A landmark work of narrative history, Capitalism: A Global History tells the story of the economic system that has most decisively shaped the last thousand years—and the lives we live now. Sven Beckert argues that capitalism was born global: emerging from merchant worlds across Asia, Africa, and Europe before accelerating through the powerful alliance of states and traders that pushed across oceans, built empires, and remade labor, land, and law.
Moving from port cities and plantations to factories and financial centers, he shows how capitalism expanded not simply through “markets,” but through violence, coercion, and political power—alongside slavery, colonial conquest, and industrial transformation. Vast in scope yet grounded in vivid episodes, Beckert’s history reveals capitalism as an endlessly adaptive force—one that reorganizes work and wealth, reshapes culture and politics, and leaves profound human and ecological costs in its wake.
“I love the idea of understanding where we fit in... in the sweep of human history.”