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The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism |  | Author: Joyce Appleby
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 24086
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 494
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0393068943
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.12209
EAN: 9780393068948
ASIN: 0393068943
Publication Date: January 4, 2010
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Product Description
The unlikely development of a potent historical force, told with grace, insight, and authority by one of our best historians. With its deep roots and global scope, the capitalist system provides the framework for our lives. It is a framework of constant change, sometimes measured and predictable, sometimes drastic and out of control. Yet what is now ubiquitous was not always so. Capitalism took shape centuries ago, starting with a handful of isolated changes in farming, trade, and manufacturing, clustered in early-modern England. Astute observers began to notice these changes and consider their effects. Those in power began to harness these new practices to the state, enhancing both. A system generating wealth, power, and new ideas arose to reshape societies in a constant surge of change.
The centuries-long history of capitalism is rich and eventful. Approaching capitalism as a culture, as important for its ideas and values as for its inventions and systems, Joyce Appleby gives us a fascinating introduction to this most potent creation of mankind from its origins to now.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
 An excellent historical survey of the development of capitalism April 10, 2010
Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
If you want a solid historical survey of the history of capitalism from someone who has no ideological axes to grind, this will fit the bill. In fact, because so many books written about capitalism are written either by principled debunkers or impassioned boosters, it is important to read multiple accounts. The notion that capitalism has a history is for some a radical claim. Some libertarians insist on the primacy of capitalism in a way that would suggest that capitalism is a natural, primordial economic system to such a degree that it is pretty much inevitable. Appleby, on the other hand, sees the development of capitalism as a highly contingent, event, something that might not have happened had not the right cultural preconditions existed (such as advances in agriculture that made it possible for a large number of the populace to leave farms for factories.
Appleby is primarily a historian who has focused on the 18th and early 19th centuries, so it is not a surprise that these are some of the most interested chapters in the book. The 19th century chapters were also quite good, but I felt that the book became a bit free ranging in the final chapters. The topics discussed were valid and important, but the connections between these chapters were not always clear.
One think I liked about Appleby's book is that she made it clear both what she sees as capitalisms undeniable strengths (its ability to generate large amounts of wealth, to raise the quality of life for many, and provide recreation time for many workers) and its lamentable and hopefully correctable weaknesses (its tendency towards exploitation such as with slavery or sweatshops, the way it creates vast economic inequality, and its failure to spread the wealth to everyone, even though there is an adequate supply of food and other resources to do so). As a historian rather than an ideologue, she is able to take a more sober and balanced look at the history of the economic system than most. While I recommend that one reason several books on the subject, this is definitely one of the books that I recommend.
The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism July 24, 2010
BAB (Pittsburgh PA)
A superb book. Even though I have been interested in economics, political and social systems, etc. since college, this book opened up some new perspectives for me for understanding these things as they really are and as they have evolved. It should be on the reading list of anyone interested in political and economic debates.
Why capitalism is a cultural, not just an economic system January 12, 2010
ROROTOKO (www.rorotoko.com)
4 out of 39 found this review helpful
"The Relentless Revolution" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Appleby's book interview ran here as the cover feature on January 6, 2010.
Intermittently interesting March 22, 2010
Jay C. Smith (Portland, OR USA)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
As I was reading The Relentless Revolution I struggled a little thinking how best to characterize its purpose and content. On the surface it is as advertised, a history of capitalism. It covers several centuries globally, though with the Western emphasis inherent in the subject, and touches on most of the topics one would expect in a standard survey of modern economic history. However, it is not quite suitable for a college-level introductory text, because it is a little too personal, too up-front with the author's own convictions and interests. On the other hand, only occasionally does it penetrate deeply enough and present sufficiently sustained arguments to constitute much more than an introduction.
The most telling way to encapsulate the book, I concluded, is that it represents Joyce Appleby's attempt through historical reflection to sort out her own attitudes about capitalism. Since Appleby is a distinguished scholar, a past president of both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, one would expect her ruminations to be of some interest, and they often are, although not relentlessly so.
Most parts of Appleby's story have been told many times before: European exploration and commercial expansion, the advance in agricultural productivity, industrialization, the ascent of corporations and big business, the tribulations of depression, post World War II prosperity, the rise of Asian economies, the challenges and opportunities of contemporary globalization, and so on, right up to our most recent near meltdown. Where Appleby adds value, I believe, is through certain of her thematic insights, especially those rooted in topical ground where she herself has contributed to the primary research.
Appleby rightly treats capitalism as a cultural phenomenon, not simply some "system" that is driven by inexorable laws. There is no single development formula, she believes; history shows that capitalism must follow its own path in each society. She organizes much of her material around Joseph Schumpeter's notion of "creative destruction." The most striking feature of capitalism, she says, is change.
Men and women do not innately desire change and, if anything, tend to resist it. Thus the take-off of capitalism required, in part, a shift in the orientation of human motivations. Appleby has previously focused on seventeenth-century economic thought, and here she underscores the importance of that period in Britain, in particular, as the idea began to take hold that stimulating wants could contribute to prosperity. For the first time emulation, love of luxury, and vanity began to look positive, and this transformation helped boost consumption and create markets.
I found Appleby to be quite good on these particular points. Yet through much of the book I was frustrated by debatable claims that she raised but did not develop, by unsupported generalizations, or by the superficiality of the discussion. Then, just as I was ready to lose patience, I would stumble across either a plausible provocative assertion or some striking fact that would re-capture my interest.
Overall, Appleby's assessment of capitalism's strengths and weaknesses seems fair and balanced. While she demonstrates how capitalism has brought prosperity, she also stresses how it has constantly upset the status quo and created social problems. She remains confident that societies can learn from history and continue to adjust.
The Relentless Revolution February 25, 2010
Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Books on Economics tend to be for economists; furthermore they tend to approach the subject as science. Joyce Appleby's //The Relentless Revolution// doesn't pretend that economics is scientific or that its "laws" are anything more than theoretical models that function only in simulation. Instead of presenting Capitalism in a model or a natural law, Appleby relates its history with all the contingencies and near misses that accompany all histories. She exposes the lie that capitalism and free trade were an inevitable development; they were not. Rather, Capitalism was impossible without the cultural revolution of the Renaissance, as well as the unique role of the British, how British laws controlling the economy eventually cost it the enormous economic lead capitalism gave it, and how that mantle passed both to the United States and Germany. She relates how Capitalism helped create the uber-nationalism that contributed so much to both World Wars.
//The Relentless Revolution// covers not only all the good that Capitalism has given us, but also the racism, nationalism, and jingoism that it has fostered and encouraged. Appleby's work here is one of the first honest looks at how capitalism and economics works, not as a science but as a process continually created and recreated by the People.
Reviewed by Jonathon Howard
Showing reviews 1-5 of 8
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