Why am I passionate about this?

The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth is the second volume of my nationalism trilogy. When I published the first volume, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, the accepted view on the subject of nationalism was that it is a product of economic development, specifically, of industrialization and capitalism. On the basis of historical evidence, I proved that its emergence had nothing to do with these economic phenomena: in fact, it preceded both. Reviews of Nationalism, noting that, for this reason, economic developments could not have caused nationalism, raised the question what relationship, then, did exist between nationalism and the economy, and this led me to investigate it. 


I wrote

The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth

By Liah Greenfeld,

Book cover of The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth

What is my book about?

The Spirit of Capitalism answers a fundamental question of economics, a question neither economists nor economic historians have been able…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: and Other Writings

Liah Greenfeld Why did I love this book?

This book is a powerful argument, logically and sociologically unassailable, about cultural foundations of economic activity, whose specific hypothesis (that Protestantism was responsible for the rise of capitalism) was refuted by empirical evidence.

It served as the point of departure for my research.

I recommend The Protestant Ethic… very strongly because a) it clearly distinguishes capitalism from other economic systems by its historically unique orientation to growth, rather than vaguely defining it as an expression of greed and tendency for exploitation of others, which are present throughout history, and b) because it shows that a logically perfect interpretation of reality in question may nevertheless lead to wrong hypotheses based on imperfect knowledge.  

By Max Weber, Peter Baehr, Gordon C. Wells

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Protestant Ethic, Max Weber opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and relates the rise of the capitalist economy to the Calvinist belief in the moral value of hard work and the fulfillment of one's worldly duties.


Book cover of An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Liah Greenfeld Why did I love this book?

The Wealth of Nations is the foundational text of modern economics, reflecting – contrary to the common notion – the clearly national consciousness of its author and demonstrating that modern economic imagination (and activity) is a product of nationalism.

Its nationalist inspiration is the main reason I recommend reading it, for the commonplace interpretations of this classic miss this most interesting aspect of the work. In addition, it is a delightful text. 

By Adam Smith,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith’s Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.

Criticizing mercantilists who sought to use the state to increase their nations’ supply of precious metals, Smith points out that a nation’s wealth should be measured by the well-being of its people. Prosperity in…


Book cover of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor

Liah Greenfeld Why did I love this book?

This book is a rare attempt by an eminent economic historian to examine cultural determinants of economic growth and answer the question why it happens, which distinguishes it sharply from the discipline’s exclusive focus on how it proceeds.

Landes, in other words, disentangles the explanation of causes from the preoccupation with the process, which is why I recommend this book.

By David S. Landes,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Wealth and Poverty of Nations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now that the old division of the world into the two power blocs of East and West has subsided, the great gap in wealth and health that separates North and South remains the single greatest problem and danger facing the world of the Third Millennium. The only challenge of comparable scope and difficulty is the threat of the environmental deterioration, and the two are intimately connected, indeed are one. David Landes argues that the North-South division is the great drama of our times, and that drama implies tension, passion, conflict and disappointment as well as happy outcomes. While Landes does…


Book cover of The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto

Liah Greenfeld Why did I love this book?

This book, originally published in 1960, is the classical statement of the still dominant position in economic history, which assumes that economic growth is natural and which I have proven wrong.

I recommend it to anyone interested in the current (unchanging for decades) state of the discipline as an essential model of what I was arguing against.

By W W Rostow,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Stages of Economic Growth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

2017 Reprint of 1960 First Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. In the text Professor Rostow gives an account of economic growth based on a dynamic theory of production and interpreted in terms of actual societies.  Five basic stages of economic growth are distinguished with detailed discussions of each stage including illustrative examples.  Rostow also applies the concept of stages of growth to an examination of the problems of military aggression and the nuclear arms race.  The final chapter includes a comparison of his non-communist manifesto with Marxist theory.   Remains a classic text…


Book cover of Mercantilism

Liah Greenfeld Why did I love this book?

Mercantilism is the classical historical discussion of the early expression of economic nationalism when it was a form of protectionism.

It is essential background reading for anyone interested in economic history. I recommend it among other things because without this background one cannot appreciate the position of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, usually identified with the criticism of mercantilism, which he nevertheless defends when it advances British national interest.

By Eli F. Heckscher,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mercantilism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Mercantilism is the classic book on this subject and has been out of print for more than 25 years

Hecksher is the co-founder of the Hecksher-Ohlin trade model, and hence one of the biggest names in 20th Century economics

With all the disputes about world trade and protectionism, the subject is very much in vogue


Explore my book 😀

The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth

By Liah Greenfeld,

Book cover of The Spirit of Capitalism: Nationalism and Economic Growth

What is my book about?

The Spirit of Capitalism answers a fundamental question of economics, a question neither economists nor economic historians have been able to answer: what are the reasons (rather than just the conditions) for sustained economic growth? Taking her title from Max Weber's famous study on the same subject, Liah Greenfeld focuses on the problem of motivation behind the epochal change in behavior, which from the sixteenth century on has reoriented one economy after another from subsistence to profit, transforming the nature of economic activity.

A detailed analysis of the development of economic consciousness in England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States allows her to argue that the motivation, or "spirit," behind the modern, growth-oriented economy was not the liberation of the "rational economic actor," but rather nationalism. 

Book cover of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: and Other Writings
Book cover of An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Book cover of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor

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No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

Book cover of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

Rona Simmons Author Of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”

Rona's book list on World War II featuring the average Joe

What is my book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.

The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.

No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

What is this book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…


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