17/12/2024
📢NEW CFP OUT!
We are pleased to announce that the CFP for our 2026 issue is out:
"U.S. Capitalism Beyond the New History of Capitalism"
Deadline for abstracts: February 15, 2025.
Deadline for articles: July 31, 2025
Submit at: [email protected]
In the past two decades, the New History of Capitalism (NHOC) has been one of the most important innovations in U.S. historiography. Especially in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, this research field produced a vast literature that, focusing in particular on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has allowed to highlight the centrality of slavery in U.S. economic development, the industrial character of slave labor in Southern plantations, the establishment of global networks of commodities exchange, the role of the State in fostering development, in channeling growth and in regulating markets, as well as the role of finance in accelerating accumulation.
However, while carefully detailing the emergence of capitalism as an institutional, judicial, and financial order, this historiography has often tended to downplay the role of class and social conflicts. Some critics argued that the NHOC has failed to account for the way in which the capitalist order was challenged, shaped, and constantly reshaped by the struggles of those subjects who fought not to be dominated by capital’s command. In this respect, the NHOC has often presented a history of capital (and of capitalists) detached from the power relations that structured it as a broader economic and social order. Accordingly, with its focus on commodities, exchange networks, and finance rather than on the organization of labor (with the crucial exception of slavery), it often risked treating capitalism as a system of circulation rather than as a mode of production and social reproduction. According to others, the NHOC has not offered a materialist interpretation of U.S. capitalism, remaining strongly influenced by the methods of cultural history. Another common criticism is that the NHOC has ignored previous historiographies, particularly Marxist historiography and the Black radical tradition. Furthermore, others argued for the need to bridge economic and political history by identifying an “American Developmental State” as the crucial factor in the nineteenth-century affirmation of U.S. capitalism.
The ninth issue of USAbroad will explore strengths and shortcomings of the NHOC through articles that investigate the social, economic, political and intellectual history of U.S. capitalism. We encourage proposals exploring the social relationships underpinning American capitalism or studying how conflicts around class, race, and s*x contributed to forge it institutionally and ideologically. We welcome contributions that allow to broaden the chronological and methodological framework of the NHOC, for example including the twentieth and twenty-first century, as well as the intellectual history of U.S. capitalism. We invite proposals that seek to review and criticize the historiographical debate, for example by problematizing the question of the periodization and definition of capitalism, which the NHOC has largely avoided.
We invite articles from all historical disciplines and approaches, but papers addressing the following threads and sub-threads are particularly welcome:
1. Social histories focusing on the role of class and racial conflicts in shaping the institutions of U.S. capitalism, including:
the role of African Americans, women and workers in contesting racial, s*xual and class hierarchies;
the role of unions and organized labor in challenging and transforming U.S. capitalism;
the state’s role in addressing social and racial conflicts and in shaping capitalist development.
2. Intellectual histories investigating the ways in which U.S. capitalism has been legitimized and challenged, including:
the legitimation of capitalism offered by U.S. social sciences, economic and political thinkers;
feminist, anti-racist and Marxist critiques of U.S. capitalism from within and beyond the United States;
the relationship between capitalism, conservatism and (neo)liberalism in the United States.
3. Legal histories investigating the transformation of U.S. businesses, corporations and enterprises, including:
the legal frameworks that have shaped corporate development;
the interplay between legal innovations and economic transformations;
historical development of worker protections and legal transformations of business-union relationships.
4. Global and comparative histories of U.S. capitalism investigating its international, transnational and imperial dimensions, from the 19th century to the present, in particular:
comparative studies of U.S. capitalist development in global context
the global cultural and economic impact of U.S. capitalist models;
circuits of capital, labor, and commodities beyond national boundaries.
5. Historiographical discussions, concerning in particular:
the problem of defining and periodizing U.S. capitalism;
the entanglements between the history of capitalism and other historiographies (environmental, business and labor history);
the relationship between the NHOC and previous historiographies;
the concept of racial capitalism within the NHOC.
Please submit your abstract (500 words max) and your CV (2 pages max) to [email protected] by February 15, 2025. Successful applicants will be notified by March 1, 2025, at the latest.
The selection of abstracts will be based on a range of criteria including scientific originality, clarity of the proposal submitted, use of primary sources and adherence to the themes of the call for papers. Abstracts that do not clearly address these criteria will not be considered for publication.
Please note that, if your application is successful, you will need to submit a full 7000-word article by July 31, 2025.
U.S. Capitalism Beyond the New History of Capitalism 2024-12-14 Deadline: February 15, 2025. In the past two decades, the New History of Capitalism (NHOC) has been one of the most important innovations in U.S. historiography. Especially in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, this research fi...
