Capitalism: A Global History
Panoramic ... While scholars have illuminated bits and pieces of this immense narrative, Beckert’s massive volume brings it together with impeccable authority and perspicacity ... A high-impact intellectual workout, straining mental muscles rarely (if ever) used. It compels concentration. Occasionally it lapses into a textbook tone, more suitable to the lectern. The final section deluges us with graphs and charts; Beckert’s summaries can feel repetitive as they thread us through a labyrinth of ideas. But these are micro-quibbles compared to the bravura scale and scope of his project.
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Colossal ... [The] sales pitch starts to seem a little disingenuous ... Beckert’s shape-shifting capitalism is relentlessly dynamic ... So long as capitalism both draws upon and generates non-capitalist relations, the distinction between capitalist and non-capitalist forms of life collapses; any space of non-accumulation is just growing room for more capitalism ... Beckert seems not unaware of the problem ... Beckert’s basic opposition, between those who are content with what they have and those who are not, floats free of time and history, issuing in a metaphysical vacuum. He can count on his reader to fill it in.
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Sprawling ... A comprehensive and up-to-date history, essential for students of world systems.
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