Table of Contents

Preface
—Kim Phillips-Fein
Introduction. Adversarial Relations? Business and Politics in Twentieth-Century America
—Richard R. John
PART I. THE PROGRESSIVE ERA AND THE 1920s
Chapter 1. Trade Associations, State Building, and the Sherman Act: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1912-25
—Laura Phillips Sawyer
Chapter 2. Toward a Civic Welfare State: Business and City Building in the 1920s
—Daniel Amsterdam
PART II. THE NEW DEAL AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Chapter 3. The "Monopoly" Hearings, Its Critics, and the Limits of Patent Reform in the New Deal
—Eric S. Hintz
Chapter 4. Farewell to Progressivism: The Second World War and the Privatization of the "Military-Industrial Complex"
—Mark R. Wilson
Chapter 5. Beyond the New Deal: Thomas K. McCraw and the Political Economy of Capitalism
—Richard R. John and Jason Scott Smith
PART III. THE POSTWAR ERA: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 6. "Free Enterprise" or Federal Aid? The Business Response to Economic Restructuring in the Long 1950s
—Tami J. Friedman
Chapter 7. "They Were the Moving Spirits": Business and Supply-Side Liberalism in the Postwar South
—Brent Cebul
Chapter 8. A Fraught Partnership: Business and the Public University Since the Second World War
—Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
PART IV. THE POSTWAR ERA: LIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS
Chapter 9. The Triumph of Social Responsibility in the National Association of Manufacturers in the 1950s
—Jennifer Delton
Chapter 10. "What Would Peace in Vietnam Mean for You as an Investor?" Business Executives and the Antiwar Movement, 1967-75
—Eric R. Smith
Chapter 11. Entangled: Civil Rights in Corporate America Since 1964
—Pamela Walker Laird
Notes
Contributors
Index
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Promotional Information

Appealing to historians working in the fields of business history, political history, and the history of capitalism, Capital Gains highlights the causes, character, and consequences of business activism and underscores the centrality of business to any full understanding of the politics of the twentieth century—and today.

About the Author

Richard R. John is Professor of History at Columbia University.
Kim Phillips-Fein is Associate Professor in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Reviews

"Capital Gains provides nuanced and reasoned assessments which combine to form a great contribution to the history of capitalism and the shifting U.S. political economy."
*Reviews in American History*

"With Capital Gains: Business and Politics in Twentieth-Century America, Richard John and Kim Phillips-Fein have brought together a collection of important essays on the relationship of business and politics in the twentieth century. Moving well beyond portrayals of business leaders as robber barons or industrial statesmen, the chapters, which proceed in chronological fashion, range in focus from local boosterism to military spending to corporate civil rights. . . . Taken as a whole, the authors sound a clarion call for the new kinds of questions scholars are asking about modern political economy."
*Business History Review*

"An outstanding book. The volume is sound from a scientific perspective, grounded in primary sources and wide archival research, and, at the same time, contributes remarkably to our knowledge in this field. This is due both to the new empirical evidence provided, and to the fact that it builds on different disciplines such as political history, business history, political science, historical sociology, and history of capitalism. This multidisciplinary attitude allows the reader to reconstruct effectively the complexity of businessmen's approach to the political world, as well as improving our understanding of government interaction with business elites."
*The Economic History Review*

"The essays collected for Capital Gains are eminently readable. Each stands on its own as a fascinating snapshot into topics as varied as antitrust and patent law, the public-university system, anti-Vietnam protests, and the history of workplace diversity initiatives. More importantly, these essays together help to contextualize the rise of corporate power in the twentieth-century United States."
*The Journal of Interdisciplinary History*

"With Capital Gains, the scholarly push to revive political economy and craft a new history of twentieth century business, politics, and capitalism has found its vehicle. No longer can we cast 'business elites' as the thoughtless tools of the capitalist machine. Through rich, compelling archival research and authoritative historiographical analysis, these sophisticated essays make a powerful case for business as a multidimensional, ideologically diverse set of historical actors."
*Benjamin Waterhouse, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill*

"What is the most productive way to study the history of capitalism? The authors in this volume pursue a multidisciplinary approach and believe in the importance of institutions and public policy. For these reasons, Capital Gains is a valuable contribution to the historiography of the twentieth-century United States."
*Kenneth Lipartito, Florida International University*