode, host Andrea Talabér (CEU Press) sat down with Emília Barna to discuss her new book, Working in Music on the Semiperiphery: Local Cultural…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Eric T. Jennings, "Vanilla: The History of an Extraordinary Bean" (Yale UP, 2025)
Vanilla is one of the most expensive of flavorings—so valuable that it was smuggled or stolen by pirates in the early days—and yet it is everywhere. It is a…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
John L. Campbell, "Pay Up!: Conservative Myths about Tax Cuts for the Rich" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Since the Reagan era, conservatives in the United States have championed cutting taxes, especially for wealthy individuals and corporations, as the best way to…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Mary E. Hicks, "Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025)
From the bustling ports of Lisbon to the coastal inlets of the Bight of Benin to the vibrant waterways of Bahia, Black mariners were integral to every space of…
- New Books in Economic and Business History
Thea Riofrancos, "Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2025) is an in-depth analysis into the growing industry of green technologies and the…