Who Makes Cents: A History of Capitalism Podcast is a monthly program devoted to bringing you engaging stories that explain how capitalism has changed over time. We interview historians and social and cultural critics about capitalism’s past, highlighting the political and economic changes that have created the present. Each episode gives voice to the people who have shaped capitalism – by making the rules or by breaking them, by creating economic structures or by resisting them.

Our interviews have tended to focus primarily, though not exclusively, on U.S. history. That said, we are eager to incorporate more perspectives on capitalism from around the globe. If you have a topic you want to learn more about – or tell us more about – get in touch. Like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, and follow us on Twitter at WhoMakesCents.

Our 123nd episode is now available! Featuring Sean Vanatta on the the history and future of banking. Click here to listen online or download. You can also subscribe to our podcast for free by clicking here or by searching for “Who Makes Cents” wherever you listen to podcasts.

We are excited to announce a new partnership with Columbia University Press’ Columbia Studies on the History of US Capitalism series, whose generous support alongside that of listeners like you, helps make Who Makes Cents? possible. Thank you! To make a donation to support our ongoing work on the show, visit our Patreon page.

Your Hosts

Jessica Ann Levy is an Assistant Professor of History at Purchase College, SUNY. Her first book, Black Power, Inc.: Corporate America, Race, and Empowerment Politics in the U.S. and Africa (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2026), examines the transnational rise of Black empowerment politics from the 1960s through the early 2000s and from the United States to Africa, highlighting how various public and private actors reconciled American-style free enterprise with anti-apartheid politics on local, national, and international levels. She is also co-editing with Alex Beasley Capitalism & the American Century: Towards a Global History of Postwar America (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming). Jessica’s writing has appeared in popular and scholarly venues, including the Journal of Urban History, Enterprise & Society, Black Perspectives, and the Washington Post. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the Herman E. Krooss Prize (BHC), the Betty Unterberger Dissertation Prize (SHAFR), a Kluge Fellowship from the Library of Congress, an NEH Summer Stipend, and the Jefferson Scholars/Hagley Library Dissertation Fellowship in Business and Politics. Read more about Jessica’s work here.

Dylan Gottlieb is an assistant professor in History at Bentley University, where he writes and teaches about the history of capitalism and cities in the modern United States. His first book, Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York (Harvard University Press, forthcoming in 2026), is the first social history of financialization in late twentieth-century America. Dylan’s research has been awarded the Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History from the Business History Conference, the Raymond A. Mohl Paper Award from the Urban History Association, and the Catherine Bauer Wurster Article Prize from the Society of American City and Regional Planning History. Dylan’s writing has been published in the Journal of American History, Enterprise & Society, Journal of Urban History, The Washington Post, Gastronomica, Utne Reader, Gotham, Public Seminar, and in a number of edited collections. Read more about Dylan’s work here.

Founders

Who Makes Cents? was founded by Alex Beasley and David Stein in 2014. 

Alex Beasley is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Alex’s book project, Expert Capital: Houston and the Making of a Service Empire, examines the cultural, political, and economic development of the globally integrated economy through the lens of the oilfield services industry. Alex’s work has been published in Diplomatic History and is forthcoming in Radical History Review. Read more about Alex’s work here.

David Stein an Assistant Professor of History at UCSB and a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute’s Macroeconomic Analysis Program. His book manuscript, Fearing Inflation, Inflating Fears: The Civil Rights Struggle for Full Employment and the Rise of the Carceral State, 1929-1986, is under contract with University of North Carolina Press for their Justice, Power and Politics series. His article, “‘This Nation Has Never Honestly Dealt with the Question of a Peacetime Economy’: Coretta Scott King and the Struggle for a Nonviolent Economy in the 1970s,” was recently awarded the Maria Stewart Prize for the best journal article in Black intellectual history from the African American Intellectual History Society. Read more about his work here.

For more on the history of Who Makes Cents? check out the essay co-written by Alex and David for the U.S. Intellectual History Blog.

Our logo was designed by Faith Hutchinson.