Slavery, Capitalism, and the Problem of Misprision

One of the most interesting scholarly developments in historical circles over the course of the last few years has been the unanticipated rise of the field known as the “new history of American capitalism.” Although most devotees of this new field are not formally trained in economics – indeed, some demonstrate little familiarity with the standard methods informing the discipline – the rise of the field on balance has been salutary for the traditional field to which it is most closely related: economic history. For decades economic history qua field had been shrinking, particularly in history departments, but also in departments of economics, as historians jumped on the cultural bandwagon or set sail with Atlantic history, and economists moved toward theory, models, and abstraction and away from messy empirics and fussy data, especially from the deep recesses of the past (often defined as anything prior to the last quarter). And so, academic scribblers – including this one, alas – anticipating the demise of economic history, were busy penning ex ante epitaphs and memorials to the field, as the remaining practitioners became grayer and longer in the tooth.