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Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark: Bringing Capitalism back into the ‘New’ History of Capitalism
Author(s) -
Kershaw Paul V.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/johs.12263
Subject(s) - capitalism , hamlet (protein complex) , character (mathematics) , politics , business history , sociology , neoclassical economics , political economy , political science , economic history , history , literature , economics , law , art , geometry , mathematics
A growing number of historians are self‐identifying as historians of capitalism, a new subfield within the discipline, and have produced research on interesting new questions that transcend the subfields of economic, business, social, cultural, and political history. Ironically, what is missing from the “new” history of capitalism is any serious engagement with the new subfield's central character—capitalism, which instead is simply assumed despite being a contested concept. The implications are not trivial and include making unfalsifiable claims, unwittingly implying that capitalism is totalizing, and reproducing rather than exposing ahistorical understandings of the concept.