Sven Beckert

The undefeatable South.

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.

The Lehman Trilogy proposes that the downfall of a financial dynasty is enough to tell the economic and political history of America.

The legacy of slavery is often invoked to explain the stunted welfare state. But the strongest resistance to taxation and redistribution came from the Northern ruling class.

What gets lost when we view the American past as primarily a story about capitalism? 

The KKK was clearly present at Harvard. But the university rarely mentions the 20th century in its attempts to reckon with its past.

Historian James Oakes offers a critique of the New History of Capitalism.

Reflecting on "Capitalism and Slavery" (1944), a work that continues to influence scholarship today.

The New York Times is right that slavery made a major contribution to capitalist development in the United States — just not in the way they imagine.

The New York Times’ series on slavery relies on bad scholarship to make an argument with an inauspicious history.

In neoliberalism, state power is needed to enforce market relations, but the site of that power must be hidden from politics.