Mary O'Sullivan, PhD

Arbeitsvorhaben

The Fabric of Profit: European Textiles in Global Perspective, 1750–1850

The Fabric of Profit addresses the history of capitalism as its general theme with a focus on the history of European textiles during the revolutionary age from 1750 to 1850. The project is organized around two research “streams” that draw on a variety of primary sources to address distinct but complementary questions about the practices and discourses of profit. First, how were profits understood, pursued, and generated in economic practice? Second, how were profits constructed and contested in economic discourses about political economy? The project’s innovative character stems both from its profit-oriented analytical approach as well as from a methodology organized around global commodity chains. By structuring its macro-analysis around these chains, the project benefits from their well-known methodological advantages to situate the economic and social evolution of European textiles in the context of global history.

Recommended Reading

O’Sullivan, Mary. “Constructing a Big History of Inequality.” History Compass 20, no. 4 (2022): e12719. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12719.
–. “History as Heresy: Unlearning the Lessons of Economic Orthodoxy.” Economic History Review 75, no. 2 (2022): 297–335. https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.13117.
–. “Machines in the Hands of Capitalists: Power and Profit in Late Eighteenth-Century Cornish Copper Mines.” Past and Present 260, no. 1 (2023): 71–122. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtac039.