Who Makes Cents?: A History of Capitalism Podcast Jessica Levy

In Egypt's Occupation, Aaron Jakes challenges longstanding conceptions of Egypt as peripheral to global capitalism based on its role as a cotton producer through showing how Egypt functioned as a laboratory for colonial economism and financial innovation amid the turn of the twentieth-century boom and bust. In doing so, Jakes offers a sweeping reinterpretation of both the historical geography of capitalism and the role of political-economic thought during the British occupation of Egypt. 

In From the Grounds Up: Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico, Casey Lurtz tells the history of how a border region, the Soconusco, became Mexico’s leading coffee exporter. In doing so, she complicates narratives of globalization and economic liberalization that tend to prioritize national and global elites. Rather, as the title suggests, she digs below the surface of these processes in order to tell a powerful story about local engagement with capitalism and the state.

For those that argue that reparations are not possible or that too much time has passed, Caleb McDaniel has an important story to tell about a formerly enslaved woman named Henrietta Wood who sued for restitution in 1870 and won; paid $2,500, the largest known sum awarded by a U.S. court for restitution for slavery. Wood’s story offers valuable lessons about the history of slavery and freedom, and the lengths that different people went to in order to achieve both.

Augustine Sedgewick speaks about his new book, Coffeeland: One Man’s Dark Empire and the Making of Our Favorite Drug, revealing how coffee spread to Europe and the New World alongside industrialization and European imperialism, transforming whole societies in the process. In doing so, Sedgewick tells a story that is about much more than coffee, integrating histories of labor, food, business, and imperialism to reveal how global capitalism creates disconnections, as well as connections.

It will come as little surprise that America’s metropolitan areas are racially segregated and unequal. Existing explanations for this tend to focus on governmental policies and consumer behavior during the New Deal and immediate post-war period. Our guest, Paige Glotzer, however, situates American suburbs in a longer history of exclusionary practices dating back to the 19th century. In doing so, she also ties the American suburb to a broader history of racial capitalism and white settler colonialism.

We’ve all heard the statistics regarding Americans and fast food. Not everyone has the same relationship with fast food. In this episode, we speak with Marcia Chatelain about  the dramatic impact one fast food company, McDonald’s, has had on black communities and black politics.

Marcia Chatelain is a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America.