Who Makes Cents?: A History of Capitalism Podcast
1) Sean Vanatta Joins for a Banking Mega-Pod
To many, banking remains largely invisible—a hidden circulatory system that allocates capital and credit throughout the economy. If it's worth paying any attention to at all, it's only in moments of c...Show More
2) Sven Beckert on a Global History of Capitalism
Popular histories tend to locate capitalism's origins in Europe, only later moving outward to other parts of the globe. Not so says historian Sven Beckert. Capitalism, he argues, was born global, forg...Show More
3) Mike Glass on the Surprisingly Precarious Postwar Suburbs
Few historical tableaus are more iconic than the midcentury suburbs of Long Island. I can see it now: rows of identical houses, subsidized by federal spending, inhabited by white middle-class heterono...Show More
4) Rudi Batzell on Racialized Working-Class Politics in the U.S. and British Empires
This month's episode offers a fresh perspective on an old debate. Jettisoning outdated modes of analysis that emphasize race vs. class, guest Rudi Batzell illuminates the materialist underpinnings of ...Show More
5) Leigh Claire La Berge on Why Capitalism Might Be A Joke
If you work at a so-called laptop job, there are moments every day when your work feels silly, pointless, absurd, even fake. What if you wrote an entire book that tried to inhabit and analyze that ver...Show More
6) Bench Ansfield on Arson-for-Profit, Insurance Brownlining, and the Bronx
Arson - which frequently involves the destruction of property - and business are not typically thought to be compatible. Indeed, there is a whole industry - the insurance industry - whose stated busin...Show More
7) Kendra Boyd on Black Business and Racial Capitalism during the Great Migration
Take a moment and picture the average person who came North during the Great Migration. Chances are good that you conjured someone who was African-American and working-class, bound for a city in searc...Show More
Kendra Boyd on Black Business and Racial Capitalism during the Great Migration
31:46 | Aug 4th, 2025
8) Trish Kahle on Energy Citizenship and Coal-Fired Democracy in the 20th Century U.S.
What do energy consumers owe energy producers? What does it mean to be a citizen in a coal-fired democracy? In this month's episode, guest Trish Kahle reckons with the costs and benefits of coal from ...Show More
Trish Kahle on Energy Citizenship and Coal-Fired Democracy in the 20th Century U.S.
45:23 | Jul 11th, 2025
9) Ian Kumekawa on Globalization As Told Through One Ship
How do you write the history of something as abstract, as placeless, and as vast as the globalization that has remade our world over the past several decades? If you’re Ian Kumekawa, you make those i...Show More
10) Koji Hirata on Steel, Industrialization, and Chinese Socialism
This month's episode looks at the history of Chinese industrialization by focusing on Anshan Iron and Steel Works or Angang, located in Manchuria. Long portrayed as the quintessential model of Mao-era...Show More