In this book, one of the worlds most renowned historians provides a concise and comprehensive history of capitalism within a global perspective from its medieval origins to the 2008 financial crisis and beyond. From early commercial capitalism in the Arab world, China, and Europe, to nineteenth- and twentieth-century industrialization, to todays globalized financial capitalism, Jurgen Kocka offers an unmatched account of capitalism, one that weighs its great achievements against its great costs, crises, and failures.

Table of Contents

• Preface to the English Edition
• 1. What Does Capitalism Mean?
• The Emergence of a Controversial Concept
• Three Classics: Marx, Weber, and Schumpeter
• Other Voices and a Working Definition
• 2. Merchant Capitalism
• China and Arabia
• Europe: Dynamic Latecomer
• Interim Findings around 1500
• 3. Expansion
• Business and Violence: Colonialism and World Trade
• Joint-Stock Company and Finance Capitalism
• Plantation Economy and Slavery
• Agrarian Capitalism, Mining, and Proto-Industrialization
• Capitalism, Culture, and Enlightenment: Adam Smith in Context
• 4. The Capitalist Era
• The Contours of Industrialization and Globalization since 1800
• From Ownership to Managerial Capitalism
• Financialization
• Work in Capitalism
• Market and State
• 5. Analysis and Critique
• Bibliography
• Index of Names