Sven Beckert is
Laird Bell Professor of
American History at
Harvard University, where he teaches the history of the United States in the nineteenth century, and global history.[1] With
Christine A. Desan, he is the co-director of the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard University.[2]
He is the author of Empire of Cotton: A Global History (2014), which won the 2015
Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the 2015
Pulitzer Prize for History.[9] The New York Times called it "one of the ten best books of 2015."[10] Economic historian Peer Vries wrote that it was "a must read for every historian interested in global history, but in my view it is better as a story on cotton than as an analysis of capitalism."[11] Other economic historians have criticized the book.[12]
Comaroff petition
In February 2022, Beckert was one of 38 Harvard faculty to sign an open letter published in The Harvard Crimson defending Professor John Comaroff after a university investigation found that he had violated the Harvard's sexual and professional conduct policies. The letter stated, in part, that "We the undersigned know John Comaroff to be an excellent colleague, advisor, and committed university citizen.” Four days later, after three graduate students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Beckert was one of several signatories to say that they wished to retract their signatures.[13][14]
---- "History of American capitalism" (American Historical Association, 2012). 44pp historiography;
on;line
Journal articles
—— (2005). "From Tuskegee to Togo: The Problem of Freedom in the Empire of Cotton". Journal of American History. 92 (2): 498–526.
doi:
10.2307/3659276.
JSTOR3659276.
—— (2002). "Democracy and its Discontents: Contesting Suffrage Rights in Gilded Age New York". Past and Present. 174 (1): 114–155.
doi:
10.1093/past/174.1.116.
Edited volumes
Sven Beckert, and Seth Rockman, eds. (2006) Slavery's Capitalism - A New History Of American Economic Development (2006)
online
Beckert, Sven; Desan, Christine, eds. (2018). American Capitalism: New Histories. New York City: Columbia University Press.
ISBN9780231185240.
OCLC987660154.
^Vries, Peter (2017). "Cotton, Capitalism, and Coercion: Some Comments on Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton". Journal of World History. 28: 131–140.
doi:
10.1353/jwh.2017.0006.
S2CID148748204.
^Olmstead, Alan L.; Rhode, Paul W. (2018). "Cotton, slavery, and the new history of capitalism". Explorations in Economic History. 67: 1–17.
doi:
10.1016/j.eeh.2017.12.002.