Event detail

History Graduate Association Annual Lecture with Sven Beckert | Empire of Cotton: The Global Origins of Capitalism

Lecture | September 21 | 4-6 p.m. | 370 Dwinelle Hall

Featured Performer:  Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History, Harvard University

Sponsors:  Department of History, History Graduate Association (HGA)

Sven Beckert is Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University. Beckert’s research and teaching center on the history of the United States in the nineteenth century, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political and transnational dimensions. He recently published "Empire of Cotton: A Global History," the first global history of the nineteenth century’s most important commodity. The book won the Bancroft Award, The Philip Taft Award, the Cundill Recognition for Excellence and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times named it one of the ten most important books of 2015. His other publications have focused on the nineteenth century bourgeoisie, on labor, on democracy, on global history and on the connections between slavery and capitalism. Currently he is at work on a history of capitalism.

Target audience:  Students - Graduate

Open to audience:  All Audiences

Event contact:  history@berkeley.edu, 510-642-1971