Knowing Capitalism`This is an ambitious, original, and complex treatment of key aspects of contemporary capitalism. It makes a major contribution because it profoundly destabilizes the scholarship on globalization, the so-called new economy, information technology, distinct contemporary business cultures and practices' - Saskia Sassen, author of Globalization and its Discontents `Nigel Thrift offers us the sort of cultural analysis of global capitalism that has long been needed - one that emphasizes the innovative energy of global capitalism. The book avoids stale denouncements and offers instead a view of capitalism as a form of practice' - Karin Knorr Cetina, Professor of Sociology, University of Konstanz, Germany Capitalism is well known for producing a form of existence where `everything solid melts into air'. But what happens when capitalism develops theories about itself? Are we moving into a condition in which capitalism can be said to possess a brain? These questions are pursued in this sparkling and thought-provoking book. Thrift looks at what he calls "the cultural circuit of capitalism," the mechanism for generating new theories of capitalism. The book traces the rise of this circuit back to the 1960s when a series of institutions locked together to interrogate capitalism, to the present day, when these institutions are moving out to the Pacific basin and beyond. What have these theories produced? How have they been implicated in the speculative bubbles that characterized the late twentieth century? What part have they played in developing our understanding of human relations? Building on an inter-disciplinary approach which embraces the core social sciences, Thrift outlines an exciting new theory for understanding capitalism. His book is of interest to readers in Geography, Social Theory, Antrhopology and Cultural Economics. |
From inside the book
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... human ' concerns in mind . In particular , it is one of the key moments of ' vir- tualism ' ( Carrier and Miller , 1998 ) , the proliferation of theories about the world which prompt efforts to make the world conform , rather than vice ...
... human world , able to at least partially sense its needs and priorities . Given this , perhaps they are best thought of as like domesticated animals and most particularly as something akin to pets . And in so far as these animals are ...
... human portrays herself as falling under the spell of a pet because it is deserving of the human's love , thus valorizing her own actions and giving the pet no space to make difference . But , all this said , pets clearly can and do ...
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements | 8 |
The Cultural Circuit of Capitalism | 11 |
1 | 17 |
Copyright | |
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