Transnational Humanities Lecture Series
Sven Beckert
The Empire of Cotton: A Global History
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Oct. 12, 2010
Professor of American History at Harvard University. Professor Beckerts focus is in nineteenth-century United States history, with a paticular emphasis on social, economic and transnational history. Interests include the social history of politics in the era of the Civil War, business history, labor history and the history of the United States in a global perspective. He teaches courses on nineteenth century American capitalism, Guilded Age America, the political economy of North America, labor history and global capitalism. He is the author of "The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie" (Cambridge University Press, 2001), an economic, social and political history of New Yorks economic elite and numerous articles on various themes in nineteenth-century history.
Selected Writings
"From Tuskegee to Togo" in Journal of American History (September) (2005)
"Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War" in American Historical Review Issue 109 (Dec 2004), pp. 1405-1438. (2004)
"Democracy and its Discontents: Contesting Suffrage Rights in Gilded Age New York" in Past and Present (February 2002), pp. 114-155 (2002)
The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie Cambridge University Press (2001 (paperback, 2003))