"In this exhilarating study, Zakim introduces us to a most unlikely set of heroes: business clerks. Dedicating their lives to the paper machine, this vanguard made the market, as the market made them. They forged an eerily modern world in which life under the aegis of capital became an unremarkable and deeply consequential pillar of our civilization. This book establishes Zakim as one of our most perceptive interpreters of capitalism."--Sven Beckert, Harvard University "Michael Zakim is among the most creative historians at work today on any subject. Accounting for Capitalism is one of a kind. Here is a uniquely rich history of life inside the market, among the men who made it, and who in the process made themselves. No other book tells the history of capitalism and individualism in America with such verve, intelligence, and insight."--Jonathan Levy, University of Chicago "Zakim is at the top of his form in Accounting for Capitalism. His fascinating and engrossing analysis of the discursive world-making of the nineteenth-century clerk will no doubt stir debates among all sorts of readers. It will surely inspire a more engaged and productive conversation between cultural and intellectual historians and economic sociologists and ethnographers. Even after the current interest in nineteenth-century Bartlebys passes, readers will still want to revisit 'the world the clerk made.' Accounting for Capitalism is news that stays news."--Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University
