USAbroad – Journal of American History and Politics

Deadline: February 15, 2025

In the past two decades, the New History of Capitalism (NHOC) has been one of the most important innovations in U.S. historiography. This research program produced a vast literature that, focusing in particular on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has allowed to highlight the centrality of slavery in U.S. economic development, the industrial character of slave labor in Southern plantations, the establishment of global networks of commodities exchange, the role of the State in fostering development, as well as the role of finance in accelerating accumulation. However, while carefully detailing the emergence of capitalism as an institutional, judicial and financial order, this historiography has often tended to downplay the role of class and social conflicts. In this respect, the NHOC has often presented a history of capital (and of capitalists) detached from the power relations that structured it as a broader economic and social order.

The ninth issue of USAbroad will explore strengths and shortcomings of the NHOC through articles that investigate the social, economic, political and intellectual history of U.S. capitalism. We encourage proposals exploring the social relationships underpinning American capitalism or studying how conflicts around class, race and sex contributed to forge it institutionally and ideologically. We welcome contributions that allow to broaden the chronological and methodological framework of the NHOC, for example including the twentieth and twenty-first century, as well as the intellectual history of U.S. capitalism. We invite proposals that seek to review and criticize the historiographical debate, for example by problematizing the question of the periodization and definition of capitalism, which the NHOC has largely avoided.

You can access and download the full call for papers in PDF format at this link or you can read it by clicking on “Read more” at the bottom of this announcement. For any questions, please email usabroad@unibo.it.

We look forward to receiving your proposals!