Capitalisms

Description

Conventional accounts often conceive the genesis of capitalism in Europe within the conjunctures of agricultural, commercial, and industrial revolutions. Challenging this widely believed cliché, this volume traces the history of capitalism across civilizations, tenth century onwards, and argues that capitalism was neither a monolithic entity nor exclusively an economic phenomenon confined to the West.

Looking at regions as diverse as England, South America, Russia, North Africa, and East, South, West, and Southeast Asia, the book explores the plurality of developments across time and space. The chapters analyse aspects such as historical conjunctures, commodity production and distribution, circulation of knowledge and personnel, and the role of mercantile capital, small producers, and force—all the while stressing the necessity to think beyond present-day national boundaries. The book argues that the multiple histories of capitalism can be better understood from a trans-regional, intercontinental, and interconnected perspective.

About the Editors

Kaveh Yazdani teaches economic history at the University of Bielefeld, Germany.

Dilip M. Menon is the Mellon Chair of Indian Studies and the director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Contributors:

Kent Deng; Dennis O. Flynn; Anne Gerritsen; Nelly Hanna; Henry Heller; Joseph E. Inikori; Leonardo Marques; Rudi Matthee; Dilip M. Menon; Masaki Nakabayashi; Alessandro Stanziani; Eric Tagliacozzo; David Washbrook; Kaveh Yazdani

Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Kaveh Yazdani and Dilip M. Menon

I MAJOR DEBATES AND CONTROVERSIES

1. Silver, Globalization, and Capitalism

Dennis O. Flynn

2. New World Slavery in the Capitalist World Economy

Leonardo Marques

3. Russian Capitalism: Exceptionalism versus Global Labour-Intensive Path, 1700–1914

Alessandro Stanziani

4. The Cambridge History of Capitalism: India

David Washbrook

5. Mysore’s Pre-colonial Potentialities for Capitalist Development and Industrialization

Kaveh Yazdani

6. Capitalism’s Missing Link: What Happened to Southeast Asia?

Eric Tagliacozzo

7. The Birth of Capitalism in Global Perspective

Henry Heller

II CASE STUDIES IN THE HISTORIES OF CAPITALISMS

8. One-Off Capitalism in Song China, 960–1279 ce

Kent Deng

9. The First Capitalist Nation: The Development of Capitalism in England

Joseph E. Inikori

10. The Thin Line between Economic Dynamism and Social Stability: Regulation and Deregulation in Japan (Twelfth to Nineteenth Century)

Masaki Nakabayashi

11. The View from Early Modern China: Capitalism and the Jingdezhen Ceramics Industry

Anne Gerritsen

12. Artisans, Guilds, and Capitalist Development in Cairo, 1600–1800

Nelly Hanna

13. Iranian Capitalism: Exceptionalism and Delayed Development

Rudi Matthee

About the Editors and Contributors

Index