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In this authoritative and accessible book, one of the world´s most renowned historians provides a concise and comprehensive history of capitalism within a global perspective from its medieval origins to the 2008 financial crisis and beyond. From early commercial capitalism in the Arab world, China, and Europe, to nineteenth- and twentieth-century industrialization, to today´s globalized financial capitalism, Jürgen Kocka offers an unmatched account of capitalism, one that weighs its great achievements against its great costs, crises, and failures. Based on intensive research, the book puts the rise of capitalist economies in social, political, and cultural context, and shows how their current problems and foreseeable future are connected to a long history.

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"Capitalism´ is a commonly used term that resists simple definition or straightforward history. Kocka adds lucidity and erudition in this excellent overview. . . . [B]road in its intellectual sweep, covering a range of social science disciplines; and well informed by the literature in both economic and social history. . . . [Capitalism] provides a paradigm of what a short history of an important concept should accomplish."--Choice

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Jürgen Kocka is a permanent fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin and former president of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. In 2011, he received the Holberg Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the scholarly world.

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