New Books in Economic and Business History

If governments provide financial support for affordable housing, should they provide support for inhabitants directly, or rather for the construction of dwellings? Dr. Max Krahé and Sara Schulte both work for the German economic think tank Dezernat Zukunft, and they aim to answer this question by looking at the past. In this interview we discuss the research design, the conclusions, and also what policy implications they draw from their analysis.

Want to know more? You can find everything about this housing analysis on Dezernat Zukunft. Additionally, Max Krahé provides an overview of Dr. Krahé's research projects.

Geert Slabbekoorn works as a policy officer in the field of housing. In his free time he juggles, raises kids, and improves his languages.
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The Vision of the Firm (West Academic Publishing, 2025) provides a complete summary of the leading theories of business ethics today. It aims to clarify values, create ethical awareness, provide a decision-making model, show how to apply the model to cutting edge business dilemmas, and address how to build ethical business cultures. It draws on dilemmas from marketing, management, operations, finance, business economics, and technology and features many 75 vignettes for people involved in business to ponder.
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Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of the Episcopal
Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of
reincarnation,” mass marketer of antisemitic material, and employer who
institutionalized a social gospel, Henry Ford’s contributions to
American models of business were informed by and produced for an America he understood to be broadly Christian. Though Ford’s efforts at the
head of the Ford Motor Company have commonly been understood as secular, Ford himself was explicit that his work in engineering and auto
production was prophetic and meant to remake the world.

In Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America (NYU Press, 2025), Dr. Kati Curts presents a religious history of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company repositions them within critical studies of religion, examining how Ford transformed American religious practice in the twentieth century. Drawing directly on documents from Ford’s archive, it examines Ford’s mass production methods and
bureaucratic reforms as examples of prosperity gospel traditions,
illuminating the ways manufacturing and technology intersect with
American religious practice. Bridging American religious and industrial
history, Assembling Religion offers a new and surprising way to understand Ford’s impact on culture, commerce, and the technology of labor.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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How did black suits become so ubiquitous? Why has men's business clothing been so plain for the last 250 years? How did a style adopted by the Founding Fathers to differentiate themselves from European contemporaries become the dominant style for men around the globe?

Suitable: The Sartorial Revolution and the Fashioning of Modern Men (Oxford University Press, 2026) traces the shift from the colorful, flamboyant attire of the eighteenth century to the plain dark suit of the nineteenth century, characterizing this style evolution as a "Sartorial Revolution." In this book, American historian and costume designer Chloe Chapin traces the evolution of masculine style from the American Revolution through the Civil War and shows how men's suits shaped relationships of gender and power. Drawing on a wealth of visual and written sources, she shows how the plainness of suits symbolized new ideals of rationality and democracy and played a crucial role in framing the lasting identity and authority of American men. This richly illustrated book analyzes fashion history's impact on gender dynamics and emphasizes the dynamic relationships between bodies, clothing, and personal identity.

Suitable demonstrates the significance of fashion beyond mere appearance, illustrating the key role modern men's suits have played in shaping the modern world.

Chloe Chapin holds a PhD in American Studies from Harvard University and master's degrees in fashion and textile studies from the Fashion Institute of Technology and costume design from the Yale School of Drama. She has taught fashion history, costume design, gender studies, and anthropology. As a costume designer for over twenty years, her credits include Broadway musicals, opera, and Shakespeare. She works at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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More than any single institution, the US Federal Reserve drives global financial markets with its decisions and communications. While its interest rates are set by the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), for almost a century, the Fed’s underlying philosophy and operations approach have been moulded by one person: the Chair of the Board of Governors.

Over The Chair’s eight episodes, Tim Jones talked to authors of books about the Fed's most consequential chiefs – Marriner Eccles, Bill Martin, Arthur Burns, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell.

The Powell podcast was meant to be the last. But, after Kevin Warsh took over from Powell on 22 May 2026 and started preparing for his first FOMC meeting as chairman in mid-June, a ninth episode became irresistible. Who is this Republican hawk-turned-dove? As one policymaker among 12, has he over-promised to a volatile president?

To discuss Warsh, Tim is joined by three "Fed watchers" – Claire Jones, Michael Redmond and Catarina Saraiva. Claire, who used to “watch” the European Central Bank for the Financial Times, is now the FT’s US economics editor and has transferred her monitoring skills to the Fed. Catarina is a 17-year veteran at Bloomberg News, reporting exclusively on the Fed and US economics since 2019. Michael has been Medley Advisors' Fed analyst since 2022, having worked as an economist at the US Treasury and the Kansas City Fed.

"I think [Warsh] has upset a lot of people with the criticisms that he's had of the Fed," says Claire Jones. "I think there's just this sense where people are worried because they're thinking: 'What did you have to say in order to get this job? What have you promised to the administration in order to get this job?' So, there's those issues of trust ... However, he is very charming; he’s been at the Fed before; he knows how the game is played. So, I don't think that's necessarily entirely insurmountable".
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