The Crisis and Renewal of American Capitalism ─ A Civilizational Approach to Modern American Political Economy

Despite the reversal of America’s fortune from the triumphalism of the Roaring Nineties to the gloom of the lost decade and the Great Depression, theoretical conceptions of US capitalism have remained surprisingly unchanged. This book departs from the American political economy literature to identify three common myths that have shaped our conceptualization of US capitalism: its reduction to a state-market dyad dis-embedded from societal factors; the illusion of a weak state and the synchronic conception of the US variety of capitalism.

To remedy these pitfalls, the authors propose a civilizational approach to American political economy at the crossroads between cultural studies, history, sociology and political science. Drawing together contributions from a rich variety of fields (from geography to cultural studies, political science and sociology) this work sheds a new light on America’s "cultural political economy" combining theoretical reflection with empirical data and offering innovative perspectives on the crisis and renewal of American capitalism.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the dynamics of capitalism and its societal ramifications beyond economics. The multidisciplinary nature of this book also makes it a useful learning tool for students working in American politics, comparative political economy and urban sociology and capitalism and society.

Laurence Cossu-Beaumont is an Associate Professor at the University Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. She joined CERVEPAS, Research Center of Anglo-Saxon Economies, in 2011, as a specialist of the United States’ soft power through cultural industries such as the book industry.

Jean-Baptiste Velut is Assistant Professor in American Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle University of Paris. He holds a PhD in North American Studies from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University of Paris and in political science from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. He wrote a dissertation entitled "Free or Fair Trade? The Battle for the Rules of American Trade Policy from NAFTA to CAFTA" (2009, Sorbonne Nouvelle University/CUNY) and has published several articles on trade policy, globalization debates and contemporary progressive movements in the United States.

Jacques-Henri Coste is an Associate Professor of American studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3 University and a member of the CERVEPAS/CREW research center on Anglo-Saxon economies. He is director of the B.A. program in Foreign Languages and International Business and also lectures at the Lyon Institut des Etudes Politiques on the evolutions of the U.S. economic model. He serves on the editorial board ofEntreprendre and Innover and other academic journals. He has recently co-organized two international conferences on the "Representations of Capitalism in the English-speaking World".