Accounting for Capitalism

The World the Clerk Made

Business & Finance, Economics, Economic History, Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century
Cover of the book Accounting for Capitalism by Michael Zakim, University of Chicago Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Michael Zakim ISBN: 9780226545899
Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: April 24, 2018
Imprint: University of Chicago Press Language: English
Author: Michael Zakim
ISBN: 9780226545899
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication: April 24, 2018
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Language: English

The clerk attended his desk and counter at the intersection of two great themes of modern historical experience: the development of a market economy and of a society governed from below. Who better illustrates the daily practice and production of this modernity than someone of no particular account assigned with overseeing all the new buying and selling? In Accounting for Capitalism, Michael Zakim has written their story, a social history of capital that seeks to explain how the “bottom line” became a synonym for truth in an age shorn of absolutes, grafted onto our very sense of reason and trust.

This is a big story, told through an ostensibly marginal event: the birth of a class of “merchant clerks” in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. The personal trajectory of these young men from farm to metropolis, homestead to boarding house, and, most significantly, from growing things to selling them exemplified the enormous social effort required to domesticate the profit motive and turn it into the practical foundation of civic life. As Zakim reveals in his highly original study, there was nothing natural or preordained about the stunning ascendance of this capitalism and its radical transformation of the relationship between “Man and Mammon.”

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The clerk attended his desk and counter at the intersection of two great themes of modern historical experience: the development of a market economy and of a society governed from below. Who better illustrates the daily practice and production of this modernity than someone of no particular account assigned with overseeing all the new buying and selling? In Accounting for Capitalism, Michael Zakim has written their story, a social history of capital that seeks to explain how the “bottom line” became a synonym for truth in an age shorn of absolutes, grafted onto our very sense of reason and trust.

This is a big story, told through an ostensibly marginal event: the birth of a class of “merchant clerks” in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. The personal trajectory of these young men from farm to metropolis, homestead to boarding house, and, most significantly, from growing things to selling them exemplified the enormous social effort required to domesticate the profit motive and turn it into the practical foundation of civic life. As Zakim reveals in his highly original study, there was nothing natural or preordained about the stunning ascendance of this capitalism and its radical transformation of the relationship between “Man and Mammon.”

More books from University of Chicago Press

Cover of the book The Three and a Half Minute Transaction by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Hardship and Happiness by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book The Public Good and the Brazilian State by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book The Remittance Landscape by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Billion-Dollar Fish by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Dreaming and Historical Consciousness in Island Greece by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Sacred Mandates by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book American Evangelicalism by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Political Theology and Early Modernity by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Hearing Secret Harmonies by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Democracy and Trade Policy in Developing Countries by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Growing Each Other Up by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book The Pledge by Michael Zakim
Cover of the book Education in a New Society by Michael Zakim
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy