Anxious Triumph: A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914

A magnum opus that explores how globalization and dominance of capitalism as a system began in the 1860s, with states all over the world developing their modern political frameworks. It analyzes the impact of capitalism on the histories of many different states and how it creates winners and losers by constantly innovating. The book argues that this instability is the foundation of its advance and that it is necessary to create a national community, develop a welfare state, intervene in the market economy, and protect it from foreign competition. It is a masterpiece by one of Britain's most engaging and wide-ranging historians.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 800 pages
\n Publication date: 25 March 2021
\n Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
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A magnum opus, an accessible and genuinely global history of capitalism, this book is a must-read for today and tomorrow.

Capitalist enterprise has existed in some form since ancient times, but the globalization and dominance of capitalism as a system began in the 1860s when states all over the world developed their modern political frameworks. The unifications of Italy and Germany, the establishment of a republic in France, the elimination of slavery in the American south, the Meiji Restoration in Japan, and the emancipation of the serfs in Tsarist Russia were all significant events that shaped the world we know today.

This book magnificently explores how, after the upheavals of industrialization, a truly global capitalism followed. For the first time in the history of humanity, there was a social system able to provide a high level of consumption for the majority of those who lived within its bounds. Today, capitalism dominates the world.

With wide-ranging scholarship, Donald Sassoon analyses the impact of capitalism on the histories of many different states, and how it creates winners and losers by constantly innovating. This chronic instability, he writes, is the foundation of its advance, not a fault in the system or an incidental by-product. And it is this instability, this constant churn, which produces the anxious triumph of his title.

To control or alleviate such anxieties, it was necessary to create a national community, if necessary with colonial adventures, to develop a welfare state, to intervene in the market economy, and to protect it from foreign competition. Capitalists needed a state to discipline them, to nurture them, and to sacrifice a few to save the rest: a state overseeing the war of all against all.

Vigorous, argumentative, surprising, and constantly stimulating, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the history and future of capitalism.

\n Weight: 532g\n
Dimension: 129 x 196 x 40 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780141986555\n \n