New Books in Economic and Business History

Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Guestworker Programs (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022) explores the origins of twentieth-century U.S. guestworker programs from Mexico and the Caribbean. It investigates these government-sponsored programs as the unexplored consequence of the history of enslaved labor, Japanese American incarceration, the New Deal, the long civil rights movement, and Caribbean decolonization. Quintana shifts the focus on guestworker programs to the arena of political conflict, revealing how fierce debates over the bracero program and Caribbean contract labor programs extended and legitimated U.S. racial and imperial domination into the present era. Her work also unearths contract workers' emerging visions of social justice that challenged this reproduction of race and empire, giving freedom new meanings that must be contemplatedDr. Quintana earned her Ph.D. at the University of Washington and taught at San Francisco State’s College of Ethnic Studies before joining the Department of History at California State University, Sacramento.Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he’s not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City (Duke UP, 2022), John Klaess tells the story of rap's emergence on New York City's airwaves by examining how artists and broadcasters adapted hip hop's performance culture to radio. Initially, artists and DJs brought their live practice to radio by buying time on low-bandwidth community stations and building new communities around their shows. Later, stations owned by New York's African American elite, such as WBLS, reluctantly began airing rap even as they pursued a sound rooted in respectability, urban sophistication, and polish. At the same time, large commercial stations like WRKS programmed rap once it became clear that the music attracted a demographic that was valuable to advertisers. Moving between intimate portraits of single radio shows and broader examinations of the legal, financial, cultural, and political forces that indelibly shaped the sound of rap radio, Klaess shows how early rap radio provides a lens through which to better understand the development of rap music as well as the intertwined histories of sounds, institutions, communities, and legal formations that converged in the post-Civil Rights era.John Klaess is an independent scholar based in Boston. John on Duke University Press.Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America. He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM, serves as a co-chair of the associate board at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and volunteers in the music archive at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Bradley Morgan on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But even when we don't resort to violence, we routinely do ridiculous things for parking, contorting our professional, social, and financial lives to get a spot. Indeed, in the century since the advent of the car, we have deformed--and in some cases demolished--our homes and our cities in a Sisyphean quest for cheap and convenient car storage. As a result, much of the nation's most valuable real estate is now devoted exclusively to empty and idle vehicles, even as so many Americans struggle to find affordable housing. Parking determines the design of new buildings and the fate of old ones, patterns of traffic and the viability of transit, neighborhood politics and municipal finance, the quality of public space, and even the course of floodwaters. Can this really be the best use of our finite resources and space? Why have we done this to the places we love? Is parking really more important than anything else?These are the questions Slate staff writer Henry Grabar sets out to answer, telling a mesmerizing story about the strange and wonderful superorganism that is the modern American city. In Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World (Penguin, 2023), Grabar brilliantly surveys the pain points of the nation's parking crisis, from Los Angeles to Disney World to New York, stopping at every major American city in between. He reveals how the pathological compulsion for car storage has exacerbated some of our most acute problems--from housing affordability to the accelerating global climate disaster--ultimately, lighting the way for us to free our cities from parking's cruel yoke.Brian Hamilton is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he is researching African American environmental history. A Maine native, he lives in Western Massachusetts and chairs the History and Social Science Department at Deerfield Academy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How have platforms transforming the world of work? In Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy: Amazon and the Power of Organisation (Bristol UP, 2023), Sarrah Kassem, a Lecturer and Research Associate in the field of Political Economy at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Tübingen, uses a case study of Amazon to explore issues of alienation and resistance in contemporary working life. The book adapts and develops key Marxist inspired theories to chart the rise of the platforms, and Amazon’s role within this set of both digital and physical industries. Examining warehouses, MTurk, and the broader gig economy, the book offers strategies for resistance and solidarity as well as detailed analysis. It will be essential reading across the social sciences, as well as for anyone interested in work and labour today.Dave O'Brien is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, at the University of Sheffield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (PublicAffairs, 2023) is a groundbreaking work by bestselling authors Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, in which they challenge conventional wisdom about the role of technology in driving prosperity. The authors argue that technology is not a neutral force working in the public interest but is shaped by the interests and beliefs of the powerful. Those who control technology are the ones who benefit from it, leaving the rest of society with the illusion of progress.The authors provide a historical account of how technological choices have shaped the course of history, from the appropriation of the economic surplus of the Middle Ages by an ecclesiastical elite to the making of vast fortunes from digital technologies today, while millions of people are pushed towards poverty. The authors emphasize that technological progress can either serve the narrow interests of an elite or become the foundation for widespread prosperity.The book presents a manifesto for building a better society by using the tremendous digital advances of the last half century to create useful and empowering tools, rather than marginalizing most people through automated work and political passivity. The authors argue that to achieve the true potential of innovation, we need to ensure that technology is creating new jobs and opportunities for everyone. The book offers a vision to reimagine and reshape the path of technology, ensuring that it leads to true shared prosperity.Power and Progress offers a fresh perspective on how technology shapes our lives and highlights the need for a more democratic approach to technological progress. The book provides a compelling argument that the path of technology is not predetermined but can be brought under control to ensure that it benefits everyone, not just a few powerful individuals or corporations. The authors provide an insightful analysis of the power dynamics that underlie technological progress, and their manifesto for a better society is a call to action for policymakers, business leaders, and individuals alike.Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global economic "shutdown" in March 2020, our supply chains began to fail, and out-of-stocks and delivery delays became the new norm. Contrary to public perception, the pandemic strain did not break the current system of supply chains; it merely exposed weaknesses and fault lines that were decades in the making, and which were already acutely felt in deindustrialized cities and depopulated rural towns throughout the United States.Reinventing the Supply Chain: A 21st-Century Covenant with America (Georgetown UP, 2023) explores the historical role of supply chains in the global economy, outlines where the system went wrong and what needs to be done to fix it, and demonstrates how a retooled supply chain can lead to the revitalization of American communities. Jack Buffington proposes a transformation of the global supply chain system into a community-based value chain, led by the communities themselves and driven by digital platforms for raising capital and blockchain technology.Buffington proposes new solutions to problems that have been decades in the making. With clear analysis and profound insight, Buffington provides a clear roadmap to a more durable and efficient system.Jack Buffington is an assistant professor of the practice in supply chain management in the marketing department at the Daniels College of Business.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Earth Transformed. An Untold History (Knopf, 2023) is a captivating and informative book that reveals how climate change has been a driving force behind the development and decline of civilizations across the centuries. The author, Peter Frankopan, takes readers on a journey through history, showcasing how natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions, El Niño, and solar flare activity have shaped the course of human events. Frankopan's extensive research, coupled with his accessible writing style, makes for an engaging read that reframes our understanding of the world and our place in it.One of the strengths of The Earth Transformed is the way in which Frankopan connects seemingly disparate events to highlight the far-reaching impact of climate change. For example, he explains how the Vikings emerged as a result of catastrophic crop failure, and how the collapse of cotton prices due to unusual climate patterns led to regime change in eleventh-century Baghdad. Through such connections, Frankopan demonstrates how past empires that failed to act sustainably were met with catastrophe, providing valuable lessons for our current environmental crisis.Overall, The Earth Transformed is a timely and important book that sheds light on the enduring relationship between humans and the natural world. It challenges readers to reckon with our species' impact on the environment and to consider how we can act sustainably to prevent further harm. Frankopan's interdisciplinary approach, combining historical research with scientific insights, makes for a compelling and thought-provoking read that will leave readers with a new perspective on the world around us.Javier Mejia is an economist at Stanford University who specializes in the intersection of social networks and economic history. His research interests also include entrepreneurship and political economy, with a particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Los Andes University. Mejia has previously been a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer at New York University-Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He is also a frequent contributor to various news outlets, currently serving as an op-ed columnist for Forbes Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, employers, government officials, journalists, and powerful individuals deployed a variety of violent tactics to control ordinary people and workers who sought to secure power in and out of workplaces. In the face of worker resistance, employers and their allies collaborated to use a variety of extralegal repressive techniques, including whippings, kidnappings, drive-out campaigns, incarcerations, arsons, hangings, and shootings, as well as less overtly illegal tactics such as shutting down meetings, barring speakers from lecturing through blacklists, and book burning. Drawing together the various groups who engaged in this violence, Chad E. Pearson's book Capital's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century (UNC Press, 2022) shows how the original Ku Klux Klan, various Law and Order Leagues, Stockgrowers' organizations, and Citizens' Alliances engaged in violence and were driven by unambiguous economic and managerial interests. While often discussed separately, all of these groups employed similar language to smear ordinary people, including former slaves, populists, political radicals, and striking workers, as menacing an violent villains who threatened polite society - justifying their actions by insisting that they were upholding "law and order." This book thus suggests that law and order politics emerged in the campaigns of organized terror against an assortment of ordinary people across racial lines conducted by Klansmen, lawmen, vigilantes, and union busters during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Douglas Bell is a writer, teacher, and historian who lives in the Netherlands. His research interests center on American military history, American foreign policy, German history, and European Studies. Tweet him @douglasibell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This agricultural history explores the transformation of the Santa Clara Valley over the past one hundred years from America's largest fruit-producing region into the technology capital of the world. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the region's focus shifted from fruits--such as apricots and prunes--to computers. Both personal and public rhetoric reveals how a sense of place emerges and changes in an evolving agricultural community like the Santa Clara Valley. In Valley of Heart's Delight: Environment and Sense of Place in the Santa Clara Valley (U California Press, 2022), Anne Marie Todd explores the concepts of place and placelessness, arguing that place is more than a physical location and that exploring a community's sense of place can help us to map how individuals experience their natural surroundings and their sense of responsibility towards the local environment. Todd extends the concept of sense of place to describe Silicon Valley as a non-place, where weakened or disrupted attachment to place threatens the environment and community. The story of the Santa Clara Valley is an American story of the development of agricultural lands and the transformation of rural regions.Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Emergence of Arthur Laffer: The Foundations of Supply-Side Economics in Chicago and Washington, 1966–1976 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) explores the origins of Arthur Laffer’s economic theories and how they became a part of mainstream economic policy. Utilizing interviews and archival material, Laffer’s life is traced from his early education through to his time working for the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Laffer’s influence on Reaganomics is discussed alongside the development of supply-side economics, the shift towards neoliberal policies, and the Laffer curve. This book aims to contextualize the work of Laffer within archival research and wider economic trends. It will be relevant researchers and policy makers interested in the history of economic thought and the political economy.Brian Domitrovic is the Richard S. Strong Scholar at the Laffer Center.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices